Is the Western way of raising kids weird?

[Jilly_in_VA]

"Is he in his own room yet?" is a question new parents often field once they emerge from the haze of life with a newborn. But sleeping apart from our babies is a relatively recent development – and not one that extends around the globe. In other cultures sharing a room, and sometimes a bed, with your baby is the norm.

This isn’t the only aspect of new parenthood that Westerners do differently. From napping on a schedule and sleep training to pushing our children around in strollers, what we might think of as standard parenting practices are often anything but.

Parents in the US and UK are advised to have their babies sleep in the same room as them for at least the first six months, but many view this as a brief stopover on their way to a dedicated nursery.

In most other societies around the world, babies stick with their parents longer. A 2016 review that looked at research on children sharing not just a room but a bed with one or more of their parents found a high prevalence in many Asian countries: over 70% in India and Indonesia, for example, and over 80% in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Research on bedsharing rates in countries across Africa is patchy, but where it does exist suggests the practice is near-universal.

Debmita Dutta, a doctor and parenting consultant in Bangalore, India, says that despite Western influences, bedsharing remains a strong tradition in India – even in households where children have their own rooms. "A family of four has three bedrooms, one each for each child and for the parents, and then you would find both the children in the parent's bed," she says. "It's that common."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210222-the-unusual-ways-western-parents-raise-children

[pandr32]

1. In our house the babies were permitted to sleep with us.

It helped give everyone more peace and more sleep. Not much crying at all. A drawer was used as a crib to the side of the bed until we actually got a crib, and then that stayed bedside, too. We used those when our newborns were growing out of that stage and sleeping more. We made kids' bedrooms fun places with their favorite things and let our growing babies spend some time in them during the day on quilts on the floor with all their toys until they were ready to have the crib moved in. Still, sometimes our kids would want to come back in bed with us and that was fine. A king bed has room.

Each child has their own time schedule.

Dr. James McKenna has some wonderful books out on co-sleeping.

[Jilly_in_VA]

2. I was one of those weird "earth mothers"

My first son died of SIDS the first night he slept in his own room (at 3 months). No more of that for us. After that it was cradle, then crib, in the room for a minimum of 6 months, but more often than not they ended up in bed with us. Carried them around in a sling or carrier as much as humanly possible. Breastfed until they weaned on their own schedule. Etc.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Not quite the same thing, but still.

Our son tended to be awake at night and want to play, or at least interact with us. We wanted to sleep. So we finally showed him that he could play by himself at night, gave him a light he could control, could turn on or off as needed, and that he didn't need to wake us up. The very first night we did that (and he was not yet two years old) when we got up the next morning, his room was a shambles, toys everywhere. But he had not awakened us in the middle of the night, had turned on the light, played with his toys, and then gone back to sleep. Hooray! We gave him independence and he gave us a night's sleep.