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I just don't get why you'd even want to sleep separately from your young child. They cry because they crave physical closeness, physical contact, the rhythm of

I just don't get why you'd even want to sleep separately from your young child. They cry because they crave physical closeness, physical contact, the rhythm of their parents breathing, just like we've done for millions of years. All you do in denying that is create a lasting distance, nightmares, and worry for these monitoring companies to feed upon.

thomasahle 4y ago
This seems to be a pretty hot debate these days: https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-old-to-co-sleep-with-your-child-188145 https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-old...
- triyambakam 4y ago
  You're being very uncharitable. It's wildly different to cosleep with a new born than a near teen that the article mentions. And the rest of the article mostly reviews the benefits of cosleeping, so I don't see your point.
triyambakam 4y ago
I feel sad hearing about parents who practice the "cry it out" method.
- Erik816 4y ago
  I feel sad hearing about parents who can't stand to hear their child cry for a few a few minutes, a few nights in a row, and instead have children who take years to learn to properly sleep, causing sleep deprivation for the entire family.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    It is a hard one to get right. I learned rather fast that there are a variety of cries ranging from 'look at me' to 'I am hurt' each with own modulation, pitch and sense of urgency. In a practical sense, I agree with you. Unless there is a clear cause for distress ( and there well may be ), I usually just wait. It is actually quite amazing how well kids pick up on our willingness to react to their cries. Naturally, the instant switch from cry to laugh upon distraction was a big eye opener for me.
  - triyambakam 4y ago
    The data does not support your misunderstanding at all.
dalyons 4y ago
And you feel justified in espousing this harsh judgement of others parenting choices based on what evidence? What seems obvious to you isn’t for others, and parenting threads are typically just trading anecdotes and judgement without data.
- RobinL 4y ago
  Here's a decent article summarising the state of th evidence evidence. (I'm not making any claims about what the evidence says, I just found it interesting) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-traini...
  - dalyons 4y ago
    Yeah I read that last time there was a big thread about this on HN. It’s all pretty inconclusive. My clearest takeaways from that were that doing sleep training too early is not recommended, and that there was no observed long term difference in kids either way. And that we shouldn’t judge folk who need or want to try such things because they’re working parents, depressed, or have other family problems caused by lack of sleep.
  - irjustin 4y ago
    > Results One hundred eight intervention and 107 control families provided six-week follow-up information with complete actigraphy data for 96 in each group: 96.9 % of intervention and 97.9 % of control infants had an average of 2 or more nightly wakes, a risk difference of −0.2 % (95 % CI: −1.32, 0.91). 4 % of intervention and 14 % of control infants had parent-assessed severe sleep problems: relative risk 0.3, a risk difference of −10 % (CI: 0.11, 0.84-16.8 to −2.2). Relative to controls, intervention parents reported improved baseline-adjusted parental depression (CI: −3.7 to −0.4), fatigue (CI: −5.74 to −1.68), sleep quality (CI: −1.5 to −0.2), and sleep cognitions: doubts (CI: −2.0 to −0.6), feeding (CI: − 2.1 to - 0.7), anger (CI: − 1.8 to - 0.4) and setting limits (CI: −3.5 to −1.5). > Conclusions The intervention improved caregivers' assessments of infant sleep problem severity and parental depression, fatigue, sleep, and sleep cognitions compared with controls. This is largely true for myself - sleep training is for the parents to get some semblance of their lives back. The first 3 months of my daughter's life - i'd never been more tired in my life.
saagarjha 4y ago
I mean they cry for all sorts of reasons.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Even for no reason at all. (disclaimer: I am a former child)
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    There's always a reason to cry. (source: human)
melvinmelih 4y ago
Just today we were being lectured by our pediatrician that our two year old needs to sleep in her own bed, in her own room. When we asked why, she went on a tangent that parents also need their own sleep and that she did it with her own kids when they were a few months old, and that she couldn't imagine getting much sleep with her kids etc etc. Basically, she didn't have any scientific arguments why it was better for her to sleep separately, other than "that's how things always have been done" and projecting her own preferences onto us.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  FWIW, doctors have opinions as well. We are all only humans after all. Naturally, we have higher standards for well compensated professionals and we do expect more than platitudes from such professionals. All that said, your experience does bring up an interesting point though. At the end of the day, you are the parent. As it relates to the care for your kid, you outrank them ( with some exceptions, but those usually apply for a very good reason ). They are there to help you make a good decision, but you are not bound by their words. Unfortunately, like in every profession, they can be 'bad' doctors or ones that don't want to learn new things or both. Not to search very far, the sugar debate is now mainstream and doctors I talked to recently acknowledged that a lot of that word of mouth 'there is too much sugar in everything' has a point to it. In their defense, there is a lot of research that supports it now, but how long did it take to make it happen? << today we were being lectured by our pediatrician I hear you. It is an aggravating experience and unless there is a good reason to keep that doctor, I would consider making a change. The relationship should not be an unpleasant one. In my neck of the woods, ours recommended covid shot for our kid on the basis that 'everyone does it'. Before I had a chance to go on a rant, my wife simply said no. There was some back and forth, but no remained a no. I could offer more stories, but I don't really want anyone to extrapolate to some general wisdom. Each case is different and every one of us have to weigh those risks.
