This again? It’s been pretty thoroughly debunked:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...
(Courtesy of quietbritishjim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16037465)
The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
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Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#212This again? It’s been pretty thoroughly debunked: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many... (Courtesy of quietbritishjim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16037465 )
I don't see how that "debunks" the fact that people had the habit of waking up in the middle of the night during the middle ages, which is the main point of this article. In fact, it even says
> Ekirch combed through centuries of Western literature and documents to show that Europeans used to sleep in two segments, separated by an hour or two of wakefulness. Siegel doesn’t dispute Ekirch’s analysis; he just thinks that the old two-block pattern was preceded by an even older single-block one.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah - I'm currently reading 'Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker (excellent book by the way) and it mentions that this theory has been debunked.
I haven't read Why We Sleep yet, but I do remember a post[1] on here a while ago which found issue with some of the books' claims. YMMV [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850
Oh wow, that's interesting. Will take a look - thanks for the info.
[Edit] - Ok, I read the review and I can see why you added YMMV.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#214The habit of first and second sleep was common in Sweden, too. In our case, historic documents mention that the interim was sometime just after midnight; people socialized for an hour or two in the middle of the night before going back to bed for second sleep.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#215I believe this theory is largely thought false nowadays, or phrased too strongly at least. I myself have weird sleep cycles. I prefer to stay up into the night and wake up around 12:00, but I vary my sleeping hours by up to 4 hours or so. I go to sleep when I feel like it, and don't feel much discomfort by falling asleep at different times. It leads to weird situations - especially in winter - where I might not see t…
It may be thought of false, but historic documents from many European countries mention and detail it as the common habit. There is no theory or claim about its benefits, just that it was habitual.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#216Maybe they didn't live that long due to this being a factor of lost REM sleep?
This is a common misconception. Generally when we talk about life expectancy being low, this has to do with extremely high infant and child mortality. Once you survived your early childhood, life expectancy wasn't significantly lower.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a nice graphic showing a baby's sleep pattern during the first 15 weeks: http://www.eiman.tv/misc/somnrytm.jpg Since the text is in Swedish, here's roughly what it says: Every row is a day, black is sleep, white is awake.
Oh wow. Babies sleep a lot.
They do, however, it's the fact that they wake up during inconvenient hours that's the hard part :)
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#218I regularly sleep in 4 hour blocks, and it's definitely the most productive and energetic ive felt. I encourage anyone who is curious to try it for at least 2 weeks, though i find it doesn't take long to get used to. The challenge is mapping sleeping times around the rest of society. In my experience the easiest way to transition from sleeping 8 is to wake up early on a weekend day and do a bunch of tiring activity,…
I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night, but I have noted the 4 hour (well, more like 3.5-4 hour in my case) block of sleep in my own sleep patterns. It's much easier to wake up after a block of sleep than in the middle of one, and I usually sleep 2 or 3 blocks rather than just a little bit more than 2. On the rare occasions when I was very well rested for a long period of time, I would occasionally wake up after 1 block of sleep, but I never turned that into a two-sleep pattern. I just thought, "Huh, guess I must not be tired any more." and started my day early.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#219Earlier 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…
Really sorry to hear that. We had a nightmare scenario at about 11 months where she howled all through the night and my wife cried pretty hard too as there wasn't anything we could do. We cut a trip short and just drove 5 hours back home (the next day) to get our daughter back to familiar surroundings if it meant sleep for us. She then slept through the night and more or less has done that since. We felt so much better, although I remember checking in on her often to make sure she was ok as she'd never slept that long. I really hope you catch a similar break sometime soon. It might also help when they start to get a more varied diet that isn't just milk, so they aren't always hungry if that makes sense (I'm definitely not any kind of expert though and not giving advice).
Hang in there! It won't be that way forever.
Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent not caring for the baby learns to sleep through. My wife and I swap roles when we wean babies, we need just a couple nights to get used to the changed role.
Sleep through baby crying? I found my own babies cries to be a complete NMI. When we had infants I'd go back to sleep pretty well instantly (co-sleeping, with baby on a side-cot at bed level; baby breastfed, not by me) but in general one would wake to the little snuffles that precede the crying (I guess that helps to calm them before they get in a tizzy [in a state, brought on by their own actions, crying in this cas…
The parent on duty learning to recognize the baby is stirring before she cries is a part of it.