Sleeping With Children

Interesting, if somewhat uninsightful, article on co-sleeping in the Times Science section this week.

I've mentioned the book The Continuum Concept once before. Again, I'm not going to go into great detail about the book's thesis; you can read my previous entry if you want to know the short version.

But it has a lot to say about the concept of co-sleeping, although it doesn't refer to it by any such name. As a book, it has very little use for named programs like 'Ferberizing' or 'co-sleeping'. Instead, the author, Jean Liedloff, attempts to use a form of investigation to figure out what's good for children.

Most modern parenting experts have very little in the way of real scientific proof for their theories. The fact is, in this sort of field, such data is very hard to come by, because the number of confounding variables is so vast and difficult to characterize. Ideally, we'd like to take a few thousand babies and throw them in a laboratory, and raise them under tightly controlled conditions. By controlling one or two variables at a time, we could really test some childrearing theories.

Of course, we don't really want to do that; taking thousands of kids from their parents and raising them in a huge science experiment would be Bad. So, instead, we're stuck doing regression analysis and playing all sorts of statistical games, trying to back-calculate what factors might actually make a real difference.

As a result, it's usually possible to dig up studies that show almost anything you might think to test for has the desired outcome. Alternatively, it's usually possible to find data supporting the conclusion that the absolute opposite is also true.

Liedloff, on the other hand, goes looking for answers in an entirely different laboratory. In a way that Daniel Quinn would absolutely approve of, she argues that, if you go out and look at native societies, you can actually find ways of living that work. The idea is a fairly simple one - if you make the assumption that how native peoples are living now is the way they've been living for most of their time as a society (say, 10,000 years in the case of American native peoples), then what you see when you look at them are time-tested solutions to the problems people face as they live their lives, raise their children, etc.

So, to co-sleeping (finally). In short, what Liedloff found in her studies was that, in native societies, babies sleep in their parents' beds until they are ready not to. Sometimes this is just 1 or 2 years, sometimes as many as 5 or 6. But, as they grow, every single one eventually gets to the point that they're ready to move on from the parental bed. At that point, they move on.

Until that time, the children learn that sleeping is warm, and comfortable, and safe. Additionally, since breastfeeding is so widespread in those cultures, it's easier if the mother is always available during the night.

There are lots of modern arguments against co-sleeping, but they really are all about the parents' convenience or mores, not what's good or bad for the kids. Parents are, of course, worried about their sleep being disrupted. I guess there are some worries about the babies' safety, but, again - we evolved not to roll over and smush our babies during the night. We'll figure it out okay.

As for sex, what's so bad about having sex in front of a 6 month old? If you feel uncomfortable about it, it's got much more to do with your level of comfort than with any real concern you have for the baby...he's not going to remember any of this, at least not conciously, by the time he's 5 or 6 years old.

Anyway, I can't really do the argument good justice without rewriting the book. But, please - if you are at all interested by these ideas, do check it out. I have a copy I'll lend you, if you are so inclined. Liedloff does a much better job explaining these things than I do, and it's definitely worth your time.