Wow.
You had me for a while there. I can understand a couple deciding not to have the baby in bed with them. It’s disruptive, especially when you have a son like mine, who sleeps like a flounder in a rowboat. But holy smokes. Quoting people as widely discredited as the Ezzos? Not once, but twice? And describing co-sleeping as “toxic”? I’m speechless. Seriously. As I’m typing this right now, I can’t speak a word.
Co-sleeping isn’t for everybody, and setting a new baby up in a separate nursery with a monitor is just fine. The baby cries, you stagger in, hold him to your chest, and convince him that this strange new world didn’t vaporize while he was unconscious. But when supposedly learned people start telling parents to make a child with no object permanence fend for himself emotionally by ignoring his cries, possibly until he vomits, I just don’t get it. Especially when the after-effects of CIO might not be so “short-lived.”
We liked co-sleeping with Son1 very much, until moved to his crib at 10+ months, and we like co-sleeping with Son2 now. We like the empathy that Son1 shows when he interacts with his little brother. We don’t know if it’s related, but we like to think it is.
And when we want to be alone? We like to get creative.
Just because a mother does not co-sleep does not mean she lets her child cry till he/she vomits. I never co-slept with my Pumpkin, but I also never used the CIO method. I am sure there are many parents like myslef that put their child to sleep in their own room at night but also answer to all their childs needs, nomatter the hour.
Posted by: Ms. Mama | Oct 27, 2005 5:08:45 AM