Shared Parenting

There’s a detailed article on shared parenting from NYTimes Magazine that I’m reading, and I’m so happy just to see it. It describes people, most older than myself, who are living lives in the way that I’ve been planning and hoping to live mine. This includes both equal parenting and the voluntary cutback of work hours, work responsibilities, and of course income in order to spend more time living your life and enjoying your family or whatever is most important to you.

Some stats on how the numbers still stack up on average:

The most recent figures from the University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families and Households show that the average wife does 31 hours of housework a week while the average husband does 14 — a ratio of slightly more than two to one. If you break out couples in which wives stay home and husbands are the sole earners, the number of hours goes up for women, to 38 hours of housework a week, and down a bit for men, to 12, a ratio of more than three to one. That makes sense, because the couple have defined home as one partner’s work.

But then break out the couples in which both husband and wife have full-time paying jobs. There, the wife does 28 hours of housework and the husband, 16. Just shy of two to one, which makes no sense at all.

The lopsided ratio holds true however you construct and deconstruct a family. “Working class, middle class, upper class, it stays at two to one,” says Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo who studies the division of labor in families.

As disappointing as these numbers are, particularly for families where both partners work full-time, the families described in the article so far are encouraging. I do find it interesting, though, that the author chose to talk about these parent’s own backgrounds – where they grew up and what their parents did – because it signals to me that the author felt these people’s choices needed to be explained. I guess it should be natural when talking about how one manages their family, to ask how their family was managed when they were children, so maybe I’m just being paranoid about the “otherness” of couples who choose to share parenting equally.

I can’t read the rest of the article, and I entreat my readers to go and read it and then tell me what they think. How do you plan or hope to share parenting duties? If you have children already, is reality living up to the plan?

p.s. here’s a great and amusing excerpt for my academic and medical friends:

She goes on to suggest that the perception of flexibility is itself a matter of perception. In her study, she was struck by how often the wife’s job was seen by both spouses as being more flexible than the husband’s. By way of example she describes two actual couples, one in which he is a college professor and she is a physician and one in which she is a college professor and he is a physician. In either case, Deutsch says “both the husband and wife claimed the man’s job was less flexible.”

Happy Mother’s Day

I’ve been thinking, for a few days now, that I want to do something really special for my mom this year, to show her how much I love and care about her. But we’re quite broke at the moment, since my sudden but exciting change in career trajectory means we no longer will be receiving a spring stipend payment in the next few weeks. We know we’ll be ok, though, because I have my babysitting job (15-20 hours a week) and the company’s next round of pitching will be in about 2 weeks, and we’re sure we’ll get some significant funding then. And for the summer, my advisor will be paying me to be a “part-time staff associate” so I can help finish up some of the projects we were working on together. But this next month or so will be challenging for us, so I couldn’t pursue some of the more classic ideas, like sending her something really special.

So I’ve been thinking about what I could do, and I think that, while I don’t have much monetarily to share, and we’re not close enough for me to stop by and give her a hug or take her to lunch, I do have my thoughts and my words. So I will share those.

In my childhood and teenage years, my mom and I spent lots and lots of time together. She would drive me to ballet, or soccer, or tap-dancing. I remember standing in the driveway, dressed up in a leotard or a skating outfit, and posing for pictures while she photographed me. I remember being in one of my first performances, dancing in a group number on an auditorium stage to some Irish music while my mother sat in the audience and watched. I remember going to the ice skating rink with my mom and my brother’s boy (cub?) scouts group, and falling in love with the ice. I remember those early days, waking up while it was still dark out to go and practice at the local rink. I remember the first time we went to the new skating complex and training center that was being built in Marlboro, MA, to get a lesson with the new skating director there, when I was still just a young skater and we were both still learning about the skating world.

I remember how my mom was always there, with me, by my side and watching as I learned new jumps and spins, tried new things and fell, time and time again. Yet she always brought me back the next day or encouraged me to skate the next session, so that I could get up and keep trying, keep pushing to be better, to land new jumps or to try new moves. And she kept supporting me as I advanced through my skating career, through the many years of practice and competitions, new skates and dresses, the endless driving and travel, and the really high monetary cost of pursuing the sport of figure skating (Seriously. It’s expensive!). Most of all, I’m glad she supported me through all of the bruising falls and that she was there to celebrate with me for the triumphs.

