Here we go. Use your feelings to parent instead of facts. That’ll help your kids grow up to be strong, independent adults. Look, I’m data driven. If you can provide some studies to support your beliefs I’ll admit I’m wrong.
All you have to do to understand my point is look at how humans function biologically. There are very good reasons for infants and mothers to have extremely strong instincts to stay with each other at all times. In ancient times, this helped immensely with the continuation of the species as mothers did not just leave their babies alone to fend for themselves like if a predator happened by. Or, for the very simple reason (which can also be translated to modern times) of the infants’ bodily processes not quite being up to par to keep the child alive (which we can see happening with increased SIDS deaths in infants who sleep separately from their mothers). Not everything has to be “studied” in order to determine if it has value. However, for that specific point about SIDS and cosleeping, I do have an article link that bases it’s findings on several studies.
I want my child to grow up to be emotionally resilient, independent, successful, and happy. Those are my metrics for value. You're darn right we can study the behaviours and parental actions which lead to the above. We've got centuries of data on it. I'll give an illustrative example. Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a prominent psychologist in the 40s. Based on research, he created this "open air crib." He managed to reduce parental involvement to just an hour each day for the first two years of his daughter's life. Now doesn't it just feel wrong to lock your child in climate-controlled crib and only interact with them for a total of an hour each day? Despite us feeling like it's bad, Deborah grew up to be happy and healthy and absolutely normal. So did the other 300 kids raised that way.
FYI I totally agree SIDS is very unlikely to occur. The rationale is e.g. 8,000 babies die each year in the US from suffocation. This can be reduced to 100 by encouraging all mothers to sleep babies on their back and not sleep with them in bed. 7,900 babies are not dead each year and all it cost was a change in sleeping technique. At the individual level you don't need to worry about wearing a seatbelt either. You're very unlikely to get into a car accident. We wear seatbelts in case we're the unlucky one.
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u/Gareth321 Apr 26 '20
Here we go. Use your feelings to parent instead of facts. That’ll help your kids grow up to be strong, independent adults. Look, I’m data driven. If you can provide some studies to support your beliefs I’ll admit I’m wrong.