Alternative Parenting – Page 41 – a hippie with a minivan

Forgot about this…

I completely forgot to talk about my night out!

I left on Saturday just before 6 while the Kids were eating supper…. both of them came and said goodbye to me and both had big smiles on their faces…. no tears, no “I want go wit’ you!!”…. just kisses and waves….
I got to where I was meeting Isabelle at the same time as she was pulling in and our converstation started…

I was only able to get the reservations to the retaurant for 8pm so we had two hours to kill… No Prob!… we went to Cactus (a cool Resto-bar) and had two beers and talked, and talked and talked…. heading out just before 8 and into the restaurant a few doors down… the restaurant we went to was the same that we went to the last time (and first time) we went out together at my Birthday last July… A little thai place that is always full and the food (and price) is amazing…
Both of us ordered “Ã la carte” starting with soup , spring rolls, a main dish of shrimp, onions and green pepper in a sweet and spicy sauce served with rice, and jasmine tea and lychees for dessert…

We left the restaurant at 10:30… We pretty much had one converstation that lasted from 6pm to 10:30 pm interupted only by bathroom breaks and talking the the waitress to order and say thanks when she bought our food….

It really did feel good…

However, I did make one big mistake….

Getting ready for the niht I had the bright idea to put a non-nursing bra on… It is the right size but my body is just not used to it anymore… and by 10pm I was starting to be uncomfortable, by 10:30 it was reallly starting to hurt, by the time I got home I was knew I had a blocked duct…. Xavier was still awake when I got home…. I nursed him right away but was in pain the whole time… I put heat on it, massaged it, took something for the pain and went to get Colin and brought him into our bed and got him to nurse a few times… I had chills and was in a lot of pain during the night and I tried to nurse often and massage as much as I could stand…. in the morning the pain had shifted but was still very much there…. All day Sunday I repeated the massaging, the frequent nursings and the heat…. Sunday night it was better, Monday morning even better and by monday night the pain was gone…..

It will be a long time before I risk using one of those things again….

The Label of Attachment Parenting

I have been getting the impression more and more lately that people have been adopting the AP label because they believe that to do so they

1) have to be simply be “attached” to their child;

2) attend to their child’s “needs”¦

The problem is that the words “attachment parenting” automatically makes us assume that the opposite of AP is being “detached”which is simply not the case…

All children are attached to their parents and most parents do what they think is best for their children (I can’t say “all” because I watch the news and it is simply not true)…

Most parents, AP or NOT believe that they are responding to what they think are their baby’s needs… What it comes down to is what they think their child needs, if they are really listening to their child (or hearing what they want to hear) and also what they expect from their child….

What has been bothering me is that more and more people call themselves AP and don’t even agree that the Sears’s 7 B’s are Ideals and seem to only believe that there is only one important one which is “Balance” (therefore giving them the permission to forgo all of the rest in order to maintain balance even if it means CIO, sleeping in a different room, formula feeding, never wearing baby etc)

It is true that you do not have to do all of the 7 b’s to be a Attached Parent but they do remain the ideals and they should be considered and tried as much (and even more) then anything else, they should be the first step and be the natural stepâ€¦. (The 7 B’s for those who don’t know are these)

Birth Bonding
Breastfeeding
Babywearing
Bedding Close to Baby (family bed or different beds in the same room)
Belief in the language of your baby’s cries
Beware of Baby-Trainers
Balance

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/t130300.asp

However, though the term “Attachment Parenting” started with Dr Sears, it has grown beyond that and has become a philosophy of its own.

This philosophy is to do what comes naturally and instinctively, and the 7 B’s (among others) are part of this instictive reaction, but to do so you must get rid of the expectations that society has put on our children.

