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.

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.

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.

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.

I know what co-sleeping is. Most people I know do it. In case you forgot, American is a diverse society, especially in California where whites are the minority and where most people I know have relatives or parents who came from all over the earth. It's very common here. Most of the self-soothing stuff I read was really outdated - The Dr. Spock stuff that my generation was raised with.

And when did I say this isn't a cultural issue? I'm a cultural anthropologist by education and training. One of the cultural differences is that American culture respects and expects self-sufficiency. In Japan the cultural group and family is more close-knit. The American style of dependance does not work in Japan. The Japanese style doesn't work so well in America either - a child raised that way in the states would be considered weak.

Once again, you took some pretty general and innocuous ideas, from someone who has always expressed respect to you and solidarity on several issues, and blew them out of proportion. This issue is by no means a central issue to anything.

Please don't assume people are either stupid or attacking your posts.

You know, by that bolded sentence there, I guess I'm a Japanese person trapped in a black person's body. :lol:

So you think Japanese person, family or culture can be summed up in one sentence?

That was rediculous.

The statement stands as one statement about one aspect of one topic.

Christ almighty, do people really just look for things to fight or argue about in these threads? Is it possible to have one discussion where thin-skinned people don't assume a post is an attack or where someone doesn't turn a discussion onto an argument?

I didn`t feel you were stupid or attacking me. In fact, I didn`t even realize your post was directly in reply to me. I thought it was just your views on the issue.

I wrote that in what I believed was a very calm manner. I think you misunderstood my statements as being in anger or something of the like. It wasn`t at all.

You said that the issues regarding co-sleeping were not cultural ones, but were related to SIDS. I was pointing out that the issue with SIDS is not a real issue, and has been proven not to be. So it is all cultural. It doesn`t matter what sort of paper it`s wrapped in - clear, or printed with SIDS - the issue at heart is an entirely cultural one.

You state that there is a lot of diversity around you, and that you are aware of this. Less than 15% of the US population admits to sleeping with their children past the age of 1. You live in an area that allows for a lot of variation. Most people do not.

Either way, you yourself stated that there is indeed a "too long" for co-sleeping, and that there are problems caused by it if it continues. I admit, that part did make me sigh... As it just shows how ingrained the belief of co-sleeping → problems is.

I still suggest you muck around a bit in parenting sites - particularly message boards - to see just how very negative the view of co-sleeping is in the majority.

So, is it o.k. for a 16 year-old girl to sleep with her father? Are you saying there's no limit to this cultural issue?

In the states, the main objection to co-sleeping is not cultural. It's about SIDS. I may have used poor wording. There are, of course, cultural issues heres, but the previous two sentances should suffice.

If they are sleeping, then I do think it is okay.
My husband slept with his parents - both of them - until he moved out. As did his sister and brother.

It isn`t nearly as unthinkable a scenario as you present it as.

What I am trying to say is that although SIDS is offered up as a reason, the real reason is entirely cultural. SIDS is used to justify the cultural belief. The fact that SIDS rates are actually lower in co-sleepers verifies this. People believe in their culture, and want something factual to back up these beliefs. In the case of co-sleeping, SIDS is taking that role.

What's your medical training? Medical doctors are using SIDS as a way to justify...? I'm not sure staistical data backs you up.

And sleeping with your parents may be seen as acceptable in some cultures, but that doesn't make it good. Kuru is a disease that came from eating human brains, but they thought that was the right thing to do. (great examnple, huh?:D ) I don't think it's particularly healthy for a marriage to sleep with your parents until you move out? this is also in a country where there is a lot of evidence that 'sex-less" or love-less marriages are a problem. It's not "unthinkable" or unfamiliar to me, just not healthy.

The kids should be the focus of the family. everything is about making sure they will be healthy and successfull. But not at the expense of the marriage relationship. I think it's just as healthy to show a child that mommy and daddy love each other and that there are sacred, intimate parts of that relationship that are not shared. sleeping together is a mysterious hint of that to children.

