A dose of bull in the Sunday paper

In article SngNb.14931$Ar1.1393@fed1read04,
says...

Nope. Given that I *don't* co-sleep, I have no axe to grind one way or
another. What disturbs me is that you keep coming back, over and over again,
with the assertion that co-sleeping increases SIDS (the research doesn't
show that, though it does show that *unsafe* co-sleeping increases the risk
of infant death) and the assertion that co-sleeping increases sleep problems
(the research doesn't show that, either, even the Linz study). Time and
again, people have told you why your interpretations of the research don't
hold water and yet, time and again, you make the same darn assertions based
on the same darn evidence. Frankly, it's long past getting repetitive.

If OTHER people choose to sleep with their babies/toddlers/children, so
what? Why do you feel it your personal mission to convince them they should
do otherwise?

You don't expect him to actually RESPOND to such logical criticism,
do you? He never has.

Michelle
Flutist

--
Drift on a river, That flows through my arms
Drift as I'm singing to you
I see you smiling, So peaceful and calm
And holding you, I'm smiling, too
Here in my arms, Safe from all harm
Holding you, I'm smiling, too
-- For Xander [9/22/98 - 2/23/99]

"Circe" wrote in message news:8mgNb.14920$Ar1.10058@fed1read04...
Joshua Levy wrote:
(HollyLewis) wrote in message
...
The recent studies that I've seen show that co-sleeping babies have
more sleep problems that crib sleepers:

Actually, it's that babies with sleep problems are more likely to be
cosleepers
than crib sleepers -- it's the sleep difficulties that lead to
longer-term
cosleeping, not the other way around.

Nice guess, but your're wrong. Usually it is very hard to seperate
cause and effect, so you would have a good argument. But in this
case, there is the Latz study, which compared sleep problems in
Japan and the US, and found more problems in co-sleepers in both
Japan and the US. In Japan co-sleeping in normal.

Bzzt! Reread the abstract. The study found more *night-waking* in the
Japanese co-sleepers, but night-waking isn't necessarily a sleep problem and
it's something that parents of babies who sleep in cribs may not even be
aware is happening.

Sigh. Read the paper. (Is that too much to ask?) Night-waking is NOT
waking up and going back to sleep. Night waking is waking up and NOT
going back to sleep. That's the sleep problem; that's what is reported
on in their statistics.

Night-waking isn't a *problem* for parents unless the waking requires the
parent to intervene.

I'm not so self-centered. I think night waking is a problem, because it
disrupts the baby's sleep. You can take the position that only parents
need a good night's sleep, but I don't agree. The Finnish study showed
that co-sleeping kids have night-waking problems even after they have
stopped co-sleeping.

Meantime, you still haven't shown that co-sleeping *creates* sleep problems
rather than the other way around for parents in the US, where co-sleeping is
not the norm.

I've shown that co-sleeping babies have more sleep problems than crib
sleepers, that this effect continues after they stop co-sleeping, and that
co-sleeping is not a reaction to night-wakings, but the other way around.
Obviously, you can have whatever opinions you want, but the studies which
compare co-sleepers to crib sleepers are not wrong because you disagree
with there results.

Rather than saying silly things like 'night wakings do not bother the parents'
why don't you try to find some data to support your ideas?

Joshua Levy

Joshua Levy wrote:
"Circe" wrote in message
news:8mgNb.14920$Ar1.10058@fed1read04...
Joshua Levy wrote:
Nice guess, but your're wrong. Usually it is very hard to seperate
cause and effect, so you would have a good argument. But in this
case, there is the Latz study, which compared sleep problems in
Japan and the US, and found more problems in co-sleepers in both
Japan and the US. In Japan co-sleeping in normal.

Bzzt! Reread the abstract. The study found more *night-waking* in the
Japanese co-sleepers, but night-waking isn't necessarily a sleep
problem and
it's something that parents of babies who sleep in cribs may not
even be
aware is happening.

Sigh. Read the paper. (Is that too much to ask?)

I'd love to. Point me to a place on the web where I can access the entire
text of the study for free and I'll be happy to read it. I am now, however,
willing to pay for the privilege of satisfying my curiosity.

Night-waking is NOT
waking up and going back to sleep. Night waking is waking up and NOT
going back to sleep.

Really? For how long? I mean, my crib-sleeping babies all woke 2-3 times per
night on average until well into the second year of life, but they typically
went back to sleep easily within 10-15 minutes of breastfeeding. Were they
awake long enough for it to be classified as a "sleep problem" or not? IF
not, how long does the baby have to be awake before it's classified as a
"problem"--30 minutes, an hour, what?

I am perfectly willing to allow the co-sleeping babies might wake up and
take 10-15 minute snacks more often than crib-sleeping babies. OTOH, it's
quite possible that co-sleeping parents of a baby who woke 4-5 times might
get a better night's sleep than the parents of a crib-sleeping baby who
wakes only half as often. The reason is that the act of getting out of bed
to tend to the baby's needs makes the parents far more wakeful than simply
tending the baby's need in their own bed, and being more wakeful means it
takes the parents longer to fall back to sleep.