And she was still there for me when I decided, during the summer before my senior year of high school and after months of training to compete in the Senior Ladies division at regionals that fall, after all of that, that it was time for me to leave competitive skating behind, to move on to other things. I know it was hard for her too, as it was for me, but she supported me as I pursued academics more keenly, as I began joining things like the math league and putting more time into school clubs.

That fall she supported me and helped me to keep up the confidence I needed as I applied to 10 different undergraduate programs. And she was there with me to celebrate and to be proud when I was accepted into 9 of those programs, including two full tuition scholarships to schools in MA (where we lived) and including my first choice school, an elite university in NYC (which offered me need-based financial aid but not scholarships). And that fall, she encouraged me as I went off to my first-choice school, leaving MA for life in NYC. I know it must have been really hard for her, living at home alone with my father for the first time in years, both of her children off at college in the city (my brother was at school in Boston). But when I called to talk she always listened and cheered me on. Now, when we talk, we listen to each other’s problems and offer advice, love, and help to each other. I always feel better after talking to my mom, and I hope that she does too.

Mom, I am so thankful for the solid foundations you provided and for the endless support and encouragement as I pursue my dreams, no matter where they take me. Thank you for giving me the space to make my own mistakes while always being there to listen when I fell down and had to get back up again. I consider you one of my best friends, and I feel lucky to be your daughter. Most of all, I love you with all of my heart.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Maternal Profiling

I wanted to share this, which was sent to me by MomsRising. This form of discrimination is one of the gender related discriminations that I see most strongly in the environment around me – I’m glad it’s finally getting some attention.

Maternal Profiling: A New York Times Buzzword

Written by Mary Olivella, Joan Blades, and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

Every once in a while a word or phrase is introduced into the lexicon that sheds light on a widespread practice which hasn’t yet entered the national consciousness. These phrases take hold because we need them.

A few days ago, the New York Times listed a sampling of 2007’s newly coined buzzwords – words “that endured long enough to find a place in the national conversation.” Maternal Profiling was one of these. The New York Times defined it as:

“Employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children. The term has been popularized by members of MomsRising, an advocacy group promoting the rights of mothers in the workplace.”

Credit is due to Cooper Monroe from MomsRising.org who coined the phrase to describe the profound bias mothers face in the workplace. The phrase has struck a cord at a broader level for all mothers who feel pegged and discriminated against whether in the labor force or as stay-at-home moms.

Maternal profiling is a term being used by the more than 140,000 (and growing) MomsRising.org activists who are bringing the concept into the public consciousness.

Although seldom discussed until fairly recently, maternal profiling is a significant and shared problem which negatively impacts vast numbers of women, particularly since a full 82% of American women become mothers by the time they are 44 years old.

The workplace impacts of maternal profiling are jaw dropping, especially given that three-quarters of American mothers are now in the workforce. In fact, the American Journal of Sociology recently reported a study which found that mothers are 79% less likely to be hired than non-mothers with equal resumes and job experiences.

Mothers also face steep wage hits and unequal wages for equal work. One study found that women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, but women with children make only 73 cents to a man’s dollar. And single mothers make about 60 cents to a man’s dollar.

Even in well-paid positions, mothers face discrimination. A Cornell University study found that mothers were offered $11,000 less in starting pay than non-mothers with the same resumes and job experience, while fathers were offered $6,000 more in starting pay.

That same study also found that mothers were held to harsher work standards than non-mothers and were taken off the management track for reasons that were not justifiable when compared to the behavior of other workers.

The dirty little secret of the American workplace is that maternal profiling is alive and well and has been for a very long time. We just didn’t have words to label this form of discrimination.

The repercussions of this discrimination are far reaching and they are intricately linked with issues of poverty, a deficit of women in leadership positions, and the future of our country’s children.

A quarter of American families with children under six are living in poverty. Having a baby has been documented as a leading cause of “poverty spells” in our country — a time when income dips below what is needed for basic living expenses such as food and rent.

Right now, the vast majority of workplaces are still structured from the era when it was assumed that there was a wife at home full-time with the children–even though this has never been the case for many low-income families. The majority of women, of mothers, are in the workplace to stay now—and it increasingly takes two incomes to support a family.

The good news is that we know how to narrow these wage gaps and how to stop maternal profiling. Countries with family-friendly policies (such as paid family leave after the birth of a child and subsidized childcare) don’t have the same degree of maternal wage hits as we do here.

