Co-Sleeping
American parents tend to want to sleep alone in their bed, placing their baby in a separate crib. The AAP cautions against co-sleeping on the grounds that parents might accidentally smother their infant. Until recently, co-sleeping was regarded by most as a vaguely suspect practice best left to hippies. But public opinion is changing.
Several mainstream child-care experts, including Dr. Sears and Dr. Greene, now advocate some form of co-sleeping, and suggest it might prevent SIDS, provided proper measures are taken. Former sleep hard-liner Dr. Ferber has softened his approach and concedes that "children can sleep well during a wide range of circumstances." Still, Ferber does remind his readers that, while kids might sleep well in such an arrangement, their parents might not. He also describes a nightmare scenario: "twelve-year-olds who feel abnormal and unable to attend sleepovers due to needing to sleep in their parents' bed." Dr. Cohen counters that in his experience children who have co-slept during their first couple of years tend to come out as well-adjusted as those who slept in bassinets.
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