Hi, Lactnetters

Someone posted a note the other day referring to a couple of articles in the
latest Child magazine about co-sleeping and bottle feeding. I stood at the
magazine racks at the grocery store an embarassingly long time today reading
through the two articles, trying to keep the expletive muttering inaudible to
those around me.

The co-sleeping article quotes Dr. Sears and James McKenna, but basically just
in the "touchy-feely" department. NEVER mentioned any of McKenna's SIDS
research, although there was one minor statement of how the infant who co-sleeps
with mom seems to match breathing with mom's. In a couple of places it mentions
some unnamed study about how children who have grown up co-sleeping have more
behavior problems and psychological problems. (I have to wonder if perhaps the
problem comes when these children grow up with enough self-confidence and
self-esteem to expect to be treated as humans rather than small robots in the
school settings....pardon the editorializing here....) It has a chart showing
that 90% of MDs are against co-sleeping, and quotes Dr. Barton Schmidt and Dr.
Brazelton, I think. (I was tempted to buy it so I could quote it better but I
refused to pay money for it.) The general tone of the article is that yes, folks
do sleep with their kids, but doing so flies in the face of common sense. It
mentions that a lot of LLL members sleep with their kids, but given that they as
a group are more likely to bf for 2-3 years, this isn't surprising. Perhaps I
was already on the defensive while reading this, but the way that was worded
sounded like "These folks are already demostratably wacko for their parenting
choices, so it follows that they would co-sleep, too."

The bottle feeding in the 90's article was equally agrevating. Full of helpful
info so bottle feeding mom does not have to feel guilty for making that choice.
Sounding like formula ads all the way through: "Of course bf is best for
babies...." One MD was quoted saying that babies should not have cow's milk
before 12 months, so therefore, it is inevitable that most parents will find
themselves giving baby formula sometime during that first year since bf
exclusively is so rare in this country. Does mention nipple confusion and
suggests waiting 4 weeks before introducing a bottle, and then adds something
about if you have to do it sooner, no more than one bottle every 24 hours and
gave a couple of cases in which moms switched back and forth and didn't have any
problems.

Did anybody who is capable of being less biased read these articles???

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC
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