Abstract
Infant sleep and infant feeding are essential concerns for new parents who are learning to care for an infant. The expectations of infants with regard to feeding and sleep are fundamentally shaped by our evolutionary legacy as mammals and primates, as well as the more recent evolutionary history of our own human lineage. The first part of this chapter provides a review of how our evolutionary legacy affects infant biological expectations for feeding, sleep and proximity to caregivers. At the same time, humans are fundamentally biocultural: our biology is at all times shaped by and intertwined with culture. The second part of the chapter considers how cultural assumptions can shape parental beliefs about infant feeding and sleep, regardless of infants’ biological expectations, and provides solid evidence related to infant sleep duration and night-waking. This information can be used to educate and reassure new parents about normal infant sleep.
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