Is the Western way of raising kids weird?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Not quite the same thing, but still.

Our son tended to be awake at night and want to play, or at least interact with us. We wanted to sleep. So we finally showed him that he could play by himself at night, gave him a light he could control, could turn on or off as needed, and that he didn't need to wake us up. The very first night we did that (and he was not yet two years old) when we got up the next morning, his room was a shambles, toys everywhere. But he had not awakened us in the middle of the night, had turned on the light, played with his toys, and then gone back to sleep. Hooray! We gave him independence and he gave us a night's sleep.