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Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. C

Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. Children sleep with their parents.

jjulius 4y ago
What does it matter how a family sleeps as long as it works well for the family? Edit: And is it an "obsession" or simply a cultural difference?
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > as long as it works well for the family? It's easier for the family when the child is in the room with the parents. At least in the same way it is easier to have a master bathroom rather than one on the other side of the house. > is it an "obsession" or simply a cultural difference? It was an imposed cultural difference. American parents were told they would hurt their children if they slept in the same room with them, or attended to them too quickly when they cried. So they changed their behavior in order to conform.
  - lazide 4y ago
    SIDS data shows a (relatively) high occurrence of kids dying by having parents roll over on them, or them getting entrapped/suffocated in bedding. In traditional cultures, this usually gets covered up. Additionally, it’s much harder for the parents or kids to get consistent sleep (often already causing a lot of difficulties during this time), when toddler age kids are in the same area, due to differing schedules. In the US, due to mainly socio-economic issues (need to migrate for work often results in families separated over long distances), it is relatively uncommon to have relatives living in the same household able to help with childcare too, especially late at night. So it puts a lot more load on the parents. If not managed effectively, this can break the parents in ways no one likes to talk about in polite company.
    - anon291 4y ago
      If you and your spouse are of healthy weight and the mother breastfeeds all night and the bed is stripped of heavy bedding and pillows this is unlikely. I wish doctors would give parents this advice because what happens now is that many American parents will cosleep without admitting it and don't know what to do when they engage in it. In many traditional cultures, the baby is breastfed all night and the bed is stripped and beds are on the floor. If you do these , sids risk is greatly diminished. Some of the cosleep studies on sids are flawed. They conflate taking a baby onto a couch to sleep with an exhausted mother the same as a breastfeeding mother falling asleep with her child on a flat surface. But Americans are obsessed with cribs so doctors don't give any advice and conflate two unlike things. https://cosleeping.nd.edu/safe-co-sleeping-guidelines/ https://cosleeping.nd.edu/safe-co-sleeping-guidelines/ https://news.nd.edu/news/infant-co-sleeping-expert-sheds-light-on-controversial-practice/ https://news.nd.edu/news/infant-co-sleeping-expert-sheds-lig...
      - lazide 4y ago
        Considering nearly zero Americans are of healthy weight right now (obesity rate over 42%), even if you don’t consider stress eating that often happens with a new baby - just limiting by healthy weight or not is going to bias any results towards a pretty small group of people.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Considering nearly zero Americans are of healthy weight right now (obesity rate over 42%) Apparently, “nearly zero” are mathematically literate, too.
        lazide 4y ago
        Obesity is 'you're going to die an early death because you're overweight'. It is the polar opposite of a healthy weight, but there is a lot of red in the gap. You might not be aware of that? It's one of those uncomfortable truths no one likes talking about. Even Dr's won't usually mention it to patients. 73.6% of American Adults over 20 years old are overweight. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obesity-adult.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obe... 26.4% of the American population is not overweight. I didn't correlate to eating disorders resulting in people being under weight - I've seen a decent amount of that too. Probably 5 to maybe even 10%. I'm struggling to see how that isn't a pretty select cohort that is a healthy weight, no? Anecdotally, most Americans consider me lean and athletic - I'm a good 20 lbs overweight by reasonable historic standards, but not obese. The overton window has shifted a lot, but our bodies and what is healthy for us are no different.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >It's easier for the family when the child is in the room with the parents. At least in the same way it is easier to have a master bathroom rather than one on the other side of the house. Up to a point, sure. One common scenario is for newborns to sleep in their own crib/basinet/whathaveyou in the parent's room for a short time, before moving into their own room. Many people don't sleep train until their children are at least six months, if not much older. Other parents will keep them in their beds. I have two children under the age of three and, anecdotally, where and how parents decide to have their children sleep is really all over the board because it boils down to what works best for the family. And I think it's really stupid, unfair and short-sighted to judge other parents for their decisions in this area.
