The Disaster Called Co-Sleeping
Posted on 06 10, 2006 under Predad by Noodad |
This article should serve as either a warning, a hard slap-in-the-face wake up call, or reassurance that you are doing the right thing. Co-sleeping is a plague that is sweeping the world, ready to take out every desperate couple in their path. For those who need to know, co-sleeping is the term given to children who sleep in the same bed as their parents. It is a dangerous situation physically, and socially. The only way to prevent it, is to never start it. The only way to stop it is to grow a pair, deal with your child"s weaning process, and quit it cold turkey.
Listen, if you are stuck in the rut, don"t be down on yourself. It is very easy to do. Your kid screams in the crib all night every night for 6 days straight and you don"t care about anything except to steal some zzzz"s. But allowing a child to sleep with you overnight is like inviting Satan into your bed. He might be ok the first night, but every night after that, he will make your time a living hell. There are many people like you and yes, it is easier to just continue the routine. But the next thing you know, they will be hogging your bed and spooning with you. That ain"t right noodads.
Co-sleeping is dangerous. If your kid is a baby, they can easily suffocate in your deep blankets or lose oxygen when you accidently roll over them. Your kid won"t be able to push you off of them. Also, you will jeopardize your marriage by co-sleeping. Kind of hard to work out some bedtime magic, when your kid is sleeping between you. And if you think you can pull it off with a kid in bed, you need to seek counseling.
For those who haven"t started yet, it is very simple. Don"t do it. Not even for one night. Every night you do it, will take you a week to get them to stop. Consider this a warning.
So to summarize, if you want to have the opportunity to have relations with your wife, don"t start co-sleeping. It can"t get any easier than that.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by your friend, Noodad.
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I\'m pretty sure all research indicates that the rolling over your baby while they are asleep thing is a complete myth. If anything, co-sleeping advocates would say it is safer than leaving a baby in a crib.
Also, the few times we did it when one of our babies was sick were actually wonderful nights for the family, there is truly nothing like sleeping together with a baby.
I think this falls into the each-to-his-own category.
Dr. Sears has a great piece on co-sleeping here, http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp
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How could sleeping in a bed with 1 or 2 grown adults be safer than being in a crib without blankets and large, possibly mobile objects? I fail to see your logic or reasoning here and would argue that you are just being contradictory for the sake of doing so.
This article CLEARLY is not about the magical, Disney-(or-Neverland-)esque moment your family shared when your kid was sick. This is a warning about kids sleeping in bed with the parents ALL THE TIME.
This Dr. Sears article is pure RUBBISH written by some parents who are weak with discipline. They\'re probably the same ones who bribe their kids with a candy bar at the store when they\'re crying. Who is running the household? The parents or the kids?
Look at this dog vomit from the article:
\"As I watched the sleeping pair, I was intrigued by the harmony in their breathing. When Martha took a deep breath, baby took a deep breath. When I draped our tiny babies skin-to-skin over my chest, (a touch I dubbed \"the warm fuzzy\") , I noticed their breathing would synchronize with the rise and fall of my chest. \"
There is a name for this. It is co-dependency. It is not healthy. The parents are enabling the children and in this case, the parents are actually convinced that this is good for the family. They\'ve even come up with cute little crunchy stories to make it seem all warm and fuzzy. RUBBISH!!! HOGWASH!!!! HU SHUO!!!
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And that is written by Dr. Sears himself, an incredibly respected pediatrician who has eight children of his own, who he has brought up with his wife, also Dr. Sears.
Worldwide statistics indicate that co-sleeping is far safer than the crib industry would like you to believe, http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFac...
Again, we haven\'t done co-sleeping with our kids but I\'m not one to judge.
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There are basically three things the article is concerned about -- danger to the baby, impediments to sex, and the fear that it\'s impossible to stop.