But we have work to do. It’s time to catch up. The United States lags far behind other countries when it comes to supporting families. For instance, Harvard researchers studied over 170 countries and found that the United States was one of only four nations without some form of national paid leave for new mothers. (The others were Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.)

Unfortunately, so far only one state in our nation, California, provides for paid parental leave though Washington State will follow soon. The lack of paid family leave often causes parents to either quit much-needed jobs to care for their newborn (and thus lose their job-linked healthcare coverage), or else the financial hardship of living without paid leave drives women back to work earlier than they would have chosen. Yet when parents return to work, they face a chaotic and costly childcare system where the cost of care for two children can easily be upwards of $20,000 per year.

Then there’s the ever present question of what to do if you, or your child, gets sick. The absence of policies supporting a minimum number of paid sick days can force parents to choose between leaving a sick child at home alone, or staying home to care for their child and consequently losing income or possibly being fired. And, here too we lag behind other nations. Looking at the twenty countries with the top economies in the world, the United States is the only one that does not have a national minimum standard for paid sick days.

Given that we lag behind on family-friendly programs, it is not surprising that we also lag behind on the health of our children. Although we spend more per capita than any other country on healthcare, the United States is ranked a low 37th out of all the nations in respect to childhood mortality. International studies have shown that paid family leave policies decrease infant mortality by an impressive 25%.

All of the above is compounded by the fact that one in eight American children doesn’t have any health care coverage at all. (This is yet another area where we lag behind: The United States is the only industrialized nation which doesn’t have some form of universal health coverage).

It’s easy to see how having a baby in a nation without support for families could cause a downward financial spiral that lasts a lifetime—and how a lifetime of maternal discrimination can create a vicious cycle for the next generation.

We can solve these problems. We can end maternal profiling. American mothers and families are struggling, not because of an epidemic of personal failings, but because we need changes in our national policies, our workplaces, and our culture to reflect that women are in the workplace to stay and that the majority of them have children.

Women across the socioeconomic spectrum, and across the diverse backgrounds of all American families, are negatively impacted by maternal profiling. They (and many men) are becoming progressively more vocal about the need for our country to create family-friendly policies.

Another related phrase, “family responsibilities discrimination,” has been popularized by legal scholars such as Joan Williams to describe discrimination against employees who have care giving responsibilities. The Center for WorkLife Law has seen a 400% increase is such cases filed during 1996-2005 over the previous decade.

MomsRising.org was launched in 2006 to offer mothers and others an opportunity to collect and amplify our voices in order to bring about a cultural shift and policy changes in how our country treats mothers.

We can take the next step towards gender equity by ending maternal discrimination and by building a family-friendly America where having children does not create economic disparities for women. Just as the term sexual harassment transformed American workplaces, maternal profiling can contribute to creating workplaces that do not discriminate against mothers and other caregivers.

Maternal profiling – it’s as bad as it sounds. Let’s get rid of it.

Setting boundaries with Mother-in-Law?

I hope all of my American readers had a good Thanksgiving weekend. (I hope the rest of you had a good weekend too!) I had a much more relaxing weekend than I had anticipated. I didn’t end up babysitting at all, and I had a good time at the houses I visited.

But there was one thing that really bothered me – my mother-in-law’s behavior. When I first saw her, she, as I expected, told me how pleased she was that I was wearing a skirt. Fine, I thought, I do like to wear dresses and skirts sometimes. She made another comment about how I was dressed like a girl and how much she loved it. Ok, still ok.

What bothered me most about her behavior was that one of the very first things she said to us – we had met up less than 10 minutes earlier, for the first time in a few months – was, as she sidled up to me, “So, Flicka Mawa, when are you and Husband going to go on a diet?” Excuse me?! I had always known she would come right out and say things about Husband’s weight, and that it bothered him. As such, it bothered me too, and I thought it was horribly rude and downright mean. In fact, I was apprehensive about seeing her this time precisely because I was worried she would say something about Husband’s weight. But this time, she really crossed the line – saying something about my weight too. How dare she think it’s ok to do that? I was so flabbergasted I was literally speechless. I just looked at Husband, who responded pleadingly and in annoyance, “Ma, let’s not do this today. It’s Thanksgiving.” This was a bad enough breach to leave me pretty annoyed, but I only got more concerned about my relationship with my mom-in-law as the day went on.

