New parents’ biggest complaint is usually lack of sleep, especially if not co-sleeping with their babe. They ask other parents for sleep training tips, and parents take pride when their babe is a good sleeper. A new study sheds light on the importance of marital or partner harmony on baby’s ability to rest.
The Huffington Post reports:
More specifically, parental marital instability — and all the stress and strife that goes with it — when a baby is nine months old is linked to poor sleep behavior even nine months later. These new findings suggest babies are able to internalize parental discord before they are able to cognitively understand its implications.
Adoptive children were used in the study to ensure there was not a genetic factor causing the sleep behavior.
Often parents that argue a lot don’t start worrying about its effect on their children until they are older, just as they may wait to stop watching adult TV programs in front of their children until they are toddlers. The fact is we can’t underestimate infants and their perceptibility. Their cognitive abilities may still be developing, but human emotions, both positive and negative, are felt and perceived at even the youngest age.
So true, babies seem to be barometers for your relationships. Calm home, sunny day, baby is having a blast in the pile of laundry you’re folding on the floor. The phone rings and you pick it up, suddenly your little angel has a hissy fit, starts not only crying, but wailing like you are the worst person to ignore that little bundle of joy. Then your hubby looses patience on the other end of phone cause he’s been trying to get a word in edge wise for weeks, only to have crying babies disrupt the flow of any conversation.