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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

bbc.com

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Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#161

Post by notahacker »

sooheon wrote: post #125
axiolite wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much better study: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

Better in what dimension? It's not a repeatable intervention, it's not controlled, it's observational. It's not a study on the same null hypothesis.

If your claim concerns common habits of populations with limited or no artificial light sources, observational studies of multiple populations with no artificial light sources is a superior way of assessing it than a prior study which imposed very specific periods of light deprivation on a study sample accustomed to nightly routines governed by available light to see how their behaviour changed.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#162

Post by gambiting »

7thaccount wrote: post #97
wincy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah as a husband and father whose wife coslept and exclusively breastfed for the first year, this has little merit. My wife one day commented on how it was great how our 6 month old daughter slept through the night and didn’t complain or ask for food. My wife quite literally breast fed in her sleep. Waking up to feed the baby is a very WEIRD way of looking at the world.

I'm not sure how typical your experience is. My daughter needed to be fed every few hours for the first 11 months. Both my wife and I were freaking zombies. It was rough on us. My wife would basically get a couple of hours every time the baby went down, but no long and peaceful sleep. In talking with friends, it would seem like our experience was extra crappy and yours is uncharacteristically mild. So the reality may…

I'm in that place right now. 8 month old son, wakes up every 1-2 hours at night. Not even to feed, just.....wakes up and cries until you settle him. Feeding sometimes helps sometimes doesn't - but it doesn't change the fact that you have to wake up for him.

My wife is a complete zombie, I don't think she had more than continious 3 hours of sleep for at least 6 months now. I would cut my own arm off to make this situation improve at this point.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#163

Post by rgaino »

hatmatrix wrote: post #103

"Despite near-constant headlines about the prevalence of sleep problems, Ekirch has previously argued that, in some ways, the 21st Century is a golden age for sleep – a time when most of us no longer have to worry about being murdered in our beds, freezing to death, or flicking off lice, when we can slumber without pain, the threat of fire, or having strangers snuggled up next to us." What a wonderful time we live in…

We really did have everything, didn't we?

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#164

Post by paganel »

bloak wrote: post #142
paganel wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if your comment was partially made as a joke or not but I can certainly attest that having to wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning because of lice is not ideal. My parents live in the (Eastern-European) countryside and because of the environment (basically all sorts of animals living around the house) they started having lice since 2-3 years, I think. You eventually get used to them, one of the keys is to tuck (…

Are you really talking about lice, or do you mean bedbugs? If you mean lice, do you mean head lice, body lice, or pubic lice?

Yeah, on second thought, and after some google image searches, I think I was talking about fleas, which I had mistaken for "body lice", I think. Bedbugs are a whole another beast which I won't wish on my worst enemy to experience.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#165

Post by necovek »

kelnos wrote: post #18
Arwill wrote: post #13

The article does not mention it, but mothers with small children have to nurse babies every couple of hours, even at night. So given that in middle ages, families had "copious numbers of children" (quote from the article), it is for sure that mothers would need to get up to feed a baby. And then possibly the whole family would woke up too. And if multiple generations were living in the same house, then even more prob…

If that were the origin of it, then wouldn't there be three or four sleeps, not two?

Babies, on average, only need multiple feedings a night through the first few months. Even if there was a new baby for one mother every year, that would be multiple feedings only for 3 months out of every 12 months.

Just like parents today, people would power through that, and not make that a habitual sleeping pattern.

I am not saying this makes the hypothesis of the origin being in parenthood true, just that it does not make it false either :)

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#166

Post by necovek »

gambiting wrote: post #162
7thaccount wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how typical your experience is. My daughter needed to be fed every few hours for the first 11 months. Both my wife and I were freaking zombies. It was rough on us. My wife would basically get a couple of hours every time the baby went down, but no long and peaceful sleep. In talking with friends, it would seem like our experience was extra crappy and yours is uncharacteristically mild. So the reality may…

I'm in that place right now. 8 month old son, wakes up every 1-2 hours at night. Not even to feed, just.....wakes up and cries until you settle him. Feeding sometimes helps sometimes doesn't - but it doesn't change the fact that you have to wake up for him. My wife is a complete zombie, I don't think she had more than continious 3 hours of sleep for at least 6 months now. I would cut my own arm off to make this situa…

The way my wife and I had it with my first was for me to start taking care of my boy at 6am when he wakes up and let her sleep until 9am every morning, when I'd start work (from home). If you can find a time where the boy does not need her (eg. those times when he's fussy but not hungry), that's the best you can do.