We got on the train and there was a decent buffer zone between us, so not much issue there. When we got off the train, she used my arm for support as we walked – her in pointy high heels, mind you, despite her serious back problems. When I had noticed this earlier, I had come right out and commented on it, letting her know that I didn’t think heels were important enough to risk physical pain especially for someone with her history of back trouble. Anyhow, we’re walking down by the side of the train tracks, and she decides to continue to gush to me about how I’m wearing a skirt, and how wonderful it is. As some of my readers know, I’m definitely a feminist, and so this really began to grate on me. You know what? It doesn’t matter if I wear a skirt or pants, I still look like a woman, thank you very much. I believe I started to tell her, in a playful tone, that if she said much more about it I wouldn’t want to wear skirts around her anymore. But then I got a phone call, so I excused myself and left her to walk on her own or grab someone else’s arm while I fished around in my purse. It was my brother, and his timing couldn’t have been better. Thanks, bro!

My husband’s brother’s girlfriend’s family picked us up, and they were all very friendly. Her mom drove Husband and I and my mom-in-law, and the others drove in a different car. Between driving to the first apartment and the second, I sure got to hear a lot from my mom-in-law that didn’t make me too happy. The mom driving us was telling us how she had recently become a grandma and her granddaughter was going to be at the first apartment, which made me very happy because I! LOVE! BABIES!!!!! Anyhow, my mother-in-law was telling her about how her first grandchild was a girl and it was so great after all those boys (she has 4 sons and no daughters), but that she didn’t know what to do with her, because she was a girl. As a baby?  The same things you do with a boy!  The implication that even as a baby you’d need to treat the two sexes differently really annoys me.  Aside from, of course, slightly different care of the privates, particularly if your son is circumcised, there is no difference.  My mom-in-law is, in my opinion, rather sexist, and it never bothers me more than when I am reminded of what kind of influence she could have on my children.

So of course, while I’m thinking about how I really want to minimize how much time she spends with our kids, one of the next things out of her mouth is “And by the time these two have a baby I’ll be retired and will be able to spend all my time with him,” referring to us and our first baby. Great. First of all, she doesn’t work. She’s on disability because of that back problem that I mentioned when I described her shoes. She’s been looking for a decent enough job that accommodates her back issues to risk going off disability (once you go off, you can never go back on for the same problem because you’ve shown that there are still jobs you can hold) since I’ve known Husband, which is about 3 and a half years. So I don’t know what this “by then I’ll be retired” crap is. Second of all, we’re sitting right here! She knows we can hear her. It never occurs to her that she might need to find out if we want her spending all her time taking care of our baby. Husband and I have discussed before how important it is to put up boundaries with her, because she’ll always try and push them until she can come visit us without calling first. I think Husband does an ok job of doing this, but it’s hard – she’s rather set in her ways. Often it results in her leaving for us angry or tearful phone messages because she thinks we don’t pay enough attention to her.

Honestly, once she confided in us that her dream was to move into a house with the two of us. Right, that would work. We do both love her, but we could never, ever, not in a million years live with her. It’s hard enough living in the same borough of NYC. Between all the things she unabashedly said to our courteous host about how much she’s looking forward to spending lots of time with our first child, how to raise babies her way, and how differently she thinks girls and boys need to be treated, I found myself spending most of the second car ride silently wishing I could move out of the area. All the way across the ocean wouldn’t be so bad. The Netherlands, here we come.

Question for my readers: How do you set up boundaries with your mom-in-law? Have they worked? Does she resent you for it? Did you start setting these up before you had your first child, and if so how long before?

Childhood fun for a scientist

My dad forwarded me this post from a DIY tech blog called Hacked Gadgets.  It shows videos of “The Incredible Machine” creations, based on the computer games.  I found the video amusing, but mostly it reminded me of the game, which I used to play as a kid.  Now I miss the game and I want to play it again!  Maybe I’ll check out the most recent version, which is now 6 years old.  To me, this is proof that computer gaming isn’t all wasted time; I played this in my free time as a kid for fun, and when we have kids, I intend to encourage computer games as one resource for learning and practicing skills such as logic, management, and strategy.

Here is a blurb about the game from the wikipedia page:

The Incredible Machine (aka TIM) is a series of computer games that were originally designed and coded by Kevin Ryan and produced by Jeff Tunnell, the now-defunct Jeff Tunnell Productions, and published by Dynamix; the 1993 through 1995 versions had the same development team, but the later 2000–2001 titles had different designers. All versions were published by Sierra Entertainment.

