It wasn't until I received my January/February 2000 issue of Mothering Magazine which was devoted to the family bed debate, in response to the CPSC's statement that parent-infant co-sleeping is unsafe (gee, I wonder if they were at all motivated by infant furniture manufacturers and baby monitor manufacturers?) that my husband and I made a conscious decision to become a Family-Bed-Family. We both felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted from our shoulders. We would no longer cower in shame when people asked us if our baby was "sleeping through the night". We would never again be afraid to tell anyone, "No, she's still not sleeping in her crib." Finding support and encouragement in reading the stories of other parents who had made similar choices, who were parenting by instinct with love and compassion gave us a new-found strength and began to develop in us a passion for our lifestyle. We believe in what we are doing, in the way we are living and the love we are giving to our daughter. We know it is good and right. So we continue to fight the good fight -- and we defend our choices and our right to decide how to raise our children without having to abide by the "norms" of dominant Western culture. There are some great resources out there for parents who choose not to let their children "cry it out". Dr. William Sears' book Nighttime Parenting is an excellent choice for parents looking for information and support for co-sleeping.
So, now that we were out in the open -- exposed to the world, and to my family -- we raised some eyebrows, and some voices in protest of our decision. My sister was worried we would smother the baby, crush the baby, or send her crashing to the floor in the middle of the night. What my sister wasn't taking into account is that a mother is constantly aware of her baby's position in the bed and in tune with the rhythms of her breath and movements throughout the night. My husband has even developed an acute awareness of the baby's presence in the bed. Then, my aunt ranted and raved that my husband and I were somehow deeply emotionally needy to put our baby into bed with us -- that on some level we must have a unnatural need for that closeness to the baby and it was unfair to her to drag her into our bed with us. She was also of the opinion that this kind of
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