Essay On Co-Sleeping

“Co-sleeping (also known as bed sharing or "having a family bed") is the practice of having your infant in your bed with you during sleep” (Noelle). Co-Sleeping has become controversial in the United States although it has been popular in a lot of western culture. Americans tend to value independence, even in infants, so this makes the practice of sleeping with another somewhat a controversy. It can be said that sharing a bed with a sleeping baby can be seen as harmful to the child in that it may make him clingier, insecure, cause sleep problems for them later in life, or even increase the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) by putting them at the risk of being smothered or crushed. However, hence the controversy, research has found many benefits to co-sleeping as well.
“Throughout human history, breast-feeding mothers sleeping alongside their infants constituted a marvelously adaptive system in which both the mothers ' and infants ' sleep physiology and health were connected in beneficial ways” (McKenna). McKenna emphasized that a baby sleeping next to its mother the baby receives “protection, warmth, emotional reassurance,
Since before the middle ages "overlying" or suffocating infants deliberately was common, particularly among the poor in crowded cities. This form of infanticide led local church authorities to make laws forbidding parents to let infants sleep next to them” (McKenna). Some studies have found a connection between co-sleeping and SIDS, which prevents many professionals from encouraging the practice, yet co-sleeping, can have many wonderful benefits as well. Perhaps the greatest benefit to co-sleeping is the close bond that is fosters between mother and child. The entire time a child is in his mother’s womb he feels her warmth, hears her voice, and feels the vibration of her heartbeat. This makes the controversy of co-sleeping so difficult to prove either