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24 Comments »

1. Mama gaia said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 12:04 pm

   I always find these articles amusing (well, and irritating). I mean, I have 5 kids.All co-slept. They are all definitely alive and well. You’d think the more kids one has,the better (worse?) the odds are for something tragic happening or something.

   I love this:”5. “…it’s a habit, when the baby is crying, they bring them into bed, it’s a convenience.”

   Well…what else would you do with a baby that’s crying?! Duh!

2. Hugh said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 1:30 pm

   My wife and I have been following the “missinformation” trail for about 4 months now and dealing with anti-cosleeping issues for years. Scripps Howard New Service has become a huge media tool for the crib industry. They have pointed out that alot of American coroner’s reports have varing degrees of accuracy, they state that more than half of repoted SIDS deaths are actually clear-cut co-sleeping problems. BS! They show the trend of Public health departments signing on and looking for legislation to make co-sleeping labled as neglect. Florida and New York are the worst. Not good. Thanks for your post!

3. wiffersnapper said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 1:50 pm

   Ok, so let me get this straight… keeping my baby close to me so that I can tend to her needs quickly in the middle of the night is “neglect”? So how then does one define “good parenting”? I guess I’m a bad parent… oh darn. That must be why everyone I meet is so impressed with how outgoing, nice, and polite my daughter is. I’d love to stay and talk more about it, but I need to go be a bad parent and pay attention to my kid…

4. trishia said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 2:58 pm

   You may find this article to be interesting- it discusses a study done in which they determined how co-sleeping parents and children are more attuned and react to each others sleep behavior than parents who had children sleeping separately. Also, it discusses the link between co-sleeping countries and sids rates (as asserted in the above post, those who co-sleep in greater numbers have less incidences of sids).

   That article was terrible journalism. Sadly, many people take journalism as fact and do not look beyond the statements to make their own conclusions. Even fewer look up the “facts” to see if they are being represented correctly. Worse than the article is the comments, did you read them? Some people are so ignorant- and their children are the ones who will suffer. So sad.

5. janaki said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 3:31 pm

   Damn, and here I am set to move to Florida in April. Oh, well… I know not all people in Florida are that dense. And you know, personally, as someone who majored in journalism for some time, they really aren’t supposed to editorialize like that. But I guess if you make it appear as though you actually have some “facts” to back you up, it makes it ok. Sure, the facts were completely fabricated by crib and crib mattress manufacturers, hey, no one has to know that!

6. janaki said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 3:36 pm

   Also, all these “reports” show is that co-sleeping CAN be dangerous, not that it CAN’T be safe! Yeah, if you let your baby sleep with heavy blankets and pillows all around, or if you are intoxicated or smoke or are on drugs, then it’s pretty dangerous (then again, I think being around a baby while you’re drunk/smoking/high is dangerous no matter what!), but if you keep those things away from your baby, it’s SAFER than crib-sleeping! It’s common sense, really. And how, exactly, is sleeping in bed with your baby meeting all their needs 24/7 neglect???? *sigh* Sometimes people make no sense at all!

7. janaki said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 3:39 pm

   I’d also like to note that I have napped on the couch with my daughter on top of me. It’s really not that dangerous because when you’re napping, you’re not sleeping nearly as deeply as you would if you were really sound asleep. I’m always 100% aware of where my daughter is when she’s laying on top of me, and I don’t think it’s possible that I would let her suffocate. I suppose it might be more dangerous if I had her between me and the couch instead of laying on my couch. She’s 12 months, by the way.

8. wiffersnapper said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 4:44 pm

   Janaki- Don’t feel too bad about sleeping on the couch with your baby… when our daughter was truly tiny and had colic, I spent hours just laying on the couch with her beside me (on the outside edge of the couch) because it was the ONLY thing that comforted her in any way. And I’ve never felt a single twinge of guilt about it!