We all know why and how these actions work and how they are important in building a relationship of trust and attachment…and there are people that struggle in trying to be AP and fail, and some that just can’t understand AP at all, so what is the difference… we does it work and make sense for some but not for others…?
By design children are Dependant for the first few years of their lives. There is no way around this, there is no denying it…

By Design, 99% of women CAN breastfeed, however, we have not had the experience of learning about breastfeeding from our surroundings because our culture has sexualized the breast and believe that nursing a child shouldn’ be seen. The natural age of a child weaning is between 2.5 and 7 years of age…. weaning a child is most often a result of what we believe is culturally acceptable (for the mom or the child) Sure, “extended” breastfeeding is’t for everyone but why it isn’t for everyone mostly comes from what we believe is culturally acceptable, what we have grown up knowing and is not what we have come to expect from a child after a certain age (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years etc)…

By design, children most often rather be parented to sleep and sleep through the night when they are ready to do so and some may not be ready to be independent in sleep until much later then we would expect. Our culture however, seems to put the emphasis on teaching babies to self-soothe and see sleeping through the night at a young age as a goal. And even go so far as making it not only the goal but saying that the opposite is unhealthy for the child. If children were really designed to sleep through the night at such a young age then there wouldn’t be so much effort to train them to do so… or so much money made with books and baby-training techniques… When brought into bed with the parents, like we as a species have always done, both parent and child get more sleep, and the child learns by example how to fall asleep when waking at night… For some this happens earlier on… but for most it is much later and it is normal.

By design babies want to be held and want to be in our arms… Strollers have only been around since 1733 and even then they were only accessible to the richest of the population until the 1930’s and then only became popular to the general public in the 50’s… with another boom in the 70’s with the umbrella stroller… Before strollers, we held our babies, we did so with our arms or we used pieces of cloth to do so. In holding a baby and wearing them they learn to regulate their temperature, learn balance, cry less (proven to cry 50% less), have less or no Colic, are close enough that we can recognize and respond to their cues quickly, etc… in societies that never use strollers women learn how to wear babies when they themselves are children, they learn by example (like they learn breastfeeding, sewing, cooking etc). Most of the time when people say their children don’t like to be worn it is because they don’t know how to use the carrier and become stressed when trying which the child in turn reflects…. they often also try at bad times (when baby is already upset, tired or hungry) and often don’t start at birth…

All of this goes for saying… AP is a return to the roots of what parenting has always been… and a return to what comes naturally instead of what is culturally sanctioned… and there are many cultures that still have AP as the normal way of parenting…

If you really believe that a child should be sleeping through the night at a certain age, should not be held too much or should no longer be held much after a certain age, if you believe that breastfeeding shouldn’t be continued after a certain age, or that formula is just as good as breastfeeding, if you believe that some children just need to be trained to sleep, if you believe that their cries mean nothing at certain times of the day, if you don’t think that the simple need for comfort in the middle of the night is as important as a physical need after a certain month of age, if you believe that there are just some times that a baby really cries for no reason and that there are times that it is best to leave them alone when they do, If you don’t think you have the time to listen and to respond to your child’s every cue… then the parenting path named Attachment Parenting may simply not be for you, and will probably be more of a struggle then anything else. As much as you may want to work, and believe in the ideas and philosophy, it will not work for you easily if you don’t put aside these cultural expectations…

That doesn’t mean that you can’t use the tools that are often associated with Attachment Parenting (such as wearing, co-sleeping etc) and that they won’t work for you throughout stages of your parental life, but they won’t give you the results that you may expect…(and note I didn’t put breastfeeding in that because breastfeeding should always be done no matter what Parenting path you take)

However, If you are not only willing, but able, to let go of what society tells us is the “normal” and “healthy” way to parent, and truly listen to your child and give your child all of the benefits of the doubt, then not only will Attachment Parenting work but it will be far from the struggle and will become as easy and natural as breathing.

