JSM wrote: >...It has always seeemd bizarre to me that an infant >who was nurtured in the womb for 9 months be immediately dumped into a cage >to now live a great part of her life alone, and without the comfort and >reassurance of human touch and proximity during the vunerability of sleep. Did you ever see the movie about the researcher entering the black isolation tank filled with 98 degree water and sound proof? I forgot the name - but I hardly would think of life in the womb as being perceived by the baby as full of hugs and kisses. The baby is in total isolation, floating in a dark tank, hearing this incessant lub-dub 60 times a minute day and night and muffled sounds. If you are asleep, you feel no vunerbility. You are asleep! I admit it. My kids were sleeping by themselves by 3 months of age. We still have occasional "camping trips" where the 6 and 9 year old piles in our bed, but it is an event, not a practice. If a 5 month old cries 2min every night until the parent bring him/her to bed, in two months time the baby has cried 2 hours. If a 3 month old cries 10 minutes 2 or three nights in a row and the parent does not bring him/her to bed, the forth night the baby sleeps well. 20/20 did a show on this once with a hidden video camera to watch an older child manipulate distraught parents. By the forth night, the child put up just a token protest and that was it! -g barden