Read on the Alternative Baby
forum and then heard on the news while driving back, about some mother
who fell asleep with her newborn in the bed and woke up to find it dead.
That in my opinion is one of the worst possible things that could ever happen to anyone.
I feel sad for her.
The
thing I'm pissed off about though is how those dumb fucktards in the
media (can you tell I have next to no respect for journalists and am
concerned about anyone wishing to become one, especially if they are a
friend?) sensationlised the shit out of it and everyone's raving on
about the dangers of co-sleeping.
I've been co-sleeping with Tiny
since birth. Apparently all the research is showing how bad it is, but
they're happily glossing over the facts that co-sleeping reduces
incidences of SIDS, gets more sleep for the parents (despite claims that
some people have tried really hard to prove that people have worse and
lighter sleep if they sleep with the baby, every single parent I've
spoken to that co-sleeps gets more sleep than parents who don't unless
the latter are lucky enough to have babies that are quite happy to sleep
on their own...rare but happens), and assists in creating good
parent-child relationships.
As with everything else (seeing as
"parenting" seems to have been relegated as a toolbox with tools to
assist in raising a small one) it may not be "for" everyone and it may
not work for some people. Though I would like to point out that the
"Western" world (America mostly, but a decent chunk of Europe and
Australia and I'm not sure where else) is vastly in the minority as far
as sleeping arrangements go, pretty much everywhere else babies crash in
with their parents, often in Asia and I think Africa babies crash in
with the entire family. Considering the infant mortality rate directly
related to co-sleeping in places where it's a regular thing, anyone who
tries to tell me that co-sleeping is bad should do some research the
other way.
Because everyone these days does their best to avoid
blame even when it is their fault, it's a lot easier to blame processes
than people (co-sleeping is bad rather than that particular situation
was bad).
I don't want to blame the mother but if she doesn't
regularly co-sleep with the baby and dropped into bed with it exhausted,
accidents had a higher chance of happening. If you regularly co-sleep
with a baby (co-sleeping should not be done if one or both parents smoke
or do drugs, or if the bed involved is of the water variety) you tune
in to it and know where it's at even when you're sound asleep (this
attunement is one of the things that help form good attachments which
add to the parent-child bond). If you don't co-sleep regularly you
won't have this attunement and this are more likely to accidentally
smother.
The poor mother may have been exhausted and not been
able to tell where the bub was at, it might have been a water bed that
it sank into, the bub might have had some underlying issue and would
have died even if it had been in a cot, but then it wouldn't have made
the news coz cot death is, sadly, quite normal.
I feel for the mother who lost her baby.
I
hate the media fucktards who vindicate co-sleeping and anything else
they can vindicate to try to make a story interesting. They don't give a
shit about presenting a balanced viewpoint or even facts. So they can
all get fucked.
(apologies to the parentage if they're reading this...I can't think of a nice way to put that)
Now onto other things.
Tiny
was a bit on the cranky side today, he spent a fair bit of time either
chewing on my shoulder, my finger or his teething ring. I had to feed
him to sleep a couple of times, one of those times he didn't even feed
really, just had my nipple in his mouth til he dozed off. I rocked him
to sleep a couple more times and the other time he went to sleep by
himself. He didn't stay asleep for too long each time, the longest was
for about an hour. I couldn't do anything or go anywhere without him
crying, the second I turned my back on him he'd start screaming.
He
also pulled the wickedest prissy face today :) It was so damn cute.
Didn't result in tears though. Also had my fair share of laughs with
him (he's laughing now playing with Josh), playing all his favourite
games with him and trying to discover some new ones. His neck and back
are a lot stronger so we can do more stuff with him, like introducing
the flying game :) Though the flying game may explain why his feet lift
up when he raises his head when on the ground ;)
We bought a
12-pack of new nappies today. The original 36 cloth nappies we have
were factory seconds and they worked pretty good, the 12-pack was of the
same brand as the seconds but obviously the full price saleable stuff,
so they cost $50 for 12 rather than $30. They are amazingly wonderfully
soft (Tiny's gonna love em). And seeing as a full load of nappies is
about 30 nappies, we now have many spare and are able to do a full load
without running out :)
Beats doing prissy little waste of water and electricity half loads.
Lamb and vege soup for dinner :)
Posted on: Friday, 8 April 2005 @ 6:19pm
Blatting about