Of course, there are times that we are bombarded with messages or advice from others that are not AP, or we can’t help but fall back on the ideas that we have been fed all of our lives, and it is in these times that we need the support of other Attachment Parents and it is why it is important to be able to use the label of Attachment Parenting…

Sleep issues…

On the board that I Host the last few weeks have been bombarded with “Sleep Issues” and many people coming and saying that CIO can be OK because it is doing what is “best” for baby and mom…

This infuriates me…. There is NO WAY that CIO can be an appropriate response…

A mom there was saying how discouraged she was getting about “AP” because she is tired of her 9 month old not sleeping through the night and how she just thinks that responding to the child’s needs is the cause of the sleep problems… especially since all of the moms that did CIO at 3 months of age are all sleeping great….

So, I had to respond…

“Here is my opinion on the whole subject… and why I think you should not be discouraged…

First…

There is a big population of kids that are forced to cry themselves to sleep night after night (and it IS emotional damaging and can lead to emotional problems later on in life)

Also Crying to sleep is SOLELY for the benefit of the parent… NOT the child… Crying to sleep is physically and emotionally draining (if you have ever done it then you know how draining it is)… (this is another reason that CIO may also “help” them sleep longer)

Also, CIO is not a one time solution because it has to be done over and over again… Say if a child is sick, or teething and and actually gets a response from their parent then they regain the hope that their parent will come to them when they need it and have to be trained all over again…

Another thing is that kids that CIO or are sleep-trained, DO wake up in the night they just know that if they cry no one cares enough to come, they give up… Also like a few of the pp said… some parents just exaggerate and don’t want to admit that they may attend to their child at night because they feel “guilty”….

And, as another pp said… AP parents are maybe more in tune with their parenting style and don’t have as much guilt that their child is not “sleeping through the night”….

So… I think it is NORMAL that a large majority of children are not sleeping through the night…if it wasn’t normal then there wouldn’t be so much money being made in trying to solve “sleep problems” and it wouldn’t be such a big issue…

As for when it comes to Attachment Parenting and “sleep issues”…

Personally… I think that more parents are losing sleep over the idea that their child is not sleeping through the night and also they try to impose what they think a child should be doing instead of letting the child lead…

We all know that trying to get a child to sleep when WE are ready for them to go to sleep but THEY are not is a tiring and exasperating struggle… The moms that I know (AP or NOT) that don’t have “sleep issues” are the ones that try and if it doesn’t work then they just let the child have quiet play etc and then try again when they see another sleepy cue…

Also, there is nothing wrong with nursing to sleep… they will wean from it by themselves when they are ready to do so… Nursing to sleep is a great parenting tool and is not a bad habit… Nature has made us in a way that the hormones in warm milk (like breastmilk) help us fall asleep (even some adults have warm milk before going to sleep)…

Also, a point to make is that a FIVE hour stretch is considered “Sleeping through the night” and NOT the 10-12 hours that people boast about…

So if a child is sleeping 8pm to 1am or 12pm -5am then they are sleeping through the night in the technical sense…

Of course if we didn’t go to sleep at 7pm.. but went to sleep at 11pm then we have only had a 2 hour sleep if our child wakes at 1am then we will not be as well rested. However, he problem then is with OUR sleeping habits, not the child’s!

Of course we don’t want to go to be at 7pm so instead we can try other things such as “dream-nursing” before we go to bed. Co-sleep so that we don’t have to wake fully etc…

Anyway… my point is that it is normal for many kids to be waking at night…and the problem is more our high expectations (too high) of what they should be doing instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt that will do it when they are ready… also we should look at our individual child and follow their cues instead of looking towards a “sleep expert” or a book… especially since they have never read the book and don’t know that they “should” be doing those things 😉

as for me… I have one child that is nursed to sleep and has been sleeping 10-12 hour nights from the time he was 8 weeks old… and one child that fights sleep like crazy and doesn’t always want to be nursed to sleep and wakes up during the night….both have been parented in the same way.. it is that one was ready (and wouldn’t nap during the day even as a newborn) and the other just still needs me at night…I just don’t stress about it…”

The overall response of the board is to be awaited but it will determine if I am going to stay host or not (and I have been leaning towards resigning for a while now)…

