Dr. Rosemond on Co-Sleeping…

March 23, 2007 at 8:16 am · Filed under MUSINGS, evolving, family values, the wee ones

Read it and weep.
Co-sleeping evolves into future nightmare

sigh. the first of my responses is to NOT call him a poopoo head. yet.

Love,
Heather

16 Comments »

  1. mamaof5 said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 9:08 am

    OMG! I couldn’t even get thru the article. It made me sick.
    I recently read a beautiful article on bonding with your baby/child. It was in a free magazine called “Natural Awakenings” If you google it and put in the article title “Skinship” . It is so right on. I mean I want to send out a million copies. NO one really gets how important it is to be next to our children. We (as a society) push and push each other away. Like needing someone is bad. We forget how much we depend on others because we don’t see it… how do you get your food at the store? Someone grows it, someone picks it, someone ships it, someone stocks it, not to mentions all the bugs, birds, and animals who help it out and not to mention the people who help the people get that food to you… ie guys on the oil rigs to get the oil to have it turned into gas so the truck and haul the food to you. That is just one small thing, that we don’t think about at all. Yet we depend on every single one of those things to go just right so we can have our cocoa puffs in the morning. God forbid we love on our kids and hold them close and teach them how we are all dependant on each other.
    I guess the author of the article does all his own stuff?? What a jerk!

    Heather in Tucson

  2. Julinda said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 10:13 am

    I make a motion that Heather/Hathor go ahead and call him a poo-poo head. Do I have a second?

    Like most anti-co-sleeping articles, this one portrays it as something done grudgingly by parents who are to weak to set limits with their kids. And they picture the alternative as forcing the kids to be alone all night, no matter what. I hate that because it presents it as an either/or situation. Either you co-sleep or you ignore your kids and let them cry at night. Also, it implies that co-sleeping parents are more sleep-deprived than others. I guess if the non-co-sleepers are ignoring the kids all night (and don’t feel too guilty about it to sleep), that could be true, but otherwise it would make sense that the co-sleepers get more sleep.

    If I didn’t co-sleep (and I don’t, 100% - my baby slept in a crib for several months, and my older son now sleeps in his own room most of the time) I still wouldn’t dream of locking a child in another room and insisting he stay there alone when he was lonely or frightened or hungry or whatever. If he was in another room or in his crib, and woke up and wanted something, one or both of us would have to get up! If we’re already together and he wants me, I’m right there. Co-sleeping is the logical thing to do if you are a loving attentive parent, and you or your kids benefit from being together at night.

    I always wonder if these kind of people change their minds if they end up incapacitated and no one will come when they call.

    I have read this guy’s articles before - they appear in a newspaper here in Indiana, sadly - and he is a strong spanking advocate as well.

  3. Julinda said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 10:15 am

    P.S. Heather in Tucson - Thanks for the article link.

  4. sapphire_chan said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 11:34 am

    Sigh, I swear 99% of the parenting problems in this world would be solved by the application of basic logic. Clearly the problem the family in the article is having is because 3 years old is too young for the child to be sleeping alone. I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’re also having sibling rivalry problems from the older child being ousted from the family bed to make room for the new baby.

  5. Robyn L. Coburn said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 1:02 pm

    Holey Moley what a series of odd assumptions and recommendations. Flat out lie to your child! How happy that child will be to visit the fearsome doctor next time she has to go. I hope she says, “Why did you say …..” so the doc can say “Huh?”

    Of course we all know how well a three year old will remember the quiet, calm, logical discussion of the afternoon, when they are afraid or lonely in the middle of the night. At least he says she can turn on her light.

    I don’t like pacifiers much, but it seems to me that the problems he attributes to their use are more likely to be the result of a parent deciding it was time to take the thing away after the child was accustomed to it.

    As for the sanctity of the marital bed - hey they made another baby didn’t they?

    Excuse me, please. I have to go and search out some discipline problems with my co-sleeping 7.5yo child, so I can be in denial about them.

    P~~~~

    Robyn L. Coburn

  6. mousemadeslings said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 2:17 pm

    Arggghhhh!

    Of course, maybe his problem is that someone locked him in a room, told him not to disturb him and lied to him about why they did it when HE was a child!

    Stupidity should not be published as “expert” advice….

    *grumble grumble Poo-poo head*

  7. Margey said,

    March 23, 2007 @ 10:11 pm

    Wow! Sometimes I wonder if people like him just write articles to get a reaction!
    Unfortunately we all know this isn’t true. He’s just stupid and ignorant!! And uses his title ‘Family psychologist’ as the be all end all of authority. . What I find to be sadder is that the parents in the article aren’t listening to their inner voice. That they obviously don’t have a support group or person to talk to, to help empower them, and guide them to listen to their child. Why can’t the 3 yr old sleep with the parents, too? They’d probably all get better sleep! I’m always saddened when I learn of parents who are struggling to use the miss guided doctors bad advise, and aren’t wise enough to know it’s wrong. And contrary to Mr. Rosemonds’ beliefs, my 12 yr old actually knows how to fall asleep, and we co-slept until he was 4, and ready for his own space, and my 2 yr old is currently co-sleeping with us. I’m personally into all this “non-sense” of attachment parenting.