    - voisin 4y ago
      > I think it's really stupid, unfair and short-sighted to judge other parents for their decisions in this area. I would expand this to [in any area]. We need to adopt more of a “whatever works for the family” attitude rather than a one size fits all attitude.
      - jjulius 4y ago
        Completely agreed. If the children and parents are happy and healthy, whatever is happening in their home is working for them and it's absolutely not my place to question it. Everybody is different.
    - meepmorp 4y ago
      Also, children are wildly different! My elder slept terribly for about 3 months, until we gave up on trying to cosleep, and slept for almost 6 hours straight when we put him down by himself for the first time. The younger liked co-sleeping and transitioning to a separate room was much harder.
- alfred_wram 4y ago
  > as it works well for the family I understand the argument to be that it doesn't work well for the baby. That they experience a form of abandonment because their brains are wired to equate abandonment with the absence of close contact. They're very dependent on the proximity of a caregiver.
- anon291 4y ago
  It's an obsession because pediatricians insist upon it while offering no advice on co sleeping despite that being the most common arrangement worldwide. It's also extremely common in the United States despite parents not admitting to it. Unfortunately, being given no information, the American parents who cosleep go on blind and don't know what precautions to take. But yeah, it's an obsession because it's pushed despite the fact the arrangement is incredibly uncommon worldwide. As for the last question.... I don't care. In fact I ask the same thing when people act as if co sleeping is some great evil
  - voisin 4y ago
    I answered in another comment, but at least in British Columbia, Canada, new mothers are given advise as to how to co-sleep safely.
leokennis 4y ago
I slept with both my babies for maybe two nights. Nights where I slept an hour or less because I would wake with every little sound they made. Then I put them in their own rooms, with a baby monitor set to a reasonable threshold. I got a solid 3-4 hours a night. The babies got fed, cleaned, cuddled etc. Win-win.
- voisin 4y ago
  > Nights where I slept an hour or less because I would wake with every little sound they made. This is a feature, not a bug. That attunement is what allows caregivers to avoid suffocating their child. It works when the caregiver is not under the influence or so exhausted they don’t wake up (which it sounds like in your case you were on the verge of that by only sleeping an hour or less, but I promise you after a week or so you adjust and sleep fine if not more a bit less deeply so you will react if anything is happening to the baby.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  This goes away after a few days, it's explained in the Co-sleeping section of the course they should give you: your body is attuning to the baby. That's also how you don't roll over them and how they wake up if it's too hot
agitators1 4y ago
> Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. “America” is a big country, with many world cultures in it. anyway, the non Western world is obsessed with full time childcare being compulsory for women. Why are you even talking about this?
brink 4y ago
> have an obsession I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  This is what you get when you treat everybody else in the same way, by telling them cosleeping is evil. I'm very bitter of the opposite, we have been taught it's wrong to co-sleep the entire time. Lucky, mother nature gave us some help. After we co-slept for 3 years with our baby, on the second one they wanted to take the baby off my wife the night in the hospital (baby sleeps on mom's chest). I understand the concern, but this is the second baby, we know the drill.
  - ycombobreaker 4y ago
    > This is what you get when you treat everybody else in the same way, by telling them cosleeping is evil. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I am an American, and my family's pediatrician gave cosleeping advice when asked, despite discouraging it. I'll reiterate GP's point: labeling a cultural difference as a national "obsession" is unwarranted.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      Agree, sorry for my tone earlier. Apologized in a different comment but I commented all over the place.
- trgn 4y ago
  It's something I find very commendable of americans actually. Americans generally take unsolicited criticism and brash antagonizing language from foreigners quite well. Every american traveling abroad can attest (remember the post 9/11 years?!), and generally have dealt with civilly and with head raised.
- anon291 4y ago
  > I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference. This is not a traditional American cultural value. Traditionally, Americans sleep with their kids. In fact, large portions still do. Putting children in a crib was turned into an American cultural value by various associations, not by some cultural development.

Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. Children sleep with their parents.

jjulius 4y ago

What does it matter how a family sleeps as long as it works well for the family? Edit: And is it an "obsession" or simply a cultural difference?

pessimizer 4y ago
> as long as it works well for the family? It's easier for the family when the child is in the room with the parents. At least in the same way it is easier to have a master bathroom rather than one on the other side of the house. > is it an "obsession" or simply a cultural difference? It was an imposed cultural difference. American parents were told they would hurt their children if they slept in the same room with them, or attended to them too quickly when they cried. So they changed their behavior in order to conform.
- lazide 4y ago
  SIDS data shows a (relatively) high occurrence of kids dying by having parents roll over on them, or them getting entrapped/suffocated in bedding. In traditional cultures, this usually gets covered up. Additionally, it’s much harder for the parents or kids to get consistent sleep (often already causing a lot of difficulties during this time), when toddler age kids are in the same area, due to differing schedules. In the US, due to mainly socio-economic issues (need to migrate for work often results in families separated over long distances), it is relatively uncommon to have relatives living in the same household able to help with childcare too, especially late at night. So it puts a lot more load on the parents. If not managed effectively, this can break the parents in ways no one likes to talk about in polite company.
  - anon291 4y ago
    If you and your spouse are of healthy weight and the mother breastfeeds all night and the bed is stripped of heavy bedding and pillows this is unlikely. I wish doctors would give parents this advice because what happens now is that many American parents will cosleep without admitting it and don't know what to do when they engage in it. In many traditional cultures, the baby is breastfed all night and the bed is stripped and beds are on the floor. If you do these , sids risk is greatly diminished. Some of the cosleep studies on sids are flawed. They conflate taking a baby onto a couch to sleep with an exhausted mother the same as a breastfeeding mother falling asleep with her child on a flat surface. But Americans are obsessed with cribs so doctors don't give any advice and conflate two unlike things. https://cosleeping.nd.edu/safe-co-sleeping-guidelines/ https://cosleeping.nd.edu/safe-co-sleeping-guidelines/ https://news.nd.edu/news/infant-co-sleeping-expert-sheds-light-on-controversial-practice/ https://news.nd.edu/news/infant-co-sleeping-expert-sheds-lig...
    - lazide 4y ago
      Considering nearly zero Americans are of healthy weight right now (obesity rate over 42%), even if you don’t consider stress eating that often happens with a new baby - just limiting by healthy weight or not is going to bias any results towards a pretty small group of people.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Considering nearly zero Americans are of healthy weight right now (obesity rate over 42%) Apparently, “nearly zero” are mathematically literate, too.
        lazide 4y ago
        Obesity is 'you're going to die an early death because you're overweight'. It is the polar opposite of a healthy weight, but there is a lot of red in the gap. You might not be aware of that? It's one of those uncomfortable truths no one likes talking about. Even Dr's won't usually mention it to patients. 73.6% of American Adults over 20 years old are overweight. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obesity-adult.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity-adult-17-18/obe... 26.4% of the American population is not overweight. I didn't correlate to eating disorders resulting in people being under weight - I've seen a decent amount of that too. Probably 5 to maybe even 10%. I'm struggling to see how that isn't a pretty select cohort that is a healthy weight, no? Anecdotally, most Americans consider me lean and athletic - I'm a good 20 lbs overweight by reasonable historic standards, but not obese. The overton window has shifted a lot, but our bodies and what is healthy for us are no different.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >It's easier for the family when the child is in the room with the parents. At least in the same way it is easier to have a master bathroom rather than one on the other side of the house. Up to a point, sure. One common scenario is for newborns to sleep in their own crib/basinet/whathaveyou in the parent's room for a short time, before moving into their own room. Many people don't sleep train until their children are at least six months, if not much older. Other parents will keep them in their beds. I have two children under the age of three and, anecdotally, where and how parents decide to have their children sleep is really all over the board because it boils down to what works best for the family. And I think it's really stupid, unfair and short-sighted to judge other parents for their decisions in this area.
  - voisin 4y ago
    > I think it's really stupid, unfair and short-sighted to judge other parents for their decisions in this area. I would expand this to [in any area]. We need to adopt more of a “whatever works for the family” attitude rather than a one size fits all attitude.
    - jjulius 4y ago
      Completely agreed. If the children and parents are happy and healthy, whatever is happening in their home is working for them and it's absolutely not my place to question it. Everybody is different.
  - meepmorp 4y ago
    Also, children are wildly different! My elder slept terribly for about 3 months, until we gave up on trying to cosleep, and slept for almost 6 hours straight when we put him down by himself for the first time. The younger liked co-sleeping and transitioning to a separate room was much harder.
alfred_wram 4y ago
> as it works well for the family I understand the argument to be that it doesn't work well for the baby. That they experience a form of abandonment because their brains are wired to equate abandonment with the absence of close contact. They're very dependent on the proximity of a caregiver.
anon291 4y ago
It's an obsession because pediatricians insist upon it while offering no advice on co sleeping despite that being the most common arrangement worldwide. It's also extremely common in the United States despite parents not admitting to it. Unfortunately, being given no information, the American parents who cosleep go on blind and don't know what precautions to take. But yeah, it's an obsession because it's pushed despite the fact the arrangement is incredibly uncommon worldwide. As for the last question.... I don't care. In fact I ask the same thing when people act as if co sleeping is some great evil
- voisin 4y ago
  I answered in another comment, but at least in British Columbia, Canada, new mothers are given advise as to how to co-sleep safely.