The general objective of the games is to create a series of Rube Goldberg devices: arrange a given collection of objects in a needlessly complex fashion so as to perform some simple task (for example, “put the ball into a box” or “light a candle”). Available objects ranged from simple ropes and pulleys to electrical generators, bowling balls and even cats and mice. The levels usually have some fixed objects that cannot be moved by the player, and so the only way to solve the puzzle is carefully arrange the given objects around the fixed items. There is also a “freeform” option that allows the user to “play” with all the objects with no set goal or to also build their own puzzles with goals for other players to attempt to solve.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

I just watched this movie today, which stars Julianne Moore as a 1950′s housewife who raises 10 children with an alcoholic husband who has abusive tendencies. She manages to keep the family going by continually entering, and winning, many contests to write advertising slogans for various products. I really loved the movie, and I think it will touch a lot of people; I want to share it with my mom, and my aunt, and my grandma. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like there are a good amount of similarities between the lives of the family portrayed in this movie (which is based on the memoir of Terry Ryan, one of the 10 children) and the lives of my mom and her siblings and my grandma and grandpa. It portrays very realistically the pressures that the 1950s consumer society, where people had many pressures to fill specific gender roles, put on both women and men. Although for time and generation this movie is much closer to my mom and grandma, I also saw bits of myself in the character of Tuff, the daughter who wrote the memoir (The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less) that the movie was based on. I recommend checking out the movie, and I myself intend to read the book as soon as I can!

Does anyone know of any similarly themed movies or books, preferably memoirs or movies based on true stories, that they could recommend?

Thoughts on sleep methods

First of all, I’d like to admit that I have removed a post on Ferber vs. Cosleeping. It was written very colloquially and wasn’t a thorough exposition on my thoughts on one method vs the other, but it has gotten more hits than any other single post on my blog, and I don’t relish the thought that anyone might have read it who was looking for serious advice on one vs the other. So I apologize for removing an archived post, but I thought it was best. In it’s place, I thought I’d leave this post of mine. On a message board that I have visited a few times, two posters asked the same thing:

I have a 9 1/2 month old DS and i have to rock him to sleep at night or else he wont go to sleep. and he has been waking up in the middle of the night and sleeping in our bed. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get him back in his own bed but most of the time he ends up sleeping with us, and i dont get any sleep because of it. What should i do, should i not put him in bed with me at all. my family tells me he will end up only wanting to sleep with us and not in his own bed. he moves all over the place or he wants me to put my arm around him when he sleep, other time he cuddles up as close as possible that i cant move without me worrying im gonna hurt him. i dont know what to do….

I am having the same problem! My son is 13 mths and has always slept in our bed. Even though we have a king sized bed he is a restless sleeper. I would love to put him in his crib. He is very long in height and kicks me most of the night. If anyone has a suggestions, I would be greatful.

And so I wrote back this response, which I thought I’d post here, as it sort of tells how my feelings on sleep methods have changed since some of my earlier posts.

From what I’ve read, the age that a child naturally grows out of wanting to sleep in your bed is often 3 or 4 years old. If you are not getting any sleep now, you probably won’t want to wait that long, so you may need to try other methods. You may wish to try adding an arm’s reach cosleeper to the side of the bed and seeing if he will sleep in that – he’ll be near you and close enough to touch, but a little more protected from your own movement and you from his. If baby is used to sleeping cuddled up against you, even putting him in the cosleeper might cause some distress at first, but with some patience baby would get used to it.

Another thing you might try is putting the crib in your room (if it fits! I live in a NYC apartment myself….), but you still might need to “train” baby a little bit to get used to sleeping in his own crib.

A third question is what happens if you let him fall asleep on/next to you, but then once he’s asleep you move him to his crib? Sometimes the case then is that baby sleeps fine, but if baby wakes up, he cries for mommy. So that would be workable depending on how many times a night baby wakes.

Finally, I know the Ferber method can be hard on moms and dads; I find it excruciating to listen to baby cry, but if you aren’t getting your sleep and the other things don’t work/aren’t right for you, you might consider it. The Ferber method is proven to train your baby to fall asleep on his own. My major suggestion with that is to read Ferber’s book itself, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems, and follow it. His method involves gradually letting the baby cry for longer and longer – but in the beginning you go back in every few minutes, so baby knows you haven’t abandoned him. You set up a bedtime routine so baby learns the signals that it’s time to sleep. Often people try the Ferber method but don’t use a gradual build up to time you let baby cry in one stretch, because they didn’t read the book themselves and based what they did on short web articles or what they’d heard from friends.

