I find this to be dangerous advice especially for a 5 week old! During the first year a childs brain undergoes so much development and is highly affected by the enviromental influences. It has been proven that children who cry excessively release a different combination of horomones and chemicles within their neuro chemistry that directly affects and retards that childs brain development, breaking established connections and rerouting negitive connections in the brain.
As parents it is not our job to "keep them from dying" It's our job to to best prepare them so they can go on independently and have a balanced life.
As parents we need to teach our babies and infants how to fall asleep in a healthy manner, to nurture them and foster independence. It is my belief that when used properly co-sleeping creates better more independent sleepers faster. As parents we model behaviors which our children learn, yet we have the illusion we can "teach" them. If we encourage a child to become worked up and to be made to feel abondoned when they are in need(even for affection or connection) it is not only counter productive to reach our goal, but it leaves children distressed until their body becomes so overtired that it shuts down out of self preservation, and all our children learn is that it doesn't matter what their bodies tell them they need, their calls for support and help are neglected for the sake of fitting society and their parents ill informed desicions. If a child is taught from a young age using support, cuddling, acknowledgment and soothing that child then learns that negitive feelings can be addressed by parents and later themselves in a self supporting way because they have learnt not only by their parents actions towards the child, but also from the direct physical connection and contact the complex process of shutting down and going to sleep. Even just by laying next to their parents and knowing that they are there if they wake they do not become distressed. They are able to be with their parents as they sleep and use the rythmatic breathing as reassurance and an example to encourage them to return to sleep if no other tending is needed.
Once children have mastered this skill they can learn to apply it to different situations slowly as they are ready and come to it on their own, moving further away from his or her parents and becoming more confidend and independent sooner because they know that their parents are right there and they can return to them for support and instruction when needed instead of being expected to figure it out on their own.
However Just because your child falls asleep in your bed does not mean you are effectively using co-sleeping. If you try to sneak either you or your baby out of the sleeping enviroment you are doing more damage than good because upon waking the child is alone and soon gets distressed, which only conditions them to have that same experience every time they wake, and to associate waking with an eruption of negitive signals instead of calming themselves back to sleep.
Just because our babies can no longer fit in our womb and are born does not mean they are ready for separation form their mother. They have spent their whole existence up until birth directly influenced and effected by their mothers body, they need help to transistion into independence gradually. A Joey isn't ready for the world when it is born, it moves to the pouch and then eases into the world as it learns how to handle it. Our children are the same way.
Anyone can raise a child to adulthood and have a member of society according to(and sometimes not) societies standards, however society has forgotten that we are raising human beings and while we like to think the body is controled by the brain the truth is the brain is controled by the body and enviroment. If we don't nurture the brain body or enviroment as the it developes on it's own and progresses then we have altered and impeeded the healthy natural balanced development and as a result have confused brains running running damaged bodies. But hey they can learn and work and live on their own so we must have done something right, right?
Personally I made the choice to nurture and raise my children they way that compliments their own discovery best and allows them to grow without restrictions, instead of having kids and making sure they are proper and follow guildlines made to make other people's lives easier.
If you make the bed or sleeping area a negitive place then the child will associate sleep as a negitive thing. So for all you people with babies who hate their beds so long as you force them they will still hate them. You need to find an alternative or unteach them and show them sleep is a wonderful part of being a family and growing up. BUt also if you fill their beds with toys then you are expecting them to play, the bed should only be for sleeping.
On a final note babies are not born with clocks and as much as we like to think we can effectively manipulate their sleep scedual for the first few years we really can't without negitive reprecussions. You MUST follow your childrens sleep cues and put them down to sleep once they are first tired, not before, and not after they are overtired.
But we all have scheduals and timelines right? Lives to live, things to do.... So he or she "has to" sleep when we say right? Wrong! He or she has to sleep when he or she is tired. If you aren't rady to change your life to accomidate your kids when they are babies then they will get that message and start out life knowing that you life and expectations are more important than their bodies natural functions and needs.
If you can't handle being a parent and raising your children to be human beings don't have children or learn how to work with nature. Because all your chuildren will one day have to coexist with my children and just because the majority does it a different way doesn't mean it is the right way and doesn't make it right for my children to always have to defend their way of life because yours is mainstream and more common.
Please educate yourselves while or before you are pregnant about the way children grow, not the way people think they should. And please don't send dangerous ill informed messages like "Crying never hurt a baby" because A) it does and B) if a child is crying it is already hurting for something, so why prolong and dismiss his or her pain.