  8. vancouverlori said,

    March 24, 2007 @ 2:00 am

    Zowie!
    As I see it, I think this family has chosen family bed because they thought it was easier, not because they thought it was the right thing to do. That’s a huge difference right there. You have to believe in it to work through all the inconveniences that can happen. And you have to drop all preconceived notions of what a bedroom should look like. Double bed in middle of master bedroom with a few decor cushions - whatever! Wall to wall mattresses on the floor - now we’re talking! But I find it ironic that this person is saying there are no studies showing the safety/preferability of co-sleeping (I think that’s wrong, but at the very least, how can several billion people be wrong), but then goes on to make all these hocus-pocus scary claims without any back up!!! Hypocrite! That poor little one. Reminds me of when my sister said she would be glad to move to her new house because there was a lock on the bedroom door so her kids couldn’t join her in bed. Huh? You’re going to sleep while they’re crying outside your door??? I have plenty of patients who can’t sleep, and I’d bet that none of them co-slept!!!

  9. The_Thadman said,

    March 24, 2007 @ 8:06 am

    Check out the “Rosemond’s Bill of Rights for Children”:

    http://rosemond.com/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=389&WebPageID=9896

    This man can’t be taken seriously. :-)

    Peace,
    -Steve

  10. The_Thadman said,

    March 24, 2007 @ 8:16 am

    And not to imply that this is a religious war (but more of a conflict of aspects of the religion that he’s focusing on):

    http://parentingbythebook.com/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=245&WebPageID=5540

    Peace,
    -Steve

  11. Deborah M. said,

    March 26, 2007 @ 7:13 am

    Dr. Idiot mentioned what morons the parents in question were being offering
    their child chocolate, since chocolate contains caffeine. Implying that
    between this and their complete lack of discipline, it’s a wonder anyone in
    this household ever gets a wink of sleep.

    It’s true — chocolate does contain caffeine. In extremely small amounts.
    An ounce and a half of milk chocolate (most American’s chocolate of choice)
    contains about 6 milligrams of caffeine, which may sound like a lot until
    you find out that that’s how much caffeine you’d find in a cup of *decaf*
    coffee. A cup of regular coffee has between 100 to 150 milligrams of
    caffeine.

    What chocolate has a lot more of than caffeine is a chemically similar,
    naturally-occurring bitter alkaloid called theobromine. Theobromine isn’t
    the same kind of stimulant as caffeine at all. Caffeine’s pick-me-up power
    is a quick up-and-down jolt. Theobromine gives a gradual, long-lasting
    sense of euphoria. It’s the feel-good chemical that many think may be
    what’s addictive about chocolate. It isn’t a really effective stimulant in
    terms of, say, keeping one awake long enough to finish an article on
    deadline. Believe me, I’ve tested this extensively!

  12. angelohara said,

    March 26, 2007 @ 5:51 pm

    Rosemond is bad for the blood pressure ;)

    I’m so glad we knew about co-sleeping for my 2nd child–he’s very high needs and had medical issues. So he co-slept with my husband for the first 6 months (I have medical issues myself), then in our room for 6 months, and then transitioned to his own room (we kept trying to share space and he couldn’t sleep until we tried his room–that’s what he wanted!). When you follow a baby’s cues, it makes life easier!

    The guy has serious issues and really should deal with them before passing out advice.

  13. Ethan said,

    April 12, 2007 @ 4:34 pm

    Follow…

    In a free state there should be freedom of speech and thought…

  14. Andrew said,

    April 15, 2007 @ 9:30 pm

    Trackback…

    Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don’t ever apologize for anything…

  15. kriekle said,

    April 23, 2007 @ 1:33 pm

    Ok, I have to say how much I absolutely LOVE country singer Billy Dean’s song “Let Them Be Little.” One of the lines goes “Let them sleep in the middle” and the video shows a couple looking lovingly at each other across their children in bed. The song is an attachment parent’s dream come true, and refutes everything this so-called dr says.

  16. sarahd said,

    June 8, 2007 @ 11:55 am

    I used to be a member of rosemond’s website, it was a gift from a well-meaning friend. he’s not a doctor, he only has an MS. he was very rude and insulting to members, was totally dismissive of baby wearing and ANYTHING to do with attachment parenting. he would change the rules about his website after people paid. he recently started telling members that their questions couldn’t be longer than 1000 CHARACTERS (not words!) because it hurt his eyes. If someone used more than 1000 questions he told them to try again. it seems like he is just totally into himself and to me it seemed like the members were a bother to him. my subscription ran out and i didn’t renew, it was a gift anyway. glad i didn’t pay money for his “advice”!

RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

Leave a Comment



  • Meta