[Paul11]

Most of the parenting books that raise the issue are concerned with sudden infant death syndrom and not any cultural aspect. There has been a near-panicked response to SIDS and the effort to educate innadequate parents on how not to kill thier babies.

Almost everyone I know or work with have had babies in the last five years and almost all of them have slept with the baby. I've never heard of anyone having a negative reaction to people sleeping with thier babies.

The negative side of that is that the parents have a difficult time maintaining thier relationship if the baby is there 24 hours a day. Even more difficult is when they do eventually attempt to move the baby into it's own crib or bed. The transition is so difficult that many give up and sleep with the child too long.

We slept in our daughters room next to her own crib. So she was close, but not between us. (We bonded with plenty of "skinship" during waking hours). After a while we moved to our own room. That eased the transition because the baby wasn't moved. She got to keep her turf, so to speak.