9. soulgasm said,

   January 11, 2008 @ 7:09 pm

   i live in florida. i co-sleep. most of the other families i know do as well, and they’re not all earthy-crunchy-hippy types, either. i would hazard a guess that the number of families who actually co-sleep is higher than we think, but They make us feel so guilty about it that we don’t admit it. the fact is, evolutionarily speaking, we are meant to sleep together, and mothers instinctively crave it.

   ever seen a mama gorilla leave her baby in a different tree for the night????

10. esper_d said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 3:26 am

    “ever seen a mama gorilla leave her baby in a different tree for the night????”

    OMG you had me laughing! Thanks Now off to co-sleep. Night all!

    Oh, and to the person who said they have several kids who co-slept and are fine and alive. I wouldn’t use that argument.

    ONLY because I do not use pacifiers and when my aunt asks why and I tell her all the negative things, she says “Both my kids used them and they’re very healthy” and she thinks that is reason enough for me to force him to use a pacifier.

11. esper_d said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 3:28 am

    How stupid can they be to think a couch is like a bed???????? So stupid

    It seems SO cold to just put your baby in another room all alone. It is just ridiculous! He’s a baby! Oh my God! How can you do that to a baby???

    OK, be born, and place you far away from me. Yup, thats natural

    Already people have said they think I’m going to roll on him or he’s gonna roll off or stupid stuff like that. grrrrrrrrrr

12. luluandbeans said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 6:09 am

    I just finished reading a really great editorial in the Feb 2008 issue of “Today’s Parent” magazine called “Let Co-sleeping Families Lie” (Uncommon Sense, by John Hoffman). In it he points out the fact that it’s only SIDS when the baby is alone in a crib. When death occurs with co-sleeping, you can almost always find a cause and typically the death is attributed to the act of co-sleeping (and usually there is a reason for that; improper bed space, drug or alcohol use by parent(s), smoking, basically the improper conditions for co-sleeping). Hoffman also goes on to say that there is a huge potential for harm when a baby is sleeping alone in a crib.

    Sigh. It saddens me that people don’t make the connections between what is perceived as our cultural norm and the harm that comes to our children. As a society, we have high violent crime and gang rates, our youth is out of control…yet attachment parenting is discouraged, bottle feeding and sleeping alone down the hall encouraged….hmmm, I wonder if maybe children felt a greater connection to their parents/caregivers we would not have these issues….

13. Brisen said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 6:26 am

    I was just going to comment about the same article that luluandbeans did — I was really happy to see it. You can find it online at http://www.todaysparent.com/lifeasparent/uncommonsense/article.jsp?content=20080107_104219_1916&page=1

14. cordeliasmommy said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 9:23 am

    All this just makes me so sad. A little mad too, but mostly sad. Sad for the children and parents that will never know the comfort and joy of co-sleeping. Sometimes, as I am drifting off to sleep at night, or just waking up in the morning, I take a moment to just enjoy the moment. I find myself just staring at my peacefully sleeping daughter, who is snuggled close to me wrapped in my arms, and I just feel so happy. After 4 and half years of this, I feel so very confident in this choice, for so many reasons.

    Often friends of ours, who do not co-sleep or practice attachment parenting, talk about how their children are scared of things that go bump in the night, and often just a lot of things in general. Cordy is not afraid of the night, or really anything else either. My husband equates this to co-sleeping, that since she is with us all the time at night, she doesn’t have these irrational fears of night time that other children have. And two of her friends that were sleep-trained at a very early age (a couple of months) are afraid of things at night and lots of other things too, I feel bad for them, but it can be sort of annoying at times too. Point being, these kids just don’t seem comfortable and confident, and our daughter doesn’t seem to be phased by much, and my husband thinks it’s all related to our attachment parenting. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I wouldn’t change our parenting choices in any way.

