In a message dated 7/27/99 6:51:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<
 Dear Katie, like so many things there is no one right thing to do.  I
 mentioned my daughter's inability to sleep with her baby early on.  I don't
 believe Kelly EVER had a bottle and she was unbelievably fat.  And nursed
 for about 2 1/2 years.  There is a broad range to normal and babies and
 moms are so adaptable.  Yes, we "know" what is ideal (or think we know) but
 under various circumstances moms and babies manage anyhow (in spite of us
 :-)  By holding up rigid ideals/standards we put moms in an unrealistic
 place.   People need wiggle room.  I hope you get what I'm trying to say.
 So many writers lately have made statements as absolutes.  I guess I'm
 saying there are no absolutes.  Sincerely, Pat in SNJ>>>

I definitely do get what you are saying Pat. And I certainly never make the
point in my writing that one way of doing things works for all families.
After all, my bottle-fed seven year old is just fine :-)  Really he is!

But I stand by my assertion that having infants sleep alone is, as Dr. James
McKenna has said, an exceedingly recent, novel and alien experience in human
history. I also believe that in most cases, a satisfying co-sleeping
arrangement for mother and infant is most conducive to successful
breastfeeding. Of course there are exceptions to this. But I don't think it's
a coincidence that parents in the west rarely sleep with their babies and
rarely breastfeed for more than a few months, if at all. And I definitely
believe that having babies in bed with a cue-breastfeeding mother is safest
for infants,  even if the parents'  lifestyle preference would be to have the
baby elsewhere at night. Sometimes parental preferences--wherever they come
from-- come into conflict with babies' needs.

I think that our culture is strongly biased against allowing mothers and
babies to sleep together enjoyably and there are many women who don't enjoy
sleeping with their babies because they  are carrying around a lot of
cultural baggage about where family members *should* sleep (parents alone
together, each child in own room/bed).  In my work, I want to open parents up
to the idea that it's a *positive* parenting choice to sleep with their
babies. There is plenty of parenting info out there that supports the idea of
baby in crib/mom in own bed. I want to offer alternative information. What
parents then do with that info is, of course,  entirely up to them!

Respectfully--

Katie

Katie Allison Granju
http://www.attachmentparent.com/





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