- epolanski 4y ago
  There is scientific literature confirming that around 12/18 months child indeed should start sleeping separately from their parents. Actually lots of literature point to much earlier. Children need to develop their self soothing abilities as well as awareness that parents aren't always there already at this crucial age. She wasn't projecting her preferences, it's dangerous to raise over protected children, separation anxiety in infants is normal but the response is to gradually increase the amount of separation week after week. 2 years old sleeping with child might actually be dangerous and I'm surprised hn would upvote a random netizen ignoring a professional's suggestion, only infants should sleep with parents. [1] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140/1/e20170122/37986/Mother-Infant-Room-Sharing-and-Sleep-Outcomes-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140... [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079210001322 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I know how we approached it and it was a compromise as me and my spouse come from different worlds culturally. I personally think a lot has to do with 'my cousin/friend/fb friend did x and recommended it'. For a very new parent, it is not unreasonable to seek advice of their peers. In our case compromise was: infant slept with us for a good half of their first year, but we slowly transitioned to a separate room with audio only radio ( no internet connection app craziness ). All that said, we are already an outlier in our social circle that includes parents and about the only ones that have any concern about normalizing surveillance at such a young age ( and even that is mostly based on my preferences -- my SO takes my concerns into account ).
- kstenerud 4y ago
  I had a child in Japan, and so we did it the Japanese way: The child sleeps with the parents until the child eventually decides otherwise.
epolanski 4y ago
Unless you are an expert in child care please don't post factually wrong things. If you are, post scientific articles.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  You must have a tough time here on the internet.
jgilias 4y ago
How many children do you have? From people I know it’s only single-child parents who co-sleep. Reason being, when the next child enters the picture, it’s pretty harsh on the toddler when there’s constant waking up, so having them sleep separately becomes the obviously right thing to do to not mess with their sleep too much. Later on it becomes a question of fairness. ‘Why does X get to sleep with you, but not me?’ One solution would be for everyone to sleep together, but beds have their limits, and I don’t actually know anyone who’d co-sleep with more than one child.
- wiredfool 4y ago
  3. Definitely did co-sleeping with 2 at a time early on.
lucumo 4y ago
Okay, I'll bite. Your just-so statements shouldn't convince anybody of anything, but I'll provide a few points to think about anyway. > I just don't get why you'd even want to sleep separately from your young child. People have different life experiences. It really shouldn't be the first time you hear about people doing things differently than you and still getting similar results. > They cry because they crave physical closeness, physical contact, Yes. They also cry because they're hungry, because their diaper is full and when they are tired. When our kids were babies there were even times they cried because they needed to be left alone. They were overstimulated and we needed to stop trying to help them. > the rhythm of their parents breathing, Can't say I've noticed that one. Seems hard to isolate though. By the time they hear you breathing, they'll feel body heat, see your face and are usually also in your arms and getting some interaction. Not sure how you have determined that it was the breathing that was doing the trick... > just like we've done for millions of years. I can't tell if this is the fallacy of appeal to tradition, the fallacy of appeal to nature, or an equally silly "appeal to evolution". Evolution didn't stop at some magical point in the past. There's no reason why what held back then must still hold now. Nor is longevity of a trait proof of an evolutionary advantage. It just has to not be a disadvantage to stick around. > All you do in denying that is create a lasting distance, nightmares, Funny how neither that "lasting distance" nor the nightmares panned out for our kids, who have slept their entire lives in their own room. Can't say I've noticed those things in many other kids either, which is strange since private rooms are very much the norm around here.

thomasahle 4y ago

This seems to be a pretty hot debate these days: https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-old-to-co-sleep-with-your-child-188145 https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-old...

triyambakam 4y ago
You're being very uncharitable. It's wildly different to cosleep with a new born than a near teen that the article mentions. And the rest of the article mostly reviews the benefits of cosleeping, so I don't see your point.

triyambakam 4y ago

I feel sad hearing about parents who practice the "cry it out" method.

