Co-sleeping

One of the tenets of Attachment Parenting (a Western term I learned from a commenter on this blog; non-Westerns practice it univerally) has been brought up at Crunchy Con by a guest blogger — Should infants sleep alone?

Cited is a study about "co-sleeping, or bed-sharing, a common practice in countries outside the U.S," that suggests that the practice "led to more disturbed sleep in infants." As evidence, the researches notes that "babies living in Asia got much less sleep overall and significantly less quality sleep than infants in the U.S." but also that among "babies in Asia who slept alone, the quality and duration of their sleep were just as low as babies who co-slept with parents."

The reason why "vast numbers of babies in Asian populations are sleeping less than their Western peers" and has nothing to do with co-sleeping. Asia is more crowded that the U.S., and there is more noise and light pollution. Also, living quarters are much smaller here, so kids are awoken much more easily by noise from older family members. Furthermore, Asians, at least Korean Asians, do not in large part have the same Anglo-Saxon ethic of putting the kids to bed early, and kids tend to go to sleep whenever their parents do.

By putting the kids to bed at a proper time, which surprises most Koreans, and by practicing co-sleeping, our kids are well rested.