The Attached Mother

Despite much of the research to the contrary the old idea that co-sleeping is dangerous just will not go away. I recently stumbled upon a blog, that I refuse to link to because it was horrible, where the writer ranted on for pages and pages making claims that attachment parenting was abuse. From reading his claims it became very obvious that person did not understand what AP really is, and possibly the person has no children of his own as he did not seem to understand normal childhood development.

On of the claims that really stuck out was that “61 children die annually from co-sleeping”. This was given as proof that AP is dangerous and abusive. Frankly it just made me laugh.

First of all, where is the data? I did a few Google searches and could not find that number given. Did he mean nationally or locally? In his state, county, or city? I don’t know, no further information was given. But let’s assume, for the sake of the arguement, that this number is correct and that he means nationally.

1. Only 61? Really? Compared to the number of children who die nationally in their cribs I think we’re doing pretty good.
2. Co-sleeping does not automatically equal attachment parenting. There are many parents who are not AP yet co-sleep for a variety of reasons (pdf). Often for just a night or two if the child is ill, or the family is in a hotel with no access to a crib, or the parents just fall asleep on accident. Which leads to…
3. Of those 61 deaths what were the parents doing? Were they co-sleeping safely? Were the parents under the influence of alcohol or drugs? Where they obese? Did they pile on blankets and pillows? The number of children who die annually from car crashes because they were not properly restrained is higher than this, yet we teach parents to do so safely rather than claim all parents who drive with their kids are abusive.

I just found this claim to be laughable and easily refuted by common sense. Sadly, the number of comments who agree with and support the writer shows how uncommon common sense really is.

[tags]co-sleeping[tags]