Erik816 4y ago
I feel sad hearing about parents who can't stand to hear their child cry for a few a few minutes, a few nights in a row, and instead have children who take years to learn to properly sleep, causing sleep deprivation for the entire family.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  It is a hard one to get right. I learned rather fast that there are a variety of cries ranging from 'look at me' to 'I am hurt' each with own modulation, pitch and sense of urgency. In a practical sense, I agree with you. Unless there is a clear cause for distress ( and there well may be ), I usually just wait. It is actually quite amazing how well kids pick up on our willingness to react to their cries. Naturally, the instant switch from cry to laugh upon distraction was a big eye opener for me.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  The data does not support your misunderstanding at all.

dalyons 4y ago

And you feel justified in espousing this harsh judgement of others parenting choices based on what evidence? What seems obvious to you isn’t for others, and parenting threads are typically just trading anecdotes and judgement without data.

RobinL 4y ago
Here's a decent article summarising the state of th evidence evidence. (I'm not making any claims about what the evidence says, I just found it interesting) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-traini...
- dalyons 4y ago
  Yeah I read that last time there was a big thread about this on HN. It’s all pretty inconclusive. My clearest takeaways from that were that doing sleep training too early is not recommended, and that there was no observed long term difference in kids either way. And that we shouldn’t judge folk who need or want to try such things because they’re working parents, depressed, or have other family problems caused by lack of sleep.
- irjustin 4y ago
  > Results One hundred eight intervention and 107 control families provided six-week follow-up information with complete actigraphy data for 96 in each group: 96.9 % of intervention and 97.9 % of control infants had an average of 2 or more nightly wakes, a risk difference of −0.2 % (95 % CI: −1.32, 0.91). 4 % of intervention and 14 % of control infants had parent-assessed severe sleep problems: relative risk 0.3, a risk difference of −10 % (CI: 0.11, 0.84-16.8 to −2.2). Relative to controls, intervention parents reported improved baseline-adjusted parental depression (CI: −3.7 to −0.4), fatigue (CI: −5.74 to −1.68), sleep quality (CI: −1.5 to −0.2), and sleep cognitions: doubts (CI: −2.0 to −0.6), feeding (CI: − 2.1 to - 0.7), anger (CI: − 1.8 to - 0.4) and setting limits (CI: −3.5 to −1.5). > Conclusions The intervention improved caregivers' assessments of infant sleep problem severity and parental depression, fatigue, sleep, and sleep cognitions compared with controls. This is largely true for myself - sleep training is for the parents to get some semblance of their lives back. The first 3 months of my daughter's life - i'd never been more tired in my life.

saagarjha 4y ago

I mean they cry for all sorts of reasons.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Even for no reason at all. (disclaimer: I am a former child)
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  There's always a reason to cry. (source: human)

