Now they've gone and done it. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a new set of recommendations for preventing SIDS, and they include using a pacifier and making babies sleep in their own beds. I offered my kids pacifiers (only one ever actually liked them) and find the so-called "family bed" concept a bit weird, but I have to think these guidelines are based on no hard science whatsoever, and simply a transparent desire to declare war on La Leche League and some of the "crunchier" approaches to child-rearing. How about a little balance?
There is no way to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it how frantic a new mother is not to harm her child in any way --and how susceptible to even the slightest criticism, out of fear that she is an incompetent parent who may break the poor little thing. Subsequent children get you over it --whatever your approach, you moderate and "get real" when you have to juggle the needs of two or more. Therefore I am a big believer in the "whatever works to keep Mom and baby sane" approach to nursing, sleep, and life. When you haven't slept through the night in months and the baby is shrieking his little lungs out, it is flat-out unkind to tell mom she can't just cuddle him lying down. Sometimes it's the only way to get through the night. (Plus, the AAP's recommendations essentially mean you have to be wealthy to raise kids (it takes equipment), and you can only have one (because a crying baby is going to wake up all the other kids in the house, and if you cuddle the baby in bed, he's going to DIE!)
I have a similiar gripe with the so-called "ecological" breast-feeders (is there "pollutant" breast-feeding?). Mom's sanity counts for something, and it's flat-out unkind to tell a new mom that nursing is the right response to his every cry, or that if she ever offers a pacifier or bottle, the child will never go back to nursing and grow up to be Jeffrey Dahmer because his mother rejected him.
Relax, people. Babies are pretty resilient, and no matter what you do, if you're attentive and well-intentioned, you're not going to go far wrong. And take Association guidelines of any kind with some skepticism. For our first-born, we were told we had to put the baby to sleep on his tummy or he'd die of SIDS. For our second child, it was side-sleeping or death. For the fourth it was back-sleeping or death. Everyone's still alive.
