Seriously, this company should forget about advertising on blogs and just start stuffing their brochures in Oscar and Grammy goodie bags. Thanks to the ever-informative Dr. Boli for this.

The very lengthily named and greatly in need of an acronym Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect wants to tell you not to co-sleep.  In fact, not only do they want to tell you not to co-sleep, they want to let you know that “…if you take the baby to bed with you and fall asleep, you are committing a potentially lethal act.”

Well, if that is so, then I am a wanted woman.

Co-sleeping was the only thing that helped my family maintain our tenuous grip on sanity.  If we hadn’t co-slept, my husband and I would have been desperately re-thinking the entire pro-creating thing.  Well, we did that quite a few times, but it would have definitely been more often.

In fact, I truly believe that it helped my son sleep better than he ever would have by himself in his crib.  His crib was used, but not often. I had read this book by Dr. Sears prior to having the Munchkin, and it changed my entire outlook on parenting, including that of co-sleeping.

But anyhoo, back to some quasi-governmental agency trying to tell me what is best for my child.  They quoted a study which stated “…that nearly half of 119 infants who died suddenly and unexpectedly during a four-year period in the St. Louis area did so while sleeping with someone else.”

Well, I’d like to know the number of infants who died while sleeping alone, which is left out of the equation.

I believe that there are indeed situations where co-sleeping would be unsafe, such as if one or both parents was taking a drug of any sort that produced drowsiness. And after drinking alcohol? Definitely not. A crowded bed with other siblings might also not be safe.

Unsafe situations aside, I happen to think it is a highly personal choice. I also happen to be pro co-sleeping. What about you?