Good sleepers are less intelligent kids???

[SparklyFuckingBusinessFairy]

Chatting with a colleague yesterday about our babies (16 months old), and she was moaning that her DS never sleeps. DD is a pretty good sleeper these days, usually sleeps for 10-12 hours. Then she said smugly, "of course, they say poor sleepers are much more intelligent," at which I was a bit . Even if you think that, even if it's scientifically true, you don't say it in those circumstances.

However, it is certainly true that her DS is very advanced; he walked at 10 months and says loads of words, whilst DD is bang on average so far and just has a few words that all sound the same (cheese, sneeze etc).

What are your experiences - are good sleepers and easy going kids generally less smart? Or can I tell her to get stuffed with her smugness?! And was she as rude as I thought she was, or was I being hypersensitive and perceiving criticism where there was none?

She was rude, and stupid.

Also- the assumption that children that were advanced as babies and will continue to be advanced as young people/adults is also untrue. This misconception only leads to disappointment at parents evening in year ten when parents sit their scratching their heads that their slack jawed son will only scrap passes and say "but he walked at 10 months!" 😆

Splendid. I might have been barely functioning for the past 5 years, but at least my child must be a fucking genius.

I have a perfectly average 2.5 year old who has never slept a full night in his life.

perhaps he'll blossom into some creative savant.

more likely your colleague is trying to make herself feel better about the sleepless nights.

Well, mine used to sleep a solid 12 hours a night when they were primary aged, and they're very academically able... less so socially It also depends on how you define intelligence.

I'd tell her to stuff it, damn cheek.

I'll be astonished if there is a serious link! But to add in my experience, for what it's worth, DS is an excellent sleeper and distinctly average in the development department Crawled at 11 months, walked 14 months and is clearly behind his peers with speech.

It's just something we tell ourselves to try and make having a bad sleeper more palatable. Otherwise it's just unrelentingly shit.

She was BU to say it to you but it wasn't about your child, it's about how she copes with sleep deprivation. Go to bed tonight and have lots of lovely sleep and don't give it a second thought!

It's one of the tiny semi/maybe/non truths that you Cong onto when you're on your knees with tiredness. She may have been insensitive but she probably wasn't saying it as a dig at you so much as an attempt to try and make herself feel better.

I have a super intelligent nineteen year old. I'm not exaggerating, straight a or a star all the way through school, never a b blighted any certificate, I never pushed her once, now studying law at one of the countries top law schools.

Slept through from eleven weeks. Hardly a broken nights sleep ever. She does love her bed. Always has done. Your friend is just trying to console herself. 😃

Snap Tronald!

I was always a good sleeper and am generally considered academically intelligent. I'm shit at plenty of other things like sports though.

I was a brilliant sleeper apparently, and was an extremely clever child. My 2.6 year old is badly speech delayed, average on most other measures (hard to tell if she's clever when she can't fucking talk ) an absolutely dreadful sleeper, and has killed off any residual cleverness I had through sleep deprivation. So not only not a genius but an actual intelligence sapper.

That was a rude thing to say.
DD has always been a good sleeper but has had disturbed nights when she's been mastering a big new skill e.g. crawling, walking, first words and more recently potty training. It reminds me of when I was revising for my A levels and I kept waking up mulling over things about Henry VIII! I wonder if that's the sort of thing she means. If he's walking and other skills early maybe it does affect his sleep, for most children those skills would come a bit later and more spread out so the impact on sleep might not be as obvious. They are skills that all children develop when they are ready though so nothing to worry about.
This is completely my own theory based on observation of one child so probably complete rubbish btw!

We were told that sleep was massively important to development (note, not necessarily intelligence) when we had babies on the neonatal unit.

I could sleep for England as a child and was rather bright by all accounts. Bil can't sleep for more than 4:5 hrs and is very intelligent. Dad was incredibly smart and lived a good sleep...

I've been told that 'busy' toddlers are bright.

It's all nonsense really.

I've heard this, mostly from others trying to console me when I'm so sleep deprived I could cry. FWIW I'd trade my 2 year olds intelligence for a good nights sleep any day of the week .

" Then she said smugly, "of course, they say poor sleepers are much more intelligent," at which"

They do say that, my mum was told that when I was a non sleeping baby. They say that to make the sleepdeprived parents feel better :o

LOL, in her desperate, sleep deprived state she was probably just trying to offer herself some tongue in cheek compensation, rather than meaning to be derogatory to you.

Ds was a truly terrible sleeper, and eater, did talk very precociously at an early age, possibly because he spent more hours awake listening to it all and trying to yak rather than being asleep, so got more practice.

I do not recommend keeping your dd awake in the night in order for her to practice talking and listening

Apparently, as a child, I needed less sleep for this very reason. What nonsense.

It also depends on how you define intelligence.

YakiUdonYumYum, oracle.

I drove my mum to distraction with my dislike of sleep. I don't think I slept through until I was about 3. I'm of distinctly average intelligence though, so blow your colleague's ridiculous statement out of the water. Take no notice.

My dd is 17 and is average academically in certain subjects (below in maths and science though) but was a terrible sleeper, she didn't sleep through until she was 3 and still has sleeping problems now.

So there goes her theory.

What tronald and others have said. It's what people say to comfort themselves when going through the actual torture of a badly sleeping baby.

Someone whose child barely sleeps is not likely to have been smug. Desperate maybe but not smug.

I actually think yabu. The form is that you are supposed to say it to her, as the parent for the sleeping baby.

Even though it is utter bollocks and not true at all, you have a duty to trot this out to comfort these poor people.

(slightly lighthearted. Mum of one awful sleeper and one good sleeper. I suspect they are of fairly equal intelligence )

Dh has always been an excellent sleeper (from childhood) whereas I have always struggled with insomnia. I have 1 more IQ point than him. I would happily swap this point for all those extra lovely hours of delicious sleep!

It's certainly not been my experience, DS slept through from 10 weeks, and is pretty intelligent. He does bounce out of bed at 6am every day though!

I've got one that didn't sleep longer than 3 hours until he turned 2, and one that's slept solidly most nights since about 8 weeks. Both seem to be hitting milestones around the same ages as one another, both seemingly bright and able, so my experience would suggest her theory is bollocks. That said, until DS was two (and on the rare occasion when he was asleep, I didn't sleep a wink throughout my pregnancy with DD) I might have been guilty of verbal diarrhoea through sleep deprivation too, so but her some slack and shrug it off.

Pff! What about my boy then, he used to be an AWFUL sleeper for ages, and now he's mostly a fantastic sleeper. Maybe he had a burst of intelligence inserted?