The biggest thing I think you should know is that it doesn’t matter what family or others say about what you choose to do. Some people will tell you you shouldn’t let baby sleep with you because it will “spoil” baby or because baby will never grow out of it. Others will tell you you shouldn’t let the baby cry because that’s mean or because you’re training the baby not to depend on you. You have to pick the parenting style that works for you; since they don’t live with you, they can’t know all the details about what it’s like. Do what’s right for you, and don’t worry about it.

Ferber video

I just watched this video over at babycenter, and I think it’s a great video about the Ferber method.  The things I like the most about it are: that it stresses that it’s only a choice that will work for some people, how Danny Lewin describes the approach as “very fast” and “accelerated”, and how the end of movie emphasizes that while it works for some, it’s ok for it to be too much for you to go through with your own child.  One comment, though, is that I feel that the short bursts of video with the baby crying really is far from depicting how difficult it actually is to listen to your baby crying and not responding to him.

A children’s book on women in science

So I was browsing the NOW store this morning, and I came across their selection of children’s books.  I’ve been sure to bookmark it for when I have children.  One book in particular stuck out to me:

History of Women in Science by Vivian Sheldon Epstein

Epstein introduces older children (ages 9-14) to the many women who have made strides for all of us in the fields of science and technology.

Sounds pretty cool to me!

More ferber conversation

There’s been a bit of a discussion in the comments section of my Ferber vs. Co-sleeping post.  My views on this have evolved some since I first posted about it, because I’ve been reading more and more about science studies on babies and sleeping and in general the nature vs. nurture argument.  I recently wrote a long response to a visitor and I just wanted to comment on this here because the discussion there has gotten interesting.  Here is an excerpt from my comment:

I may not be a sleep expert, but I do base my opinions in scientific research. One of the things that bothers me most about all of this is the assumption that babies and children are so malleable. They are, of course, malleable to some degree. But they are also born with inborn needs and desires and personality just based on their biological makeup. And at the age of an infant, most evidence suggests that babies do not have the ability to reason. They are responding to base instincts, that in an adult’s words would sound something like “I feel uncomfortable about XYZ so I’m going to cry to relay this information to someone who will remedy the situation.”

One source that I use to derive many of my parenting opinions is a book that I think is very critical to parenting but is not considered a parenting book: The Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker. Pinker is a biologist, and the book is all about the current state of scientific evidence over the nature vs. nurture controversy. You really need to read the whole book to understand the end, but the chapters at the end are wonderfully insightful, including the chapter on children. Pretty much my opinion these days (and it has evolved since my original post of this topic) is that whether or not you use the Ferber sleep method, it is not going to affect your kid’s development or personality. This may be different from what I implied in my post, because I’m not as concerned about letting the baby cry affecting the emotional development of the kid. I certainly think that co-sleeping will help a baby to feel secure and confident, and thus to explore the world knowing that there is a safe haven with his parents. There is research evidence of this that has shown such things as boys having more self-confidence and girls being less discomforted by physical closeness later in life. (Visit this page to read about this and then if you want, go and find the real studies they cite.) But I don’t think a kid who is “Ferberized” will necessarily exhibit low self-esteem. In my opinion, if there’s something you can do that will help with security and confidence, you should want to. But I do acknowledge there are plenty of good reasons not to – the one that strikes me most is if parents are so exhausted that they will snap at the kids and it will further hamper the feelings of security.

Your choice of sleep method will certainly, however, affect your day to day home life – how much sleep you and the baby get, how comfortable you are or how stressed your heart is from hearing baby cry, and your baby’s physical stress levels. Research definitely has shown that co-sleeping leads to more regular breathing in the baby (visit the site mentioned previously or this page by Dr. Sears or this article on Dr. McKenna’s research)

This is an excerpt from the article on Dr. McKenna’s work, which I didn’t include in the comment:

Human babies may have evolved to sleep best-and perhaps most safely – when they snooze next to a parent rather than alone in a crib. Evidence for this contention comes from a pilot study directed by James J. McKenna of Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and Sarah Mosko of the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center,

“When sleeping alone, babies sleep too soon, too long, and too hard,” McKenna asserts. “Contact with a parent’s body helps to regulate an infant’s physiology throughout the night.”