Lately people have been getting the impression that AP is simply having your child be attached to you emotionally and that if you are not an AP parent then you are completely detached…. They also get completely stuck on only one of the 7 B’s (Balance) and seem to be able to dismiss all of the rest (birth bonding, breastfeeding, babywearing, beware of baby trainers, belief in the language value of baby’s cries) and justify dismissing the rest because it will maintain “balance”…

Personally I think the opposite of attachment Parenting is not “detached” but “separation”… They can still be emotionally attached (even a child who is beaten is still emotionally attached to their parents….. and I am Not saying that Mainstream is equal to beating)

But… What I see (and don’t like) about Mainstream parenting is the need and goal of having an independent child at a very young age… They are proud that they can leave their child with anyone… they are proud that they don’t have to hold their child often, they are proud that their child doesn’t care if they are with them or not… they are proud that their child no longer “needs” them…. they also expect that their children shouldn’t need them…

AP is not only about doing what is best for the child but it is about listening to the child and not imposing your expectations on them… Someone who is making their child Cry themselves to Sleep justifies it often by saying that it is what the child “needs” and that they are responding to their childs “need to sleep”…. and can therefore see it in the realm of AP…..But this is NOT AP… this is a mainstream way of thinking…. I don’t think that any mom LIKES to make their child Cry themselves to sleep but they believe that it is in the best interests of the child…. when it is really because of an unrealistic expectation brought on by society…. if they actually listened to what the child needs then there wouldn’t be the need for tears…

I am not a violent person… but…..

Oh my god I wanted to see that woman hurt!!

I have rarely felt this way about anyone but today this woman just made me see red.

We went to see the “pediatrician” today and it was one of the worst experiences of my life… After almost 2 hours of waiting I got in her office and she didn’t have clue of why we were there until I told her that she is the one that called me about the test results… I let her do her shtick as she explained to me that she wanted to have more blood tests taken to see Colin’s Iron storage levels, she examined Colin (who was amazing like always and let her do her thing without a sound) and then started to explain the papers that she was giving me… I asked her if he was anemic 2 weeks ago when he was in the hospital and he wasn’t, it was just on the last test that his levels were going lower, (his white blood cell count i back to normal btw) then I asked if it could be due to the meds that he had taken or the virus and attempted to show her what I had found but she said that she wouldn’t look at it and said that she has never heard of anemia being caused by such circumstances.. I then asked her if the tests could wait a few weeks so that we could see if it goes up naturally but she didn’t agree and said that it had to be done at that moment and then started to fill out the paper to see a dietician also.

While we were talking, Colin was in the pouch and signed Maju, so I just let him drink…

She got UPSET saying that now he couldn’t get the tests done today cause he is supposed to fast for at least 4 hours… I said in a “joking” kind of way that he would then not have the test for a few more months because he drinks often still, and besides from what I have learned there are to contradictions of breastfeeding before a blood test and it is considered a “clear liquid” just like it is considered a clear liquid before surgery…. she disagreed and said that breast milk is just like any other solid and it can’t be taken for 8 hours prior to surgery (this is NOT true) and then said that I should come first thing in the morning because then he would have been the night without eating… So stupidly I told her that he still eats at night so that i not an option either…

This is when the conversation got heated, first she started telling me about how breast milk after a year has no more nutritional value (but just antibodies) , so I laughed and asked her if it just magically changed overnight at their first birthday or what? She then asked if I give extra Iron and Vit D, because there isn’t enough in breast milk, I said no, but I assure that they have enough sun exposure… she then said that there is not enough Iron in breast milk so it is very important to give supplements… I then said something like Isn’t it true though that there is less Iron in breast milk, but it is absorbed at a rate of 50% compared to the 4-10% absorption in Formula and cow milk and therefore there is actually more Iron that is absorbed when breastfed… she then scuffed it off and then preceded to tell me that as a “Pediatrician” she has a few “rules” that she tells parents and (this became the turning point from frustration to Anger)…

