So in the weeks before a baby is born they have a sleep wake cycle & manage to go to sleep by themselves. However once they are born their parents have to get up in the night to soothe them. Now I realise that in the womb a baby has constant ‘food’ on tap & once they are born they get hungry & need feeding, but why do they need their parents to be awake with them even when all their physical needs are met?
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The simple answer is that to a newborn, everything is new and new is scary. When a baby is born, they are starting from basically a completely blank slate mentally. They have some in built reflexes to know that people around them are comforting, but when no one is around it is scary. Add those together and there natural reaction is to cry to get someones attention when they are uncomfortable.
When it comes to sleep, they want someone nearby to keep them calm until they are asleep. Eventually, they learn that they are safe even when their parents are in there immediate presence, but that takes some time.
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