Brand-new parents are often the beneficiaries of loads of advice, wanted and unwanted. Friends, family members, and experts all feel entitled to share counsel and insight. In the end, however, parents know their children better than anyone and are in the best position to become educated and make decisions about their care.
This is why the new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have caused concern among parents and clinicians.
“The infant’s crib, portable crib, play yard, or bassinet should be placed in the parents’ bedroom until the child’s first birthday.”
Just this week, the AAP announced new guidelines for parents on how to prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Some recommendations remained the same: Put babies to sleep on their back, remove all soft bedding such as pillows and crib bumpers from the sleep area, and avoid exposure to secondhand smoke and alcohol. But one part was new:
“The infant’s crib, portable crib, play yard, or bassinet should be placed in the parents’ bedroom until the child’s first birthday. Although there is no specific evidence for moving an infant to his or her own room before one year of age, the first six months are particularly critical, because the rates of SIDS and other sleep-related deaths, particularly those occurring in bed-sharing situations, are highest in the first six months. Placing the crib close to the parents’ bed so that the infant is within view and reach can facilitate feeding, comforting, and monitoring of the infant.”
Some 3,500 infants die in their sleep in the U.S. every year. Physicians attribute some of it to SIDS and other sleep-related disorders. The AAP has taken extra measures to address this problem.
Keeping the baby in the same room as the parents for the first year of life is something many people already do. About 45 percent of parents report co-sleeping with their children. Co-sleeping can have many benefits, such as strengthening the bond between child and parents and helping the parents to be aware of the child’s needs.
However, many parents feel the new advice is over the top. They try to get their kids on a careful schedule, but they also need time to rest in their own space without waking up for every peep and rustle from the baby. Co-sleeping also makes sleep training and self-soothing for babies much more difficult. What parent could stand to let a baby cry it out in the bassinet right next to his or her pillow?
“It evoked so many feelings when I read it that I stopped thinking like a pediatrician and started thinking like a mom and an advocate for moms. And I was insulted,” said one pediatrician.
“As soon as I read that recommendation, I had to take my breath,” said Dr. Rosemary Stein, pediatrician at the International Family Clinic in Burlington, North Carolina. Stein said the statement left no room for parents with different styles or preferences for their children. “I feel strongly that those recommendations are wrong.”
“What are you expecting?” she told LifeZette. “Are you expecting these parents to loom over the child? It just increases anxiety and makes mothers feel like they have to adhere to this. That’s just wrong. It evoked so many feelings when I read it that I stopped thinking altogether like a pediatrician and started thinking like a mom and an advocate for moms. And I was insulted.”
If parents adhere to the guidelines and their child still passes away from SIDS — Stein said the guilt would be almost insurmountable. It also requires parents to remain sleep-deprived for a year. Stay-at-home parents will be unable to function and take care of other children, and working parents will be unable to perform properly on the job. Both situations lead to a loss of confidence and make the parents less equipped to deal with the adjustment of a new addition to the family.
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In her own practice, Stein focuses on empowering parents to adjust to a new baby — not dictating how they should parent. “It is so important to create an environment where you strengthen and reinforce the mom and give the power back to the mom,” she said. The nucleus of the family is the married-couple relationship, she said, not the parent-child relationship. “But this statement takes it the opposite way. The relationship really becomes about the mom serving the child.”
Related: Till Sleep Do Us Part?
Stein started her own medical practice shortly after her daughter’s birth. She wouldn’t have been able to juggle a newborn and her new business without establishing careful sleep and wake schedules for her infant daughter — something the new AAP recommendations neglect to mention. They say nothing about a sleep schedule or daily routine for the child — or anything else that might be helpful to create healthy sleep cycles.
Many parents confirm that co-sleeping is the right choice for them and their children. It absolutely can be. But other parents prefer to get a decent night’s sleep so that they can function in their careers and other relationships. Adding a baby to the family will create enough upheaval in a parent’s life. They shouldn’t feel guilt-tripped about their choices to sleep in separate rooms.
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