• Last updated 5/7/13 by Cynthia Mosher

  By Peggy O'Mara Published in Mothering, Issue 141       One of the biggest crises of confidence that new mothers face has to do with sleep. Mothers feel responsible for their babies' sleep. Others ask mothers if their babies are sleeping through the night, as if this is something the mothers can control. Mothers lie to one another about whether or not their infants sleep through the night. And everyone lies about not bringing their babies into bed with them.   We lie because our society has unrealistic expectations of babies, and therefore we have... read more

• Last updated 3/3/13 by HWBMama

By Megan Leary     I was at an event supporting midwifery legislature when I saw the Le Leche League booth and made a bee line for it.  I have been pretty fortunate in that breast feeding has gone great from the start for my daughter and me, but my issue now was that breastfeeding was going almost too well.  She was now a year old and she was nursing like a newborn again.  I was up every two hours at night nursing her and then up-and-at-em the next day for my full time job.  Needless to say, I was perpetually tired and desperate for some mama... read more

• Last updated 10/10/12 by Sarah Clark

Last week I shared a short post here on Mothering Magazine about how attachment parenting can make you crazy.   I have actually posted many times on my personal blog about my difficulties, frustrations, and yes, love of attachment parenting.  How hard this type of parenting (or really ANY type of parenting) is for me is no secret.  I am a mom and sometimes I struggle. When I share these thoughts on my frustrations with AP the response is overwhelmingly positive.  There are many, many other mothers who struggle as I do.  There are other women who are sleep deprived... read more

• Last updated 10/4/12 by Mothering Editorial

By James J. McKenna Issue 114 September/October 2002 Mothers and infants sleeping side by side, also known as cosleeping, is the evolved context of human infant sleep development. Until very recent times, for all human beings, it constituted a prerequisite for infant survival; outside of the Western industrialized context, for the majority of contemporary people, it still does. Because the human infant's body continues to be adapted only to the mother's body, cosleeping with nighttime breastfeeding remains clinically significant and potentially lifesaving. This is... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

By Stephanie Nakhleh   Cosleeping was no fun at first. Instead of the nighttime bliss I'd been promised by attachment-parenting enthusiasts, my baby often acted like a nocturnal animal—prowling the sheets in the wee hours, howling for no clear reason. I felt cheated. Where was the state of harmony everyone had told me about: those sweetly synchronous sleep patterns, the magical ability to sleep through midnight nursings? Almost everyone else in the world did this, right? Why was it so hard? In exasperation, I talked my reluctant husband into trying to train our... read more

• Last updated 10/18/12 by Melanie Mayo

(Photo courtesy of http://katelyndemidow.blogspot.com/)         I am going to commit a huge natural parenting faux pas and admit something…. I kind of hate co-sleeping. I don’t actually 100% hate it.  There are lots of beautiful things about sleeping with your kids.  But, since I am complaining (I will get back to the good stuff later) I should mention some things that make me think I won’t miss this stage. ~Being squished ~Waking up numerous... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

A new research study shows that co-sleeping is best for kids right up to ages three and four.    There is actually a wealth of research that I discuss in my book, to support co-sleeping, yet it rarely makes the headlines in the mainstream.  Most parents fear that co-sleeping and SIDS are interlinked and it simply isn’t true.  Unless you are grosly overweight, a smoker, or a heavy drinker/drug user the safest, and most desirable, place for your child is right by your side for as long as they want.   Many co-sleepers have a family room/bed that... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

By Aletha Solter Issue 122 January/February 2004 The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of leaving babies in their cribs without picking them up, and letting them cry themselves to sleep. A modified version of this approach is to go to the baby every few minutes to pat her on the back or reassure her verbally (but not pick the baby up), and to increase the length of time gradually so that the baby eventually “learns” to fall asleep alone. But there is no doubt that repeated lack of responsiveness to a baby’s cries—even for only five minutes at a time—is... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

By Kathleen Dyer Ramos Issue 114 September/October 2002 Controversies concerning parent-child cosleeping abound in both the popular parenting advice literature and professional scientific literature. Previous researchers have suggested that an understanding of the familial and cultural context of children's sleep might help resolve some of the controversy. The two studies described here are attempts to explore the context of cosleeping. Why Do Some Families Share Sleep? Anthropologists have observed that cosleeping is common in collectivistic cultures (where... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

By Tina Kimmel Issue 114 September/October 2002 The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association (JPMA, the crib manufacturers' lobby) recently launched a campaign to discourage parents from placing infants in adult beds or sleeping with them, based on data showing that infants have a very small risk of dying in adult beds.1,2 The CPSC implies that infants in adult beds are at greater risk than infants in cribs, but as we know, and as they know, babies also die in cribs. What we need to do is calculate the... read more