Kids can learn thier parents love them from other ways than sleeping together until thier adults.

I don't think I know everything about this issue or claim to be an expert. Not saying you can't be right, just my opinion and experience.

Do a search. Go to your library and pull up medical journals (ETA; Specifically helpful is Paediatric Respiratory Reviews - they gather studies related to their specialty.) if you don`t regularly read them. Visit the open library at our local hospital. You`re also invited to speak to the countless specialists I personally know who are involved in international studies on reducing infant apnea in children who are clearly predisposed to it.
I also suggest contacting groups involved with following infants with lung and breathing difficulties after discharge.

My son suffers from these conditions, so I think that I have probably done a LOT more research into the area than the majority of parents... And likely the average pediatrician.

I can say the exact same thing in regard to not sleeping with parents. It isn`t as if the US is a shining example of successful and happy marriages - isn`t the divorce rate 50% or more these days? Isn`t the running joke in the US something along the lines of getting married means no more sex?
I don`t think that kids have much to do with things in either country.

And that is your family view, you are welcome to it. I have never intended to criticize your choices, as I have no right to comment on them. I`m not part of your family and do not know you personally.
I will say that I do not share that opinion, and I believe that sleeping with my son has certainly not hurt any relationships in our family. Marital relations have not changed. We have a big bed.

Yes they can. That doesn`t mean that sleeping with their parents is a negative thing.
Someone can go through life getting all their necessary nutrition and calories from some specific set of foods... That doesn`t mean that there is something wrong with someone who likes variety.

Point taken.

Two things. Children deffinitely do impact the romantic aspects of a marriage. Almost any couple will admit how hard it is to find the time and place let alone energy when they have children,

Also, apnia has not been accepted a s the main cause of SIDS. At least here, it is unknown completely why it happens. However, the most accepted theory is suffocation and/or heat. MY knowledge comes through casual research as a parent and training on the issue as to how to invetigate a case of SIDS which included clinical aspects. It seems the jury is still out...

I apologize - I mistyped. I intended to write "sleeping with kids" rather than just "kids". Obviously children do impact things very much. Where they are sleeping is a minor issue.

Suffocation is not SIDS. There are distinct differences. SIDS is a spontaneous cessation of respiration. Suffocation is something directly blocking respiration. The end result is similar (death due to lack of oxygen!), but it`s not hard to tell them apart.

The jury is still out on whether it is caused by the same things as general apnea (as it appears in adults) - and whether similar treatments would help. It may not be typical apnea, but it`s much more similar to that than any other medical issue...
In other words, at this point - if a baby stops breathing and is stimulated to make it resume breathing or begins breathing again on it`s own, it`s apnea. If it stops breathing and receives no stimulation and doesn`t resume on it`s own, it`s SIDS.
It`s very hard to compare the stages as, clearly, if you`re monitoring the baby you are not going to let it die to check if apnea and SIDS are the same. And if the baby doesn`t die, you can`t be sure if it was SIDS or not...

I just can't agree with the last part. SIDS is a label for any type of unexplainable sudden death that happens to occur almost always when sleeping, on the stomach or with too many blankets when it's hot. It's like a catch-all term. If they new what caused it it would be called something liek apnea and not some general unspecific term like SIDS.

But... I`m not disagreeing with what you say. :D
If the baby doesn`t die, it`s not considered SIDS. The direct cause of babies dying is a lack of oxygen. It`s WHAT is causing them to stop breathing that is up in the air.
Apnea is something that occurs when sleeping, and is aggravated by over heating and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the system (something common when sleeping on the stomach).

Most of the doctors I have spoken with DO refer to SIDS as apnea. The biggest difference is that apnea is considered a chronic condition, but SIDS is accepted as sudden onset... However, as I said before, you don`t know if something is chronic unless you are monitoring it - and no one is going to let a baby die who they are monitoring! Even when something is monitored and considered apnea, it doesn`t mean they know what causes it. Apnea is just a term for respiration spontaneously ceasing. There are countless possible causes. Apnea is also a catch-all term - it`s the end problem, not the cause.

