A health guru has revealed the exact age at which a child should stop sleeping with their parents.
Mickey Mehta, a wellness coach from India, appeared in a video on Instagram, where he talked about the benefits of co-sleeping.
This practice is controversial among health professionals who have warned against it for safety reasons, but some parents swear by it and say it brings them closer to their children.
However, Mehta suggested that it is essential and condemned the Western practice of putting a child in his or her own room when he or she is two or three years old.
He even put an exact number on the age at which it’s okay to quit smoking: seven years old.
Wellness entrepreneur Mickey Mehta said in an interview that mirror neurons are unconsciously active during sleep and absorb what is happening around the child. But there is no evidence for this idea.
Mehta’s advice contained a mix of neuroscience, pseudoscience and mysticism.
“Up to what age should a child sleep with mom and dad, if at all?” businessman and health influencer Ritesh Bawri asked Mehta in the interview video.
“Until seven o’clock, your mirror neurons are working and they are very sensitive,” Mehta replied.
“They will learn everything subconsciously when the child is asleep,” he added.
Mirror neurons in the brain activate when we see people perform actions, but also when we perform those actions.
One of the most important neuroscience discoveries of the last decade, mirror neurons are crucial for learning skills and learning to interact with people.
Although it is well known that sleep is when Process and consolidate memories.There is no evidence that mirror neurons learn subconsciously during sleep, as Mehta claimed.
Mehta went on to explain that a child’s subconscious mind becomes drenched in negativity while they sleep, and sleeping with a parent will help protect them against this.
Mehta suggested that it is essential and condemned the Western practice of putting a child in his or her own room when he or she is two or three years old. He even put an exact number on the age at which it’s okay to quit: seven years old.
‘[A child] You have scary dreams, phobias because [the child’s] The subconscious is tender, it picks up every signal. Everything happens universally,” he explained.
‘And in astral travel, children cry. They shit, they urinate.’
Astral travel is not believed to be science and it is not clear what Mehta meant by his statement.
“Mmm,” Bawri replied.
“And there is no rest, no recovery, no reparation,” Mehta continued.
“Wow, I’ve never heard so much nonsense in one video from one guy,” said Dr. Mona Amin, a pediatrician who posts on Instagram under the name @pedsdotalk.
“You are implying that children wet the bed because of trauma, fear and separation, which is not the case,” he continued, when another commenter asked him to elaborate.
‘Bedwetting is common in many children due to bladder immaturity and not anxiety.
Evidence suggests that sleeping together does synchronize two people’s heartbeats. But contrary to what Mickey Mehta suggests, this is not necessary for a child’s healthy development.
«And children don’t need to sleep next to their mother for seven years to feel close. Independent sleep is possible and typical of development and, in fact, may mean better sleep for the child AND for the parents.’
Child sleep consultant Amrita Saraf, on the other hand, agreed with Mehta’s opinion on co-sleeping.
Seeing and sleeping is always healthier [and] better [and I’m] Don’t shame anyone who doesn’t sleep with their kids. [because] “We all do what works for us,” he wrote. [I’m] Just saying what Mickey Sir says is true.’
Intuitively and scientifically, if a child has interrupted sleep, he or she will not have restful sleep. This can cause all kinds of developmental and behavioral problems. But no scientific evidence has linked childhood sleep disturbances to astral travel.
He also stated that when the child is close to his mother’s heartbeat, she will synchronize her rhythms.
Mehta is neither a doctor nor a scientist. He is a life coach, health and wellness entrepreneur and owner of a number of gyms.
Some of his ideas have some scientific backing, such as the idea that sleeping together synchronizes heartbeats.
“If the mother is next to the child, while the child cries, the mother calms him down,” he told Bawri, who replied, “Correct.”
This notion is quite logical: if a child has a nightmare, a close parent can calm him down. But then he said: “Ears on the heart, and the child’s erratic beat has rhythm again.”
A 2019 study In fact, it showed that people who slept together had synchronized heart rhythms for long periods.
But there is no evidence that this is necessary for early childhood development, nor that children naturally have erratic heartbeats that need to be corrected.
For children who have arrhythmias (erratic heartbeats that may be signs of medical conditions), doctors do not recommend simply listening to a parent’s heartbeat to correct them.
They have many other treatments in their toolbox.
So if you decide to co-sleep with your child, it’s probably a good idea to look to experts other than Mickey Mehta.