Now, as it happens, I sleep poorly with anyone other than my husband in my
bed. With the exception of a few weeks in very early infancy, I never found
co-sleeping improved my sleep situation because *I* didn't sleep well even
when the baby slept. But for parents who find it easy to sleep with a baby,
I can credit the idea that *more* night-waking would not necessarily equal a
*worse* sleep situation than crib-sleeping.

Night-waking isn't a *problem* for parents unless the waking
requires the parent to intervene.

I'm not so self-centered. I think night waking is a problem, because
it disrupts the baby's sleep. You can take the position that only
parents need a good night's sleep, but I don't agree.

What makes you think that waking up at night is bad or necessarily equate to
insufficient/poor sleep? Gosh, I have "slept through night" perhaps a half a
dozen times in my adult life. I wake up quite often at night. Sometimes, I
roll over and go back to sleep within a few minutes. Others, I get up and go
to the toilet or get something to drink. I don't feel sleep-deprived or
disrupted as a result. And as a baby, I slept in a crib and, as far as my
mother can recall, "slept through the night" without problems, so my sleep
patterns clearly can't be attributed to bad habits learned in childhood.

Frankly, I think the whole idea that it's natural or normal for adult human
beings to sleep an uninterrupted 8-hour stretch is bogus, anyway. I think
it's highly unlikely that our ancestors slept that way; it's much more
likely that they went to their beds shortly after it became dark and stayed
in bed until dawn. Depending on the time of the year and location, that
might well mean 10 or more hours spent in bed. I remember reading some time
ago about a study that was done that showed that when people don't have
electricity, they go to bed much earlier and get up much earlier, that they
tend to wake more often at night and to spend longer periods during the
night resting but not sleeping, and that overall, the participants reported
feeling better rested despite the more frequent periods of wakefulness
during the night than when they went to bed later, woke less often, but
spent fewer hours in bed. (Sorry, I haven't a reference or the time to look
it up, so you'll either have to take my word for it or see if you find it
yourself.) My experience of sleep while backbacking or doing primitive
camping has been very similar, so I find the conclusions of the study quite
logical.

Given the fact that, under the conditions that have been normative for the
vast majority of human history and prehistory, adults probably didn't sleep
for long, uninterrupted periods, it seems pretty unlikely that sleeping for
a long. unbroken period at night is either natural or normal for babies or
children, either. It's only because we've strayed so far with modern
technology from our natural sleep patterns that frequent night-waking and
periods of wakefulness are problems--we're simply trying to squeeze all our
sleep into less time than we really need. The truth is that we'd all be
better rested if we spent more time in bed, even if we spent considerably
more of our time in bed awake or merely dozing. And since every other mammal
mother on the planet sleeps with her young, I think it's inconceivable that
there's anything maladaptive about co-sleeping in humans except to the
extent that our modern way of life conflicts with it.

The Finnish study showed
that co-sleeping kids have night-waking problems even after they have
stopped co-sleeping.

Perhaps. However, I didn't get the impression that co-sleeping is the norm
in Finland and, therefore, the study doesn't adequately separate cause and
effect (i.e., do poor sleepers co-sleep or does co-sleeping create poor
sleepers?).

Meantime, you still haven't shown that co-sleeping *creates* sleep
problems rather than the other way around for parents in the US,
where co-sleeping is not the norm.

I've shown that co-sleeping babies have more sleep problems than crib
sleepers, that this effect continues after they stop co-sleeping, and
that co-sleeping is not a reaction to night-wakings, but the other way
around.

Sorry, but I think you've done nothing of the kind. Unless the Japanese
study controls for the possibility that babies who start out co-sleeping and
wake very seldom are more likely to be moved to cribs than their more
frequent-waking counterparts (a fairly logical possibility), you haven't
shown that co-sleeping isn't a reaction to night-waking. All you have shown
is that parents with babies who wake a lot at night are more likely to
co-sleep than parents of babies who wake less often. In other words, you've
got correlation, not causality.

Obviously, you can have whatever opinions you want, but the studies
which compare co-sleepers to crib sleepers are not wrong because you
disagree with there results.

I didn't say they were *wrong*. I don't disagree with the results. I think
it's entirely possible that co-sleeping and frequent, parent-reported
night-waking are co-related; in fact, I think it makes perfect sense that
they would be, for all the reasons I've mentioned. What I *don't* agree with
is the notion that co-sleeping *causes* the reported sleep problems. It may
cause them for *some* babies. For others, co-sleeping may be the parental
response to them. And in still others, parents who might well prefer to
co-sleep may choose crib-sleeping because that works better for their
babies.

Rather than saying silly things like 'night wakings do not bother the
parents' why don't you try to find some data to support your ideas?

I don't have to find data to support the conclusion that the studies you've
referenced merely prove *correlation*, not causation. Of course, causation
is a bitch to prove, especially in the social sciences, which is why
researchers rarely claim to have done it.

Beyond that, you still haven't answered my question: what's your motivation
for repeating, over and over, the claim that co-sleeping causes sleep
problems? Why do you *care* so much what other people do?
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [22 mos.] mom)

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