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Peru cont.

Sleeping in Peru

IncaMama writes in a Mothering.com forum: "well i can only speak about the other culture i'm familiar with, Peruvian. my family is from there and i've got about 35 younger cousins whose child rearing i've witnessed first hand over the past 25 years or so. i agree with your DH very much, at least with my family. my entire family lives on the same block..if you can call it that. it's a small town and the houses are not like our houses here. the closest thing i can related it to is a series of rowhomes but even that is not quite it. it's sort of a little commune, i guess? anyway, they all go in and out of each others' houses. they eat at each others' houses, it's rare that each household is having their *own* dinner, etc..childcare is shared across all members of the family. babies sleep primarily with their parents until they're around 5 or so and then they sleep with other members of the family (my one cousin slept with her grandmother until gmother died when cousin was 21). it's completely bizarre for someone to be sleeping alone. in fact, it's sort of rude and NOT received well."... at the VERY least someone should be sleeping in the same room as you if not the same bed. as for the nightwaking, yup...the kids wake up at night a lot. and the moms nurse them back to sleep or sling them back to sleep or the dads do or the cousins do or the grandparents do...whoever's up and not exhausted does it. the daytime work is different there too. a 9-5 isn't the norm. it's more like 7-1 and then 4-10. lunchtime is a big deal and the whole family gets together then, eats, naps, etc... i think the biggest difference that i see between my life here (family here, friends here) and my life there is that they EXPECT kids to do that. they expect the first few years of a child's life to be full of nightwaking, touching things they're not "supposed" to, being kids. "discipline" just isn't the same. if a kid knocks over a vase, it's not really "addressed". it's sort of "oops. shoudn't have left that there, huh." i know i've sort of gone off topic a bit, but i just wanted to emphasize that the biggest difference i see is *expectations*. they EXPECT to wake in the middle of the night. i think they'd probably be terrified if their kid DIDN'T wake up at all to nurse. something must be wrong!! LOL they do have a huge support system from cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, grandparents, friends...they are "allowed" to take naps in the middle of the day to replenish...they stay up late and expect their kids to stay up until they're tired. "bedtime" is child driven, at least in my family. if the kid isn't tired, the kid doesn't go to bed. anyway, that's my experience...from my family in Peru (south america for those who don't know)". [View source ]

motheringdotcommunityforums, parenting, thefamilybedandnighttimeparenting, cross-culturalsleeppatterns OR https://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=318338 7.23.2005

 

 

The Waiting Home from Inti Media on Vimeo, "Waiting Houses" for mothers and families in Peru

 



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