The first, the danger, is basically untrue. You\'re not going to squoosh the baby any more than you\'re going to roll out of the bed onto the floor in the middle of the night. There\'s really only a danger here if you\'re drinking or on some other substance. And of course you need a firm bed and no heavy blankets.
The second is of course a concern to all men, but realistically, if your sex life doesn\'t take a hit after you have kids (particularly in the first three months), you are an aberration. (A very lucky aberration, but still.) And cosleeping just means you have to find some other time and place for the \"bedtime magic\" -- and if you can\'t do that, you\'re not trying very hard.
And finally, the \"you\'ll never be able to stop\" idea. This is probably true for some people, but it wasn\'t for us. We coslept for about a year, until our daughter started getting more mobile. At that point, we transitioned her to her own crib in her own room, a process which took about a week (with two hard nights right at first). And that was with no \"crying it out\".
That\'s the rebuttal to the \"warnings\" of the article. On the other side, there are significant benefits. Unlike, say, reptiles, newborn human babies are meant to be under the care of parents. Sleeping next to mom and dad helps regulate the baby\'s sleep and breathing. And obviously it makes breastfeeding easier for mom (don\'t discount the benefits of \"making things easier for mom\" on helping your relationship!). But beyond that, some studies have shown that babies who cosleep grow into happier and better adjusted and better disciplined children and adults. And, as a new parent, it\'s really nice to be able to glance over in the middle of the night and see that your little one is all right.
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Then there\'s the cry of \"co-dependency\". There\'s nothing \"co\" about it -- tiny babies are COMPLETELY dependent on their parents. That\'s the way we are. (See earier comment about humans vs reptiles.) And to re-emphasize what rupertz says, Dr. Sears isn\'t some starry-eyed hippy parent with no actual knowledge. He\'s a doctor, and knows that little babies need to be taken care of.
Then there\'s the assertation by both foodad and noodad that cosleeping is \"weak\" and shows poor discipline. I suppose this is true if your ideal of fatherhood is the 1950s or Victorian-era father, with the whole \"I\'m the [I]breadwinner[/I]; taking care of the kids is women\'s work, call me when they\'re big enough to play baseball or if they need hitting with a belt\" thing. But real discipline is about more than being a hard-ass just for the sake of being The Discipline Guy. (If you want that, get a job as a drill instructor or a high-school vice principal.)
I highly encourage you both to read Dr. Sear\'s [URL=http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/T060100.asp]suggestions on discipline[/URL], particularly the first two links there.
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I have nothing but respect for people who chose to co-sleep. Some parenting things are truly black and white, like, say putting a baby in a car with no car seat. Co-sleeping simply isn\'t one of those issues.
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The bottom line of being a noodad is you and your wife will be forced with hard decisions like these. If you play the safe choice, you do not co-sleep.
As for sacrifice, co-sleeping, IMHO, should not be one of them. I still stand by my opinion, that for the majority of co-sleeping families, it was started by an initial weakness by the parents.
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So go ahead and deicide for yourselves but if you let your son sleep with you don\'t be surprised if he comes home beat up by the local kids every now and then. :cry
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And his books are great reading!
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My wife and I take responsibility for our decisions. Yes, we consult the experts, but if we have learned the hard way that they are not always right.
You can cite his credentials all you want. For every Dr. Sears I would bet there is another 2 to 3 experts that disagree with him.
:grin
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Our first daughter has co-slept with us since she was out of the hospital with her mama. Now, at three, she goes to bed on her own (after stories from me and \"huggies and rubbies\" from mom), and we scoop her up into our communal bed when we go to sleep.
It\'s been awesome so far, and we\'re happy to provide that confidence (that someone is always there for them) to our kids in their formative years.
As for the sex life, that\'s necessarily hampered by children coming into our lives, but we boink like maniac animals in the living room while the kids sleep. What\'s the difference [i]where[/i] you do it?
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Really?
Well, your sex life must be pretty sad confined to the bed.
We have sex ALL OVER THE HOUSE with my 2 year old fast asleep in our bedroom.
HEHE.