Great Day in the Morning

Has it really been a whole month? So much for my theory that I will blog more if I have assigned topics for myself!

So where was I? Co-sleeping. Ah yes. The little devil of Attachment Parenting, which NY is currently spending mystery money (the mystery being- where does it come from? I thought the state was flat broke!) trying to campaign against. Radio and television ads are all over, trying to scare people into making their babies sleep flat on their backs in a crib, in a room away from parents.

The research that they use to conclude that co-sleeping (or "the family bed") is scary and causes SIDS includes data from accidental co-sleeping situations. Where geniuses decide to hit the bottle of wine and take a few drags from a crack pipe before using their child as a pillow for their drunken stupor. Oddly, the research doesn't include cases where babies are in their cribs and they pass away from SIDS.

True co-sleeping situations involve (as all parenting situations do) some foresight. Small babies need to be kept away from pillows, blankets, stuffed toys, people who are medicated or drunk, sharp objects, electrical devices, and for God's sake, spoiled pampered pets. Mattresses need to be pushed completely to the wall so that there are no gaps, and the bed needs to be secured so that bambinos aren't falling four feet to the ground. For some people, that means a securely attached bed rail; for others, that means putting the mattress directly onto the floor.

For us, it meant a couple of things- when Gianna was tiny, we had her in our Arms Reach Co-Sleeper, firmly attached to the bed. If she happened to fall asleep next to me, the farthest she could fall if she rolled away was two inches. Now that she's bigger and older, she makes herself at home for part of the night in the center 80% of the bed. Previously, Mr. Clarateaches' strange coma style of sleep made it dangerous to have her between us. Now, Gianna kicks and dances through the night, so the danger of overlay is really small. The danger of the three of us making a capital letter H is fairly high.

At this point, Gianna is sleeping for at least half the night in her own bed, and then moves in on our territory. She loves her own bed, and her room, and has slowly but surely gotten more inclined to be in her own space- the fear of co-sleeping children "never" leaving the family bed is just hilariously silly.