Story about co-sleeping on the Today Show

[rainingroses]

Originally Posted by Nebula The media and the "experts" always conveniently ignore the fact that co-sleeping is the worldwide norm and in primitive societies that remain close to nature and are exceedingly physically and emotionally healthy as a result, co-sleeping obviously does not result in unhealthy sleep patterns. The societies that don't practice it as the norm are the ones full of unhealthy sleep patterns and emotional issues! Co-sleeping isn't for everyone, but dang, can people be ignorant.

We have been co-sleeping since day one and I always hear that I'm going to kill my baby (from friends and relatives mostly, but also from perfect strangers). And if she survives () she will be emotionally disturbed (read: insecure, clingy, having dependent personality disorder) for life.

Hoghwash, I say.

[turtle2who]

I missed it since I had to leave for work- I'm going to check out the link.

[kotero]

What a biased view!!! I especially 'like' the way that the first expert completely breezed over the fact that children sleeping with parents is common across the world and that there is "nothing inherently bad about it."
Then goes on to how everyone isn't getting enough sleep this way.

They are only really addressing children who wake from their own beds and go into their parents' bed....nothing about a family, sharing a family bed. So it's really not about co-sleeping. It would be nice to see a different perspective shown by mainstream media.

And the second expert says "Nobody sleeps as well"...because they're hot, tossing and turning, etc.

And as far as the "developmental milestone"....I still c/s with my dd#1, especially right now. Forget the "skills" she needs to learn to sleep in her own bed....she needs to feel safe and secure (especially when Daddy is gone). She sleeps better when I'm there. But she sleeps well by herself too. I don't think I'm stunting her development by sharing a family bed with her.

[turtle2who]

he he he

I like how Meredith Viera slips in her comment at the end. "My kids slept with us and they turned out just fine."

[turtle2who]

I am a member of the "to each his own" camp. Everyone has to do what is best for their family.

I have co-slept on and off with my son for the past 3 years. He has always had his own bed but slept with me for the first 2 mos of his life. Neither of us were sleeping well so I tried putting him in his own bed in our room and we all slept better. Then we tried side-carring the crib for a while when he was around 10 mos old and that lasted a couple of months until we moved and went back to having him in his crib in the corner of our room. He would join us in bed around 5 am. Then he went to his own room for a while. Then he got sick and slept with us for pretty much the whole winter. Then he went back to his own bed but joined us when he woke in the night. Then he stopped waking in the night and slept in his own bed from dusk to dawn. Then we moved again and he would come to bed with us in the middle of the night- he did that for 6 months. Then I worked on getting him to sleep in his bed again. So we have had periods of 100% co-sleeping and periods (although very short!) of 100% solo sleeping. But most of the time we have had him going to bed in his own room and waking to join us at some point in the night.

I LOVE having him in our bed and my dh does too. The problem is- I don't sleep well with him there. He tosses and turns and kicks me and when I wake up I have trouble getting back to sleep. So I sleep on the same side all night with my body pillow between me and him. And I get uncomfortable and don't sleep well. So- some nights I go sleep in his bed- and it is usually the best sleep I have had in a while! But he wakes screaming because I am not in the bed with him. Oh well.

So- I know that what the "expert" says can be true. I get better sleep when he is not in the bed with me. And he gets better sleep when he sleeps in his own bed all night. (Because he isn't waking to come in our bed.) But as always- generalizations do not apply to all cases. And I know plenty of people who co-sleep 100% and LOVE it!

[aoifeaisling]

Originally Posted by Terra Does anyone happen to know in the Western World when/how/why we got away from centuries of family practices and *think* we are doing better or have progressed more? It's very interesting to me how this has all come about. I know it is fairly recent [like a few hundred years] to have moved away from primitive 'attached' [for lack of a better word] parenting.

After about four weeks of not sleeping after my son was born, I finally found "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and started tight swaddling my son. We started sleeping well immediately! My husband, who is Moroccan, looked at me and said, "I tried to tell you about this stuff but you didn't want to listen to me!" So true! So much of this stuff is still common sense overseas, but here, unless you hear it from Dr. Soandso with his PhDs, we don't give it a second thought. We are addicted to "experts"!

[Terra]

Originally Posted by aoifeaisling After about four weeks of not sleeping after my son was born, I finally found "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and started tight swaddling my son. We started sleeping well immediately! My husband, who is Moroccan, looked at me and said, "I tried to tell you about this stuff but you didn't want to listen to me!" So true! So much of this stuff is still common sense overseas, but here, unless you hear it from Dr. Soandso with his PhDs, we don't give it a second thought. We are addicted to "experts"!

Interesting! Thanks for the input mama While I was working my B.A. there were quite a few international students and we started talking one day about child rearing [this was pre baby/marriage days for me]. But I remember a couple of the men from Kenya said that where they were from it would be considered almost neglect leaving a child/baby in another room to sleep by him/herself and/or cry themselves to sleep.
So yeah, it is true, this is stuff they've been doing for thousands of years but somehow so many of us have quite listening