It is clear that we at swing2sleep say that rocking has a positive effect on a baby's development. But in this article (translated from German), you will learn what research has to say about it.
For every mother who has ever looked around her living room, counted the number of rocking/cradling/swinging devices scattered everywhere, and felt ashamed of the chaos in contrast to Marie Kondo order, there is good news.
Science says that all that rocking, bouncing, and swinging actually serves a good purpose: sleep. (Not that we ever doubted you, Dr. Karp!)
Recent studies in the journal Current Biology show that what generations of mothers have instinctively done to soothe a crying child really works—and not just for babies, but for adults (and mice!) too.
Yes, it turns out that mammalian brains are programmed to respond to rocking, and there is now scientific evidence that swinging to sleep can lead to falling asleep faster, having better quality sleep, and also improving memory formation. Exciting, isn't it, Current Biology?
The Essentials: In one of the studies, EEG readings were used to analyze the brain responses of 18 healthy adults during overnight stays on three different nights.
- Night one served to habituate to the new environment
- Night two was spent in a gently rocking bed and
- Night three in a stationary bed.
The authors found that rocking:
- shortened the time to fall asleep
- shortened the time until they reached deep, high-quality non-REM sleep
- reduced waking phases during the night
- promoted longer periods of deeper sleep
(Unfortunately, no measurements were taken on the influence of rocking on dark circles under the eyes. Perhaps there will be a follow-up study?)
The researchers were also interested in whether rocking could influence memory. To test this, participants were given 46 random word pairs to memorize. In the morning, they were given the first word and asked to recall the second.
Here too, rocking proved to be an advantage: The recall ability of the study participants was three times better the morning after the rocking nights.
In further investigations, the researchers found a possible explanation for all the positive results: the rocking motion led to brain oscillations specific to non-REM sleep and helped synchronize neural activity in the parts of the brain involved in sleep and memory consolidation.
Since scientists are scientists, another experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of rocking on sleep... in mice.
It turned out that, just like in humans, rocking helped the mice fall asleep faster and increased the length of their sleep, although it did not seem to lead to deeper sleep in the rodents (perhaps they were distracted by a piece of cheese lying around the lab?).
More interestingly, what they found when they used mice with impaired vestibular systems—the organs in the inner ears of mammals that control balance and spatial orientation. In these impaired mice, rocking brought no benefit.
This finding confirmed the authors' suspicion that rocking specifically influences sleep because it stimulates the vestibular system... think of that lovely, slightly disorienting, yet irresistibly soothing feeling when you lie in a hammock.
While all this is certainly fascinating for sleep researchers and could help people with sleep disorders, the bottom line for mothers is this: The exercise ball stays. The swing too. Because what could bring more joy than a deeply slumbering baby?
Back in 2012, we reported on studies regarding the positive effect of rocking from Switzerland; I have translated this article here for you from English, here is the link to the original article: https://whatsupmoms.com/baby/why-youre-a-genius-for-rocking-your-baby-to-sleep/