15. mamaof5 said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 9:40 am

    I know it could all be about profit… you know pushing cribs and binkies and bottle and formula, but I wounder if it isn’t more of a way to make us less attached? You start with your pregnancy which is overly managed to make you feel like your body doesn’t work right, then your told your “late” or “your pelvis isn’t big enough” or “your baby is too big”, if you manage to actually push your baby out you might end up with an epis… because your vaginal opening isn’t “right”. Then you might not get all the support you need to breast feed, again you don’t work right… here is something you should be able to do, but you can’t. So then they push things like cribs and strollers and suckies and creepy “hands” to hold your baby at night. And you get these things because… well if you couldn’t birth your child or feed it from your body then maybe you really can’t parent without all that stuff. Maybe you are defective. I think it sort of builds a resentment with in women, and families. So you are glad to push away a child that makes you defective. Not on a consious level not abusive at all, just everything else you do you do well… and now this one thing, this one thing that women have been doing since the beginning of time (hell you cat can do it!) YOU CAN’T DO!
    Maybe it is a way to control our families? Maybe a way to get their hands on more and more kids… we must fight against it. That is what is “alternative” when you listen to your body. So maybe your birth was managed, maybe you couldn’t nurse what ever… you still know your baby better then anyone. You are not defective. You can still be attached… wear your baby, co-sleep, really tune in to your child. If you know them, then they can’t have them. Because you will listen t them when they come home from school and tell you stuff isn’t right. You will WANT TO BE WITH THEM. There won’t be that “oh, cr*p it is summer” stuff going on. We can’t let them push our kids away from us.

    Heather in Tucson

16. kriekle said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

    We’re obviously bad parents because we’re rejoicing that our 5 year old has decided to return to the family bed after spending a week sleeping on her own. The bed felt so big and empty without her! And if it hadn’t been for her, we would have never discovered the joys of cosleeping in the first place. She was such a smart baby. She refused to sleep unless she was snuggled up with someone else. We spent a month trying to fight her over it before I finally came to my senses. When we became pregnant a second time, the first thing we did was buy a bigger bed. The crib had already gone bye-bye.

17. janaki said,

    January 12, 2008 @ 8:31 pm

    Luluandbeans and Brisen, that article was AWESOME!!!! And wiffersnapper- I don’t feel bad at all for sleeping with my dd on the couch! I love cuddling with her wherever we are!

18. wiffersnapper said,

    January 13, 2008 @ 5:34 am

    All of this points out to me a rather disturbing trend that we’re seeing in this country of late- people thinking that they can control other people’s personal lives! Let’s see- there’s Christians thinking that their way is right (lots of that where I live!), there’s “homeowner’s associations” thinking that they can control other people’s yards and what they do in them, there’s abortion (won’t even go there!), there’s co-sleeping… it’s rampant! When are folks going to realize that, 1) we live in America, where the whole point is to do it your way as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, and 2) every family is different, and every family has to find a way of raising their children that works for them!

19. FireMom said,

    January 13, 2008 @ 7:39 am

    My Husband is a fire fighter and a paramedic. Prior to the conception of our first child, he went on a call one early morning in which a mother rolled over on her six week old and I don’t need to finish the story. He was horrified and scarred. We didn’t co-sleep with our first.

    We’re co-sleeping with our second. Perhaps he had enough time to process the death. Maybe he should have had a grief counselor for that particular call. Maybe I should have given him some info. I don’t know. But I’m glad he’s come around because, my goodness, is it so much easier with LittleBrother in our bed.

    But don’t tell our parents. GASP! They’d flip out! lol

    (Anyway, great post here. I finally had to register to leave a comment. Long time lurker. lol)

20. jeanette said,

    January 13, 2008 @ 6:51 pm

    We still cosleep with our 5 year old and 2 year old because it’s the right thing to do. We quit trying to fight our human instincts and decided to go along with our physiology so we could all get better sleep. It’s a charm! I do advise everybody considering cosleeping to research it and make sure that you do it right. The benefits of cosleeping are wonderful and last a lifetime.

21. Anniee451 said,

    January 14, 2008 @ 10:21 pm

    Wow, it’s unreal how little things have changed in the last 19 years. One of the first things I read when my daughter was born was how dangerous it was to have a baby in bed with you. They’re still on that kick today, and still trying to make parents feel inadequate.

