Free French Children Don't Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman

believe.’
    It does seem possible that French babies rise to meet their parents’ and carers’ expectations. Perhaps we all get the sleepers we expect, and the simple fact of believing that babies have a rhythm helps us to find it.
    To believe in the Pause, or in letting an older baby do controlled crying, you also have to believe that a baby is a person who’s capable of learning things (in this case, how to sleep) and coping with some frustration. Michel Cohen spends a lot of time converting parents to this French idea. To the common worry that a four-month-old is hungry at night, he writes: ‘She is hungry. But she does not need to eat. You’re hungry in the middle of the night too; it’s just that you learn not to eat because it’s good for your belly to take a rest. Well, it’s good for hers too.’
    The French don’t believe that babies should withstand biblical-sized trials. But they also don’t think that a bit of frustration will crush kids. On the contrary, they believe it will make children more secure. According to
Sleep, Dreams and the Child
, ‘To always respond to his demands, and never tell him “no”, is dangerous for the construction of his personality. Because the child won’t have any barrier to push up against, to know what’s expected of him.’
    For the French, teaching a small baby to sleep isn’t a self-serving strategy for lazy parents. It’s a first, crucial lesson for children in self-reliance and in how to enjoy one’s own company. A psychologist quoted in
Maman!
magazine says that babies who learn to play by themselves during the day – even in the first few months – are less worried when they’re put into their beds alone at night.
    De Leersnyder writes that even babies need some privacy. ‘The little baby learns in his cradle that he can be alone from time to time, without being hungry, without being thirsty, without sleeping, just being calmly awake. At a very young age, he needs time alone, and he needs to go to sleep and wake up without being immediately watched by his mother.’
    De Leersnyder even devotes a portion of her book to what a mother should do while her baby sleeps. ‘She forgets about her baby, to think about herself. She now takes her own shower, gets dressed, puts on make-up, becomes beautiful for her own pleasure, that of her husband and of others. Evening comes, and she prepares herself for the night, for love.’
    As an Anglophone parent, this film-noir scene – with its suggestion of kohl eyeliner and silk stockings – is hard to imagine in anything but the movies. Simon and I just assumed that, for quite a while, we’d rearrange our lives around Bean’s whims.
    The French don’t think that’s good for anyone. They view learning to sleep as an aspect of learning to be part of the family, and adapting to what other members of the family need too. De Leersnyder tells me: ‘If he wakes up ten times at night, [the mother] can’t go to work the next day. So that makes the baby understand that – voilà – he can’t wake up ten times a night.’
    ‘The baby understands that?’ I ask.
    ‘Of course he understands that,’ she says.
    ‘How can he understand that?’
    ‘Because babies understand everything.’
    * * *
    French parents think the Pause is essential. But they don’t hold it up as a panacea. Instead, they have a bundle of beliefs and habits which, when applied patiently and lovingly, put babies in the mood to sleep well. The Pause works in part because parents believe that tiny babies aren’t helpless blobs. They can learn things. This learning, done gently and at a baby’s own pace, isn’t damaging. To the contrary, parents believe it gives the babies confidence and serenity, and makes them aware of other people. And it sets the tone for the respectful relationship between parents and children that I see later on.
    If only I had known all this when Bean was born. We definitely miss the four-month window for painlessly teaching