A topic that keeps many people awake
I've avoided the subject of sleeping for long enough now. However, the whole thing is so complex that we will tackle it in several stages. Today: the five insights I have gained after 15 years of paediatric practice and three children of my own.
If people knew in advance how big the sleep deficit would be with children: Humanity would have died out.
Sleep is different for every child. Forget what you learnt from your first child.
Every family has to find its own system for sleeping. It can be three mattresses next to each other, it can be a cot next to the parents' bed, it can be a mattress for one parent next to the cot ... Don't listen to any old wives' tales, don't believe your grandparents who always slept through the night. As a family, find a sleeping system that works reasonably well for everyone.
Every child leaves their parents' bed sooner or later. At any rate, I don't know of any children who are still sleeping in their parents' Gräbele (Swabian for "bed rift", i.e. the centre of the parents' double bed) at the age of 16. At some point, the children disappear of their own accord.
The positive message at the end: sleeping gets better over the years as your child grows up. Faster for one child, less so for another. But it tends to get better.
More findings will follow ... But one more thing is very important to me: the topic is so individual and sometimes so stressful for some parents that sometimes a personal consultation with a paediatrician makes sense and helps.
Further interesting tips
Infant formula
There's no doubt about it: breast milk is the ideal food for every infant. But please don't put your baby under pressure, don't stress and above all don't panic if breastfeeding doesn't work or doesn't always work.
Undescended testicles
Easter is over, the eggs have hopefully all been found ... and that brings us to the topic of undescended testicles. It doesn't sound very spectacular, but it's an important topic in everyday practice.
Compare
"Never compare one child with another, but only with himself." A wonderful sentence by the educationalist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who lived around 200 years ago.and yes, I know that's difficult.