Nights around the world: where babies sleep and why it varies in : the main line · 251

Suffocation and overheating risks on soft sofas, alcohol-impaired adults, and cluttered beds are real. Those risks are about surfaces and impairment — not about whether a culture values proximity. Room-sharing without soft bedding hazards is recommended in many high-income guidelines for early months. That can coexist with responsive night feeding; it does not require ignoring a crying infant for ideology.

Cold climates, small dwellings, breastfeeding norms, malaria nets, and beliefs about spirits or independence all shape night architecture. What looks like “spoiling” in one frame looks like vigilance in another. Urban middle-class campaigns for early solo sleep often track maternal return-to-work schedules and housing with spare rooms — material conditions, not timeless wisdom.

A parent who never sleeps becomes a safety risk. Diversifying night care — partner shifts, expressed milk, grandparent help where safe — is alloparenting after dark. Methods that promise eight uninterrupted hours for every three-month-old sell an outlier as a norm. Developmental night waking is common; the diversity question is how families share the cost.