The Myth of the Good Baby
Have you heard about this mythical good baby?
Somewhere along the way society started creating a mythical good baby. They never cry, always let their parents do normal life activities, and sleep through the night as soon as their parents even start thinking about it.
Right from the beginning, well meaning questions start setting parents up to believe in the good baby myth….
“Is he a good baby?”
“Is she sleeping through yet?”
“Are they much trouble?”
It doesn’t matter if your baby is a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or older, the questions (and the underlying beliefs they convey) are remarkably similar.
Good babies take minimal effort. Good babies fit easily into adult society. Good babies let their parents get back to full productivity as soon as possible. Good babies sleep independently. Good babies take long naps.
The problem is, this version of the good baby doesn’t exist!
The good baby myth is a construct completely unattainable for pretty much everyone. And to take it one step further, parents are often nudged into believing it’s their responsibility to get their normal, healthy, lovely baby to conform to this good baby ideal.
Striving for the ideal good baby is not only a waste of energy, stressful, and not actually healthy…. but we can’t control all of these factors. Many of them have to do with temperament and the normal unfolding of development.
And if there are good babies, does that mean there are bad babies if your baby doesn’t fit into this narrowly defined good baby concept?
All babies are good babies!
Good babies cry. Good babies wake up at night. Good babies take short naps, have caregiver preferences, feed to sleep, and need lots of coregulation. Good babies are messy, change from day to day, and massively disrupt our lives.
In fact, most adaptive, healthy behaviors are flagged as “bad” in the good baby myth. Babies are tiny humans with big needs for connection, closeness, and care. It’s time to start pushing back against the good baby myth. It’s time to start defining good and healthy by what’s biologically normal and promotes attachment rather than what makes babies the easiest to fit into adult lives.