If you haven't guessed from the title of the blog, I am a big proponet of co-sleeping with infants, toddlers, and young children. I'll be the first to admit, it isn't for everyone, in fact I didn't co-sleep with my oldest child until 2 years of age. My youngest has co-slept since birth. There is a big difference between the two, however. My oldest was formula fed and my youngest is breast fed. Breastfeeding can make a big difference in the choice to co-sleep or not.
There are many people out there who try to confuse the facts about co-sleeping, and one of the largest groups that does this is baby furniture manufacturers. This is a simple and terrible fact. Studies are often funded by those that profit from the results. Many will say that co-sleeping is unsafe and increases the risk of SIDS. The fact is co-sleeping, in combination with breastfeeding, lowers the risk of SIDS. Dr. James McKenna's work shows this without a doubt. Are there accidental deaths associated with co-sleeping? Of course. Overlaying does happen, however in most cases drugs, smoking, or other factors are included. The problem is when you look at statistics for SIDS, actual SIDS deaths are not seperated from overlaying deaths with co-sleeping parents. They should be grouped with accidental deaths, not SIDS, just as children who die in crib accidents are. This unfairly inflates the statistics and does not give parents a true measure of the safety of either crib sleeping or co-sleeping.
And since I'm not subtle around here I'll come out and say it. Crib sleeping is what is causing the epidemic of SIDS that the western world sees. Why else would countries where co-sleeping is the normal method of infant sleep not even have a word for SIDS since it so rarely happens (China)? Why else is the original name of SIDS "crib-death"? Because it happened in cribs. There are many reasons, but when it comes down to it, human babies are designed to sleep with human mothers, just like other animals. I have yet to see an mammal who leaves their young to sleep elsewhere.
