Could sleep deprivation in early infancy be linked to rise in childhood mental illness?

[Interferer]

In my day we used to park tiny babies in the garden to sleep a couple of hours while we got on with housework. Since the 70s people have been just distracting and rocking the baby during the day thus depriving them of deep sleep. Could this account for the rise in ADHD, self harm, etc etc? Someone should do a astudy on this

Piffle!

People have always experienced mental health issues, the difference is that now it's not seen as a complete taboo to discuss it and seek help.

Mental illness is not a new phenomenon. Plenty of people 'put in the garden to nap' as babies have mental health issues.

And this is the second thread on this.

Another theoretically interesting but probably impossible to set up study would be: did being left to cry to sleep in their cots/prams create a generation of attachment disordered people who find emotional connection with the generation below difficult?

Why are you starting posts on different boards about the same topic?

Starface

Yes. Why another bonkers thread?

I don't think this necessarily is bonkers. Sleep is essential for mental health and we know people of all ages are getting less now than they did in the past, and less than they need.

You think people only started rocking babies to sleep in the 1970s?

However how would you untangle cause and effect? How do you know it isn't that those children who don't sleep so well are just those who are predisposed to mental health issues? Or a common third factor which has also changed over the time frame such as TV watching, diagnostic criteria (ADHD not even formally recognised until 1968), food issues, technology, higher educational expectations, fall in corporal punishment etc. etc. In 'your day' maybe children who were actually suffering from a condition were just written off as naughty. I can think of a few from my primary school who were called naughty, lazy, stupid who were probably actually dyslexic or had ADHD. I think I prefer the situation where they are supported and helped to achieve than the one where they were slippered, stood in the corner and humiliated in class.

Lots of other possibilities. Though if you fancy working up a research proposal on your ideas then go for it.

I think this is nonsense. My mum likes to tell me and my daughter who has an almost 3 year old and a 11 week old baby how in her day babies were put to sleep in their pram with no issues. She does admit after some pushing that me and my siblings "cried a bit" which is just exercising their lungs but she makes it very clear that doing the housework and getting my dads dinner made was more important than making sure her babies were happy. I just ignore her now.

My 2 DGD both required help sleeping as did my 2 DD and I don't think rocking or holding a baby to sleep is going to do any mental damage. Quite the opposite. As for it being linked to self harming or ADHD I think that is quite clearly nonsense. Most babies eventually learn to self settle, either on their own or with some sort of gentle sleep training. The more I read these days about babies' mental development the more I think the parenting techniques from 30 or 40 years ago was cruel. I remember a health visitor just telling me to leave my DD2 to scream as a baby because she had difficulty sleeping. I now think it was tummy problems as her DD1 was the same and they now both have lactose intolerance. That was unheard of in the 80s when I had my babies.

we know people of all ages are getting less now than they did in the past

Do we know this?

Absolute nonsense. And cruel to post this, considering that many of those reading it will have babies who refuse to sleep no matter what we do, so adding guilt on top of that is just what we need. Please take your bonkers theories elsewhere.

I'm with percypigs. Most people will be on these boards because they are looking for advice as they are having sleep troubles. The last thing they need is extra guilt!

My nan was a big fan of babies sleeping in the garden. I remember her telling me that you just put them at the bottom so you couldn't hear them crying while you tidied up the house and got the dinner ready. Doesn't sound great for either sleep or mental health to me! Being rocked/fed/soothed to sleep is perfectly normal - it has evolved as a way of keeping parents near their sleeping babies, which keeps the baby safe from predators. I believe all species of apes carry their babies while they sleep, the rocking motion of walking is soothing to them and does not disrupt deep sleep.

Nonsense and given that there are possible links between attachment disorders and ADHD I would think leaving children for hours in a garden would have the opposite effect. Cuddling them and meeting their needs is what we should be doing not teaching them that we don't come when they cry or feed them when they are hungry.

You could have parked my DS in any park in the world and he would have screamed his head off for the full time you left him there.

For six months he had hideous reflux and other issues and only slept after 30 minutes of rocking and really loud white noise.

Sounds like you had an easy baby so good for you.

Thank goodness mental health issues are losing their stigma and people can talk about it now.

I think OP's username might be a clue to her motivation for starting this thread.

What @Starface said.

Nice thread title..way to make sleep deprived mums feel like shit!