melvinmelih 4y ago

Just today we were being lectured by our pediatrician that our two year old needs to sleep in her own bed, in her own room. When we asked why, she went on a tangent that parents also need their own sleep and that she did it with her own kids when they were a few months old, and that she couldn't imagine getting much sleep with her kids etc etc. Basically, she didn't have any scientific arguments why it was better for her to sleep separately, other than "that's how things always have been done" and projecting her own preferences onto us.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
FWIW, doctors have opinions as well. We are all only humans after all. Naturally, we have higher standards for well compensated professionals and we do expect more than platitudes from such professionals. All that said, your experience does bring up an interesting point though. At the end of the day, you are the parent. As it relates to the care for your kid, you outrank them ( with some exceptions, but those usually apply for a very good reason ). They are there to help you make a good decision, but you are not bound by their words. Unfortunately, like in every profession, they can be 'bad' doctors or ones that don't want to learn new things or both. Not to search very far, the sugar debate is now mainstream and doctors I talked to recently acknowledged that a lot of that word of mouth 'there is too much sugar in everything' has a point to it. In their defense, there is a lot of research that supports it now, but how long did it take to make it happen? << today we were being lectured by our pediatrician I hear you. It is an aggravating experience and unless there is a good reason to keep that doctor, I would consider making a change. The relationship should not be an unpleasant one. In my neck of the woods, ours recommended covid shot for our kid on the basis that 'everyone does it'. Before I had a chance to go on a rant, my wife simply said no. There was some back and forth, but no remained a no. I could offer more stories, but I don't really want anyone to extrapolate to some general wisdom. Each case is different and every one of us have to weigh those risks.
epolanski 4y ago
There is scientific literature confirming that around 12/18 months child indeed should start sleeping separately from their parents. Actually lots of literature point to much earlier. Children need to develop their self soothing abilities as well as awareness that parents aren't always there already at this crucial age. She wasn't projecting her preferences, it's dangerous to raise over protected children, separation anxiety in infants is normal but the response is to gradually increase the amount of separation week after week. 2 years old sleeping with child might actually be dangerous and I'm surprised hn would upvote a random netizen ignoring a professional's suggestion, only infants should sleep with parents. [1] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140/1/e20170122/37986/Mother-Infant-Room-Sharing-and-Sleep-Outcomes-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/140... [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079210001322 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

I know how we approached it and it was a compromise as me and my spouse come from different worlds culturally. I personally think a lot has to do with 'my cousin/friend/fb friend did x and recommended it'. For a very new parent, it is not unreasonable to seek advice of their peers. In our case compromise was: infant slept with us for a good half of their first year, but we slowly transitioned to a separate room with audio only radio ( no internet connection app craziness ). All that said, we are already an outlier in our social circle that includes parents and about the only ones that have any concern about normalizing surveillance at such a young age ( and even that is mostly based on my preferences -- my SO takes my concerns into account ).

kstenerud 4y ago
I had a child in Japan, and so we did it the Japanese way: The child sleeps with the parents until the child eventually decides otherwise.

epolanski 4y ago

Unless you are an expert in child care please don't post factually wrong things. If you are, post scientific articles.

triyambakam 4y ago
You must have a tough time here on the internet.

jgilias 4y ago

How many children do you have? From people I know it’s only single-child parents who co-sleep. Reason being, when the next child enters the picture, it’s pretty harsh on the toddler when there’s constant waking up, so having them sleep separately becomes the obviously right thing to do to not mess with their sleep too much. Later on it becomes a question of fairness. ‘Why does X get to sleep with you, but not me?’ One solution would be for everyone to sleep together, but beds have their limits, and I don’t actually know anyone who’d co-sleep with more than one child.

wiredfool 4y ago
3. Definitely did co-sleeping with 2 at a time early on.

lucumo 4y ago

Okay, I'll bite. Your just-so statements shouldn't convince anybody of anything, but I'll provide a few points to think about anyway. > I just don't get why you'd even want to sleep separately from your young child. People have different life experiences. It really shouldn't be the first time you hear about people doing things differently than you and still getting similar results. > They cry because they crave physical closeness, physical contact, Yes. They also cry because they're hungry, because their diaper is full and when they are tired. When our kids were babies there were even times they cried because they needed to be left alone. They were overstimulated and we needed to stop trying to help them. > the rhythm of their parents breathing, Can't say I've noticed that one. Seems hard to isolate though. By the time they hear you breathing, they'll feel body heat, see your face and are usually also in your arms and getting some interaction. Not sure how you have determined that it was the breathing that was doing the trick... > just like we've done for millions of years. I can't tell if this is the fallacy of appeal to tradition, the fallacy of appeal to nature, or an equally silly "appeal to evolution". Evolution didn't stop at some magical point in the past. There's no reason why what held back then must still hold now. Nor is longevity of a trait proof of an evolutionary advantage. It just has to not be a disadvantage to stick around. > All you do in denying that is create a lasting distance, nightmares, Funny how neither that "lasting distance" nor the nightmares panned out for our kids, who have slept their entire lives in their own room. Can't say I've noticed those things in many other kids either, which is strange since private rooms are very much the norm around here.