That makes sense. Have you talked to Dr.s on both sides of the pond? I wonder if there are differences in opinion depending on the country of education.

To an extent, yes. I can`t say I`ve been able to spend huge amounts of time talking to doctors in the US - I don`t really know all that many so my contact was limited. But I have talked to a few visiting Japan in depth.

The views do change depending on the education and the age of the doctor. It seems like there is a sweet spot with doctors. The older doctors are very set and completely ignore studies, saying that they don`t think it`s true because they`ve always been told one thing or another. The youngest doctors can quote the AAP from memory, but have never read any studies or thought beyond that. It`s usually those in between, who are still young enough to want to continue acquiring more information and old enough to parse it and form strong opinions of their own who are the most up to date and reliable.
But they`re a limited chunk, and are not at all immune from pressure and personal beliefs. If a doctor thinks - with no connection to medical information - that co-sleeping is something bad. They`re not going to offer up information to support it.

Doctors from the UK seem to be about the same.

We were actually advised by our doctor to sleep with my son at all costs when he first came home from the hospital. Premature infants have a higher rate of apnea and SIDS (he treated them as the same thing.) As head of the NICU, and over 10 years of working there, he told us every case of SIDS (or in his words, death by apnea) with a baby who`d been discharged from there had been when the baby was sleeping in a different room from the parents.
If there is already a risk, the differences are going to be a lot clearer... But there is no reason to think that babies who are at risk of apnea without anyone knowing about it wouldn`t also benefit from the same precautions.

Just did a search through the AAP website - it looks like they`ve finally stopped blaming SIDS on co-sleeping, and have started recognizing that a drunk parent crushing a baby should not be considered SIDS. (The last time I looked, they included those figures in the SIDS figures, counting all causes of death listed as suffocation as a case of SIDS.)

You can see some of the big differences in US opinions if you also compare breastfeeding information. AAP recently changed their tune to "breast is best" and breastfeed for 6 months to a year... But when my son was born, it was "Bottle is just as good, but try to breastfeed a little at first." A few years before that, they released pamphlets (with funding from formula companies) that said breastfeeding probably didn`t provide sufficient calories or nutrition even in the first month, and that any sign of crankiness was a sign of not getting enough milk - so you should supplement with formula. (I will try to dig that one out)
The WHO recommendations have always been 2 years of breastfeeding, at least.

Even now, AAP receives funding from countless places and tries to stay on the fence about anything and everything, regardless of the number of studies for or against something. I find it a little hard to take the opinion of an organization that has received funding from formula companies to come up with a "formula is just as good!" study every time somewhere else proves breast milk is better.

Sometimes I think there may be an emotional connection, too. Maybe some of the SIDS vicitms are neglected babies who give-up emotionally. The decline of physical health follows. Hmm.

Nyoririn, I think I like you! :D

And briefly touching on the SIDS thing, I think the US is completely overzealous with it.

Now there's a mandatory policy that you can't let your babies sleep on their stomaches because of SIDS. However, my mother told me that when I was born they suggested babies sleep on their tummies. Well, when my son was born last year, he came out like me: He loved sleeping on his stomach!

He woke up in fits if you put him to sleep on his back. You think I'm going to fight what is natural for my son because of silly rule that the AAP came up with "just in case"? Hell no.

Precisely!

That is one I definitely can`t offer an opinion on. It`s something you would have to personally know the families to decide on.
I`m more of the opinion that some babies are predisposed to apnea, and unfortunately either die from it or come in contact with some environmental factor that triggers it. It`s been shown that smoking raises the risk quite a lot - but that just goes into the same bucket as all the other issues that aggravate respiratory conditions.

Sadly, knowing that it`s likely a respiratory condition doesn`t do anything for figuring out how to detect or prevent it.

