feedback for "Parental Advisory 1"

1. Thanks for your advice on early bedtime. I am a working mom and I don't see the problem if my baby stays up "late" so she can have some quality time with me. Since she stays at home with my husband she can sleep as late as she wants. As a late bloomer in motherhood I have been surprised to see how rigid some rules on parenting seem to be, even when there is little proof of how they affect our children. My baby and the family are pretty happy with her sleeping pattern, so  I don't see any reason for change. My advice is do what seems to work best for your baby and then everybody will be happy. 

   posted by : Mommyca on 12/13/2006 at 11:26 AM Flag For Abuse

2. I don't see any reason to make kids (of any age) go to sleep insanely early, unless they need to be awake insanely early...if your kiddo stays at home and can sleep until she wakes up on her own, then there's no reason in my mind to enforce an arbitrary bedtime. The only arguments that make sense: if you have to take your child to preschool/daycare so that you can be off to work early or your child is older and goes to public school (not homeschooled) and has to be up early.
   
   I never understood why people made faces at me when I said we were "late sleepers" (go to bed late and sleep in late). I knew I didn't want to wake up at 6AM unless I was called to be at a birth (I'm a midwife), so why would I send my son off to bed 6PM! I guess the fact that we had/have a family bed helped also...except when our son was really young and sleeping all the time, he went to sleep when we went to bed and then was left asleep until he woke up on his own (barring drowsy nighttime nursing sessions).

   posted by : PghMidwife on 12/18/2006 at 1:36 PM Flag For Abuse

3. First off-I don't care what time anyone puts their kids to bed. However, I just wanted to comment on the tone of the article.  It appears to have been written by moms that are very sensitive about the fact that they have to work and cannot put their kids to bed early.  The statement that some moms "put their kids to bed at 5:00 to get them out of the way" is ridiculous (where did they get this fact?).  It is an obvious put down of those who put their kids to bed at an earlier time. The tone shows a hidden sensitivity that they cannot do what "the books" say.  I have to say that when 9 out of 10 baby sleep books- many that are research based -say that early bed times are better for children, then they probably are.  That said, I don't think going to bed at a later time just because "the books" don't recomend it is at all negative or harmful, if it works better for the family.  I just found the article to be whiny and hypersensitive, not to mention rude.

   posted by : Stacy on 12/21/2006 at 9:53 PM Flag For Abuse

4. Our deconstruction of the early bedtime mandate was not intended to offend.  We do know some parents who admit wholeheartedly that the main reason they get their kids down as early as possible is to have time awake without them. Which is fine by us. If we were snarky about early bedtimes, it's only because the advice to get a kid to bed early is so ubiquitous, and in reality, it just doesn't work for everyone. We felt it was only fair to provide a little ammo in the other direction. And though 9 out of 10 experts may recommend early to bed, don't count on them having extensive official research to back it up—even Dr. Weissbluth himself admits there's precious little research on infant sleep. Isn’t it worth at least questioning whether that standard is more a cultural fixture than some kind of innate infant need? (And for the record, our own work situations haven’t affected childrens’ bedtimes at all. )

   posted by : ceridwen on 12/22/2006 at 4:57 PM Flag For Abuse