I've spent my career studying how culture affects biology, so I certainly
recognize that it does.  I was just saying that we have to get away from
studying one particular cultural set of behaviors and claiming that the
biological results (how long babies sleep at night) apply to all other
situations.

>Hardly anyone carries her baby all the time, and sleeps with her baby, and
>feeds her baby several times an hour without ever thinking about it as 'a
>feed' ...for months and then, with some changes, for  years.

I know it is hard not to assume that everyone shares our cultural beliefs
and practices, but remember that most women in the world carry their baby
(or someone else carries the baby), and most women in the world sleep with
their babies and many do indeed feed their babies several times an hour
around the clock for a few minutes each time.  Western industrialized
cultural beliefs and behaviors represent only a small fraction of the women
in the world.  And even in the US, some women also carry their babies,
sleep with them, and nurse them very often around the clock, for many years.

So let's not "normalize" scheduled feeding and solitary sleeping and claim
that it is impossible for modern women to parent in a more natural way,
because in fact, most women in the world still do practice attachment
parenting.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html