Thank you.

I`m not so quick to discount the sleeping on the backs thing. It is the one major factor that has been shown in pretty much every study to reduce the rate of SIDS.

Supposedly, it`s quite a lot easier for a baby to breathe when positioned on their stomach - When my son was in the hospital, they usually tried to put the babies on their stomachs if they were having trouble breathing. It`s also supposedly better for development (more incentive to raise head earlier, movement has more effect).
But on the other hand, it`s also easier for carbon dioxide to build up around the baby`s face. That can trigger and lengthen apnea.

It`s easier to say put the baby on it`s back than explain how to keep proper air flow, expect everyone to suddenly replace soft beds coverings, etc. These days most sleeping surfaces designed for babies are firm and don`t allow much build up, so I doubt it is nearly as important as it was in the past.
But it stays around as a policy because it is easy to do and there are no big disadvantages. Babies who sleep on their backs may be a bit later to hold their heads up, but it isn`t a delay that sticks around.

That's why they say baby needs some "tummy time." So they can get that exercise while being monitored during the day.

This is what creates murders and wars.

Anyway listen to MMM. :)
And it will be all fine.

And it is not legal to do this in Norway.

Yeah, World war II was all about cutting.

Personally I think it's mean to chop off a bit of someones genitals without consulting them first! I can't see how it can prevent anything drastically. It's not the done thing, here, anyway.

Im talking about religion.

these days, religeon is only one of the reasons people have the procedure done to thier sons. In some countries religeon has nothing to do with it.

Good grief! I was only joking, hence the smilie I used at the end of the statement. I'm literally offended that you would think I'd literally be that stupid! :confused: I figured, based on my posts, you'd know me better than that and that I wasn't serious, then again, I can see how things online can be misconstrued and misconceived, even when, imo, the person is obviously joking.

Edit: Oh...never mind. I just looked at my original post to see how you got that notion. I forgot, on this board, :lol: doesn't create the laughing smilie, like at the other ones I go to. How about I correct that post, so that you'll get I was joking?

I've shared a bed with my father when older before. On Sundays when we would have breakfast, I'd usually go in there to wake him up and I'd sit on the other side of the bed and bug him until he got up. Sometimes, though, I'd sit there and talk to him, and then I'd end up falling asleep myself. I've done the same with my mother too.

That aside, I've been studying SIDS in my class, but I've never seen that listed as one of the reasons attributed to it.

O.K. please accept my apology.

Thats not like sleeping in bed all night together.

That's okay, since, as I pointed out, I can understand as to why you thought I wasn't joking.Yeah, I see what you mean. *nods*

I think your child should decide when the reach an appropriate age.

Its also nobody else's business so why does it matter?

and i also think that its highly inappropriate for other people to be asking about the details of your child's genitals.

Hm.. But she was the one that originally brought up the subject for the sake of gathering advice and information. There's nothing wrong with that.
If people are able to participate in the discussion at a mature level - which they have been, up to this point - I really don't see the harm.

what is apropriate and inapropriate is diffrent from culture to culture.
lets say ppl knock on your door for religious reasons some of us veiw it as innappropriate while others of us view it as acceptable

I think it's more hygienic than not being circumcised.

Bah. It should be the child's choice, really. It is, after all, his penis. Not the mother's, not the father's. Not the uncle's, aunt's, grandmother's, grandfather's, cousin's, neice's, nephew's, or whoever else in the freaking world.

It's HIS. He should decide the final outcome. Irritating..

I've heard circumsized penises have less sensitivity. What's the fun cutting it then >.>

It's supposed to be more hygienic to be circumcised than not.

Yeah, I'm assuming it's easier
to clean a circumcised penis.
But I mean...
I certainly don't remember MY
circumcision because...
I was just born.
That's probably why it's generally
done then, you don't remember the
pain of having your penis being cut...

I'm sure glad I don't remember...