Sometimes that's not an option, but this worked great with our first (we couldn't do it with our second, so my wife is more of a zombie this time even though the daughter is a better sleeper on average).

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#167

Post by cdot2 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #14
cdot2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not really sure what actually happens when two phalanxes meet. We're also not sure how the Romans swapped lines of men out during combat. Lots of the details about ancient combat just werent written about in detail and its not something we can (ethically) test

How would you unethically test ancient combat tactics? Unless you mean have people try it until it seems to work, in which case, I'm sure you would find many willing LARPers

The conjecture is that people will not willingly throw themselves on a line of spears and so the phalanxes would stop short of actually hitting each other. I don't think larpers would be able to test that well. I'm not sure how you would test that unethically

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#168

Post by INTPenis »

hatmatrix wrote: post #103

"Despite near-constant headlines about the prevalence of sleep problems, Ekirch has previously argued that, in some ways, the 21st Century is a golden age for sleep – a time when most of us no longer have to worry about being murdered in our beds, freezing to death, or flicking off lice, when we can slumber without pain, the threat of fire, or having strangers snuggled up next to us." What a wonderful time we live in…

Yeah but one could argue that it's a time of more headaches because we have it so well that we have plenty of time to think about our lives. While people of old were busy working and were more exhausted than we are today.

Of course this is the very definition of a 1st world problem but I think it holds some water in modern western society.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#169

Post by necovek »

rootusrootus wrote: post #101
7thaccount wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how typical your experience is. My daughter needed to be fed every few hours for the first 11 months. Both my wife and I were freaking zombies. It was rough on us. My wife would basically get a couple of hours every time the baby went down, but no long and peaceful sleep. In talking with friends, it would seem like our experience was extra crappy and yours is uncharacteristically mild. So the reality may…

It varies quite a lot. One of my kids was needy all night long for most of a year, the other one started sleeping through the night maybe six weeks after we brought her home. I've often thought that much of the difference between poor/adequate/great parents is the personality of the kid(s). Have a really easy one and then you think you're some of rockstar parent. Then number two comes along and shatters your delusion…

On top of sleeping, I like to add eating as very important to your own perception of how good a parent you are. :D

To be honest, with my two kids, how much they eat influences their sleep heavily as well. Unfortunately, my first has always eaten too little (he'd happily have his broccoli too, but never enough to be consider him fed), and the second is very picky (she eats a lot of what she likes, none of what she doesn't). When they eat well, they usually sleep well too.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#170

Post by gambiting »

necovek wrote: post #166
gambiting wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in that place right now. 8 month old son, wakes up every 1-2 hours at night. Not even to feed, just.....wakes up and cries until you settle him. Feeding sometimes helps sometimes doesn't - but it doesn't change the fact that you have to wake up for him. My wife is a complete zombie, I don't think she had more than continious 3 hours of sleep for at least 6 months now. I would cut my own arm off to make this situa…

The way my wife and I had it with my first was for me to start taking care of my boy at 6am when he wakes up and let her sleep until 9am every morning, when I'd start work (from home). If you can find a time where the boy does not need her (eg. those times when he's fussy but not hungry), that's the best you can do. Sometimes that's not an option, but this worked great with our first (we couldn't do it with our secon…

I do exactly that - she leaves him with me 6-7am and then I look after him until I have to start working around 9pm. And while yes, it provides her with some much needed sleep, it's still nothing in the grand scheme of things. I think as a human you really need that uninterrupted 6h+ of sleep at least every now and then, and not having it for months at the time just absolutely wrecks you as a person.
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