[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by 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.

But the horror of SIDS, and the huge push to make the baby learn to "soothe itself" are completely different things. SIDS rates in co-sleepers are lower than in those in babies who sleep alone. Suffocation due to the parent being under the influence of something (drugs or alcohol) is the main issue with babies dying while sleeping with a parent.
The main push is indeed cultural.

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.

But how many of them STILL sleep with their babies? Co-sleeping isn`t having the baby in a bassinet in the room and pulling it into the bed when it needs fed. Nor is it letting the child sleep with the parents when they`ve had a bad dream or are sick.

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.

And here is where the cultural bits kick in! What is "too long"? What if a parent doesn`t feel that the child needs to be moved out of the family bed at all?
THAT is where you start hitting on some major cultural ideals and issues. Most people in the US feel that the sooner the baby can put itself to sleep in another room, away from the parents... the better. Because, well, if you let them depend on their parents at night for too long, you`ll have hell to pay in the end / are setting the child up for "issues" / etc.

If you think this isn`t a cultural issue... tell me why - despite multiple studies that show the opposite - people in the US believe that a child who is not moved to their own bed will have all sorts of problems. Tell me why in Japan, every parent I know sees it as totally acceptable to have their children sleep with them up until grade school and beyond.

These are indeed cultural issues, but so implanted as fact in the minds of most people in the US that they don`t immediately appear to be so.