1. Babies should never sleep in their parents bed because it is dangerous blah blah blah… and when I told her that I don’t agree she then told me about a baby that does in the moms bed…. we argued a bit on that point and then she went back and said her first point again and then said

2. they have to be sleeping through the night by 2 months old and then told me about CIO… this is when I kind of exploded, I told her that I actually love my kids and wouldn’t let them CIO because I want them to know that I will always be there for them, I asked her about breastfeeding babies and if she has the same “rule” especially since breast milk is digested easily and she said that by 8 weeks old babies no longer need to eat at night and they need to start to learn to be independent, she then told me that she is a doctor not a psychologist and she just says what she believes it to be better medially … I stood up at that point and started to leave…While I started picking up everything and started to head out of the door I asked her if she truly thought that a 2 month old needed to be trained how to be independent, and if it sleeping though the night was truly a medical issue, and I started to go for the paper on her desk, and this is where it really got to me… she didn’t let me pick up my paper on her desk for the blood test and continued in her rant about how dangerous it was to co-sleep and how she is a doctor etc… I told her at that point that she was crazy…(she answered by saying that I shouldn’t call a “pediatrician” crazy)….

I then took the papers from her hand and left….

This is what I was talking about the other day when I said that I can’t understand why people actually listen to idiots like her…

Why the hell did I have that kind of conversation when I was going in to check his blood for Iron? Why do these idiots think that their medical degree gives them the right to give out parenting advice especially to someone that didn’t need it and didn’t ask for it…

I left there feeling like I wanted to hit something, I wanted to hit her, I was shaking, I had tears in my eyes, I was upset and everything that I was in there in the first place was taken out of my head by her ignorance and stupidity, if she doesn’t even know the basics about breastfeeding how can I trust that she knows the basics about other things….

Without thinking, I headed to the blood test room… I asked them if it was OK if he had nursed before and they told me that breast milk is fine before a blood test and won’t change a thing. I asked if it was possible to keep him in the pouch like the last blood test we had taken and she said no and that she had to go in his arm.. I looked at her and asked if she was serious, Looked at Colin, thought it though a minute, and then asked if the paper would still be good in a few weeks and she said yes… I went back to the secretary and asked fer the prescription back…

I then headed across the hall to the archives room and asked to get a copy of Colin’s file. (I will have it at the beginning of next week) and then headed back to the blood test room and asked if I get the test done in a few weeks if I can just get the results myself so that I can bring them to the doctor of my choice and they said that there shouldn’t be a problem.

So….Here is my plan….

I love my family doctor even though he is an hour away and I don’t want to ever see that woman again… so I called my Family doctor when we got home, told him a bit about the situation and asked if it would be ok to just go get a blood test in a few weeks and then go see him with the results of the blood test and his medical file… he said that he would be happy to do that with me and that there is no problem waiting a few weeks (as long as it isn’t a few months) to see if things have improved and that he would be there when I was ready… he did however say that it would be better to make sure that he is eating well and to provide some high iron foods in the meantime to help him get his storage up…

So, though I didn’t want to go see dietitian I just took an appointment anyways.. I think it could be a good opportunity to ask a few questions about diet… best foods for iron, calcium and other vitamins and what food should be taken together etc to best help absorb…. especially because I would like to shift towards a more vegetarian diet and I have an older picky eater …

Great Article in the New York times on Co-sleeping!

And Baby Makes Three in One Bed
By AMY HARMON
Published: December 29, 2005
JENNIFER JAKOVICH has spent most of her 5-month-old daughter’s life dodging questions from friends, family and strangers about how and where Chloe sleeps. But since hearing that Dr. Richard Ferber, the country’s most famous infant sleep expert, has relaxed his admonition against parents sleeping with their babies, she has taken a different tack.

Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times
Jennifer and John Jakovich (with Chloe) consider themselves vindicated by the reversal of Dr. Richard Ferber, the infant sleep expert.
“I now mention Ferber’s new view while openly admitting to co-sleeping,” said Ms. Jakovich, an engineer in San Diego. She has broken the news to friends that Chloe sleeps in the same bed with her and her husband, John, a computer programmer. “I feel I have now been given the green light, that it’s O.K.”
The Jackoviches are part of a growing group of American parents who share a bed with their baby, a common practice in the rest of the world, which had become nearly taboo in this country. A survey by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found that about one-fifth of parents with infants up to eight months old said the baby usually shared a bed with them, more than triple the number of a decade ago.
The trend appears to be driven largely by the increase in breastfeeding working mothers, who say it allows them to connect with their babies and still get some sleep. But given the prevailing cultural distaste, many parents say they have felt compelled to hide their shared sleeping arrangements.
It is a testament to Dr. Ferber’s influence that even the halfhearted nod he has given the practice in interviews has inspired a kind of collective coming-out party among co-sleeping parents. Transcripts of his network news and talk show appearances last month are being circulated on the Internet and recited on the playground.
“Even though I shouldn’t have to defend myself, it is nice to have that,” Ms. Jakovich said. Like many other parents, she never intended to sleep with her daughter. “My view was that granola-hippie-type people co-sleep,” she added.
But Ms. Jakovich, 30, quickly found that she slept better when she didn’t have to get up in the night to nurse Chloe. To make things more comfortable, the Jakoviches took one side off Chloe’s deluxe crib and pushed it up against their mattress, which they upgraded to a king-size.
The old Dr. Ferber would not have approved. In his best-selling 1985 book, “Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems,” he advised parents to let babies cry for intervals of up to 45 minutes without responding, to train them to sleep on their own. Should the child cry so hard that he throws up, parents are to clean up and leave again. “If you reward him for throwing up by staying with him, he will only learn that this is a good way for him to get what he wants,” Dr. Ferber wrote.
Parents who take a baby into their bed instead, the book suggested, damage the child’s development as an individual and are probably only trying to avoid their own intimacy problems. “If you find that you actually prefer to sleep with your infant,” it warned, “you should consider your own feelings very carefully.”
Practiced by millions of parents and widely promoted by pediatricians, Ferberization and its variations tap into the American desire to imbue children with independence from an early age. Setting babies apart in their own cribs also eases a typically American tendency to see sleeping arrangements as sexual rather than social, some anthropologists say.
Concerns about safety, albeit contested, added to the consensus against bed sharing, so that a baby’s completing a sleep-training regimen has come to be seen as a developmental milestone comparable to crawling or cutting a first tooth.
Now, in a flurry of publicity for a revised version of Dr. Ferber’s book, he has allowed that his technique is not suitable for all babies and that children can develop healthy sleep habits sleeping in their parents’ bed.
A spokeswoman for Dr. Ferber’s publisher, Marcia Burch, the vice president for publicity at Touchstone Fireside, a division of Simon & Schuster, said he had been taken aback by the interest in his position on bed sharing and that Dr. Ferber, the director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children’s Hospital in Boston, would not comment further until the new edition is published in March.
“He totally underestimated the reaction,” Ms. Burch said. “He totally misunderstood that this was going to be really big news.”
Still, Dr. Ferber’s shift has sparked celebration among some parents, who have faced criticism for defying the American dictum that babies should learn to sleep alone. And in a child-rearing battle that has become as ideological as it is intimate, others say vindication is in order, not from Dr. Ferber so much as from fellow parents who evangelize his teachings with moral fervor.
“It is at her next doctor’s appointment, her 12-month checkup,” Christina Harrison said of her daughter, Alyssa, “that I relish the chance to bring it up the most.” Ms. Harrison, 29, let Alyssa cry until her voice was hoarse at her pediatrician’s urging. “It was horrible.”