leokennis 4y ago

I slept with both my babies for maybe two nights. Nights where I slept an hour or less because I would wake with every little sound they made. Then I put them in their own rooms, with a baby monitor set to a reasonable threshold. I got a solid 3-4 hours a night. The babies got fed, cleaned, cuddled etc. Win-win.

voisin 4y ago
> Nights where I slept an hour or less because I would wake with every little sound they made. This is a feature, not a bug. That attunement is what allows caregivers to avoid suffocating their child. It works when the caregiver is not under the influence or so exhausted they don’t wake up (which it sounds like in your case you were on the verge of that by only sleeping an hour or less, but I promise you after a week or so you adjust and sleep fine if not more a bit less deeply so you will react if anything is happening to the baby.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
This goes away after a few days, it's explained in the Co-sleeping section of the course they should give you: your body is attuning to the baby. That's also how you don't roll over them and how they wake up if it's too hot

agitators1 4y ago

> Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. “America” is a big country, with many world cultures in it. anyway, the non Western world is obsessed with full time childcare being compulsory for women. Why are you even talking about this?

brink 4y ago

> have an obsession I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
This is what you get when you treat everybody else in the same way, by telling them cosleeping is evil. I'm very bitter of the opposite, we have been taught it's wrong to co-sleep the entire time. Lucky, mother nature gave us some help. After we co-slept for 3 years with our baby, on the second one they wanted to take the baby off my wife the night in the hospital (baby sleeps on mom's chest). I understand the concern, but this is the second baby, we know the drill.
- ycombobreaker 4y ago
  > This is what you get when you treat everybody else in the same way, by telling them cosleeping is evil. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I am an American, and my family's pediatrician gave cosleeping advice when asked, despite discouraging it. I'll reiterate GP's point: labeling a cultural difference as a national "obsession" is unwarranted.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    Agree, sorry for my tone earlier. Apologized in a different comment but I commented all over the place.
trgn 4y ago
It's something I find very commendable of americans actually. Americans generally take unsolicited criticism and brash antagonizing language from foreigners quite well. Every american traveling abroad can attest (remember the post 9/11 years?!), and generally have dealt with civilly and with head raised.
anon291 4y ago
> I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference. This is not a traditional American cultural value. Traditionally, Americans sleep with their kids. In fact, large portions still do. Putting children in a crib was turned into an American cultural value by various associations, not by some cultural development.