In a message dated 10/4/1999 10:57:00 PM Central Daylight Time, writes: << While there are clearly some adherents to the co-sleeping cult, the vast majority of my patients who have kids in the bed express utter frustration at their inability to get a decent night's sleep, the lack of privacy, and do not find it a rewarding or enjoyable experience. >> AKKKKK! So now co-sleeping is a CULT??? Give me a break! The Japanese co-sleep. A cult? Many Americans co-sleep. A cult? Many Australians co-sleep. A cult? It's been going on since the beginning of time. Just because in North America, the majority of folks have the money and the resources to buy fancy cribs and have separate rooms for their children, doesn't mean that the ones that choose to co-sleep are in a cult, for crying out loud. If there are parents that don't enjoy co-sleeping -- then for pity's sake, don't do it!! If there are parents who enjoy co-sleeping, then teach them how to do it safely. If there are parents who put their babies in a crib, teach them how to do it safely. If there are parents who want their babies to 'cry it out', then help them deal with the emotional ramifications that will surely surface later because of abandonment issues. And yes, I know whereof I speak. Co-sleeping is a parenting issue, not a medical issue. Discipline is a parenting issue, not a medical issue. Crying it out is a parenting issue, not a medical issue. Using pacifiers is a parenting issue, not a medical issue. Determining that co-sleeping instills a "bad habit" in children is one person's OPINION, not medical, research based evidence, and is not to be touted as such. Co-sleeping is not weird, it is not a cult, and it is not a bad habit. Families should sleep where they are comfortable sleeping. If husbands and wives choose to sleep in separate beds, in separate rooms so they are not sleep deprived or whatever, that is none of the business of anyone in the medical profession. If I choose to sleep with my babies, it is also none of the business of anyone in the medical profession. If my clients are not getting any sleep because their babies are miserable and unhappy and miss the closeness of their mother's warm body and breasts while being forced to be "Ferberized" or "Ezzoed" in a cage with bars, alone in a dark room -- that's better than co-sleeping? I think not. But that is my opinion -- and the opinion of thousands. We teach safe car riding. We teach safety in the kitchen. We remind parents to put the handles of pots towards the back of the stove so toddlers can't pull the boiling contents over them. If they choose to put their babies in cribs, we tell them how far apart the slats of the cage should be, and to make sure the baby is put on her back and not too many blankets, pillows, stuffed animals -- etc. And if they choose to co-sleep, we tell them the same thing. It takes no longer to teach about safe co-sleeping than anything else. And opinion should be kept out of it. I don't take my kids to the pediatrician to get his/her "opinion" on my parenting practices because they may differ from his/her parenting practices. Pediatricians didn't go to medical school to learn parenting practices. Neither did nurses. If someone asks me my opinion -- I tell them AS A MOTHER, not as a health professional. It's taken years to assure mothers that it is OK to pick up their babies when they cry -- but that is a parenting issue, not a medical issue. The parenting experts are the parents themselves on their own children. I'm not a parenting expert on your children -- I don't even know you. And you aren't on my children. You don't know me. Please do not force your opinion on me primarily because a faulty "study" has come out that has proven absolutely nothing except that babies can die in adult beds at the rate of one less per year than in cribs. And as I pointed out, the 2705/year SIDS deaths WERE in cribs, (or other than adult beds) as they reported all 64 deaths/year that took place in adult beds. Parents are terrified of being parents, and empowering them is one of the jobs of the health professional. Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC Wheaton, IL www.bsccenter.org "Further up and further in." -- C.S. Lewis