    Esper-d - “It seems SO cold to just put your baby in another room all alone. It is just ridiculous! He’s a baby! Oh my God! How can you do that to a baby???”

    I had one know-it-all friend who eventually had a baby, and while she felt free to criticize my parenting prior to that, I am not the type to do so. However when she told me about their nighttimes I was horrified, and I know I expressed it. She smugly and very self-satisfactorily describing how their newborn, who was housed conveniently down the hall in his own room (that is one of the saddest pictures I can imagine - a tiny baby all alone in a room all night - but it gets much worse) would scream for hours. She said she was remaining perfectly stoic about it, and would not go in to him for at least two hours no matter how he screamed, because after two hours he might genuinely be hungry. I was dumbfounded. This wasn’t Ferber or even Ezzo - this was some horrific torture method of their own devising, and as far as I can tell, worse than even their draconian methods. I know I gasped aloud, but her superior laugh told me I had heard right. So after two hours she’d go in to the hysterical baby and try to feed - obviously baby can’t switch from hysterics to a calm feeding time, so that didn’t work. Then it was back into the crib since he “wasn’t hungry” and another full two hours of screaming. I guess he just gave up after a couple months, but oh, what they went through not getting sleep during that time. I tried to point out the senseless cruelty of it, but she was having none of it. But I was neglectful because I had had my son sleep with me and nurse whenever he wanted. The hell?

    Another friend was a little more impressionable, and when she started bending to parental type pressure to let the baby lie there and cry, I explained to her that newborns can’t even really focus on anything beyond 18 inches, they have no idea what the world is or what’s going on, and the only anchor they have is being held and talked to by a face close enough to see. She quickly saw that this was true, because when the baby wouldn’t be calmed she’d bring her to me, and when she was wrapped in a warm soft embrace, being rocked, she would drift off to sleep. I explained it wasn’t a natural gift but the result of having done so with my own babies. She said that what I’d said about them not knowing what’s going on and being all alone really burrowed into her brain, and while she never nursed, at least she did hold the baby a lot and give her the needed attention.

    I never had the courage to get rid of our cribs as some friends did, because I was always paranoid that some nasty neighbor with a vendetta could call child services for revenge and if I were caught without cribs I’d lose my kids or something. But they were only used sporadically, for naps and when I needed five minutes to do something important, etc.

    I think a lot of progress has been made; when I had my kids there really were precious few co-sleepers (or at least those who would admit it) and it was seen as bizarre and flaky, but now everyone knows what it means and a lot more people seem to do it. (I have to thank Dr. Sears for some of that!) So don’t give up hope on the revolution

22. Anniee451 said,

    January 14, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

    By the way, who the heck likes sleeping alone? I mean it’s nice for a nap sometimes, or when you’re sick, but one of the things I hated most about being a child was being forced to sleep alone, and I vowed I’d marry young and never sleep alone again. (And actually, I did.) Of course it’s wonderful to have your baby sleeping beside you, and your husband, and your children, and eventually just your husband again. Ok I know some people at some points in life prefer sleeping alone. Those people usually aren’t babies or new mothers, though. The bit about the gorillas? Thank you! I’m so going to not forget that one.

23. muenchpace said,

    January 17, 2008 @ 3:43 am

    Heather: Thanks so much for doing this comic in response to the article. At first, I figured it was just 1 case of very poor journalism. But a few days later the paper wrote an editorial that denounced co-sleeping. Some people are such idiots.

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-editnbcosleepingpnjan09,0,6839288.story

    Dawn

24. Julinda said,

    January 22, 2008 @ 6:06 am

    soulgasm - loved the comment about the gorilla!

    Anyone else ever wonder if some unexplained infant deaths involved babies who were being left alone to cry? And either the parents felt too horribly guilty to tell it, or the investigating people didn’t deem it important, or it just never made it into the media? Because I have thought about it a lot. I’ve always thought that if that did happen, the parents would just about go insane with feelings of guilt.

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