A newborn is an interesting creature. While incredibly helpless, it has a set of behaviors and environmental expectations that help it to get the support it needs from its parents. These have been part of the newborn since it was first human.

It has been argued that modern living requires early training of certain independent behaviors, such as solitary sleeping. This is like saying that because of the cultural expectation of literacy in industrialized nations, we should teach young infants how to read. This would clearly cause grief and frustration to both the child and parent who attempted it. I believe it is the same with many solitary sleeping arrangements. It is simply that this frustration has come to be expected as part of responsible parenting.

Before confident independence can readily occur the child must learn that the world is first and foremost, a safe and nurturing place. The newborn does not understand that mom and dad are separate entities from itself, nor does it have wants that are not needs. This is an inappropriate time to teach independence through abandoning it to cry in a room by itself. It does not understand why its inborn need to be held by its parents and protected during sleep is being denied. Without understanding, it cannot extrapolate the lesson we are trying to teach it: that it can be safe by itself. It only learns that its need will not be met at certain times. After a few weeks of exhausting itself crying to sleep, it learns that after dark and during naps, its parents often won’t respond. The baby does not nor can it understand why.  Sleep becomes an unpleasant proposition. Sure, independent sleeping can be trained into a child starting on the first day, but I do not think it is a good foundation to compassion or trust, other virtues that it is important to teach. A child learns behavior from those who are modeling it. While it will not remember these times, the perception of the world that it builds from the very beginning will underlie every experience it has. 

It is only when certain concepts are established that self comforting becomes an appropriate skill to expect the child to learn. First, children must learn that the world is in general safe. They should have acquired wants that are not always appropriate, and so have learned to be denied those wants while having their needs continue to be met. With an understanding that their parents (and other adults or near adults in their life) love them and understand they’re needs, learning to comfort themselves will not be an exercise in waiting out the fear and loneliness, and creating parent substitutes (stuffed animals or blankets they become attached to), it will be a child reasoning that they are safe and their parents will come to their aid if they are anxious or scared. Soon the child will then be able to reason that they can care for themselves in their own bed when sleep disturbances occur. Solitary sleeping will become an affirmation of self confidence rather than a foundational experience of parental rejection.

Co-sleeping makes breastfeeding easier and more successful, increases the amount of sleep the parent gets, and may even protect against SIDS under the right circumstances. It is not appropriate for the smoking mother, or when one of the parents has had alcohol or medications which may increase drowsiness. Like breastfeeding, I believe co-sleeping to be the optimal way to care for infants. However, many healthy and happy children have been raised on bottles and/or sleeping in their own cribs. The most important thing for a child to have is a loving and nurturing parent.