Ms. Harrison has resolved to sleep with Alyssa until she is happier about being in her own bed.
Stephanie Lazure, 31, hopes to show a clip of the ABC News interview with Dr. Ferber to her husband’s boss, who bought the couple Dr. Ferber’s book as a baby present. “She comes over and shakes her finger in the baby’s face and says, ‘You have to learn to self-soothe,’ ” Ms. Lazure said. “It’s not that I feel criticized. It’s that I feel my baby is being criticized for not sleeping.”
Pressure not to co-sleep isn’t coming only from relatives and other parents. Many pediatricians discourage the practice because they worry about parents rolling over and smothering the baby. But the question of how co-sleeping affects the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, known as SIDS, is contested. Last month the American Academy of Pediatrics SIDS task force released a statement discouraging parents from sharing beds with their babies.
But the academy’s own section on breastfeeding argues that bed sharing is safe in many circumstances and can benefit babies by facilitating breastfeeding. And an epidemiological study published in the fall in the journal Pediatrics found no higher sudden infant death risk for infants older than 11 weeks unless the mother smokes.
“Some of the opponents of bed sharing persist in their beliefs in spite of the scientific evidence,” said Dr. Martin Lahr, who is an author of the paper on bed sharing.
Co-sleeping has long been embraced by devotees of Dr. William Sears and his philosophy of “attachment parenting,” who dismiss Dr. Ferber’s earlier methods as cruel. Ferber fans have in turn derided co-sleepers as sacrificing themselves and their romantic relationships in the name of spoiling a baby who needs parents to set limits.
But many of the new co-sleepers appear to base their sleeping arrangements on a blend of pragmatism and pleasure, rather than on a particular approach to parenthood. Some push together queen mattresses with twin mattresses, others snuggle closer together or improvise each night. Cribs, Pack ‘N Plays and bassinets become useful repositories for toys and laundry.
Rita Hunt Smith, 39, a children’s librarian in Hershey, Pa., began co-sleeping with her first son, Ezra, after spending an agonizing night listening to him cry in the crib down the hall. Then she came to treasure the closeness it forged among Ezra, her and her husband, Kurt, a graphic artist.
Now 3Â½, Ezra spends most nights in his own bed, while the Smiths’ 14-month-old son, Fletcher, sleeps with them. Perhaps because her husband has an older son from a previous marriage, Ms. Smith said, he has been supportive, even though he would like more room for his 6-foot-3 frame.
“He knows the day is coming when they won’t even want to be in the same room with us, so let’s soak it up now,” Ms. Smith said. Upon waking, Fletcher, who has just begun to talk, greets his parents with “hiya.”
Ms. Smith said she used to be highly secretive about their co-sleeping, but has begun talking more about it during baby story-time sessions she runs. Her mother, though, “continues to think I’m ruining my sons’ sleep habits forever,” she said.
Child development experts have said that Dr. Ferber was likely to be reacting to accumulated research since his earlier edition that supports the notion that babies have different temperaments and that their development is best served when parents are able to adapt to their individual needs.
“It is clear that children of differing temperaments need different things at night, just as they do during the day,” said Sara Harkness, the director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Health and Human Development at the University of Connecticut.
Dr. Harkness, who has conducted cross-cultural research on infant sleep habits in several countries, said no studies have borne out the connection originally drawn by Dr. Ferber and others between teaching babies to sleep alone and their ability to develop autonomy.
“It’s an American myth,” Dr. Harkness said. “It’s fine to think about training children to be independent, but there has been this misguided effort to extend it to an area where it’s really not developmentally appropriate.”
Some co-sleeping parents say they do not need advice from experts to decide where their baby should sleep.
“With no intended disrespect to Dr. Ferber, I do not need his opinion to validate my view that co-sleeping is the healthiest, safest and most natural sleep situation for my child,” Kristi Buxton, 29, a microbiology researcher in Portland, Ore., wrote in an e-mail message. “The individual who has most influenced (and radically changed) my beliefs about co-sleeping is my child.”