Co-Sleeping can be hazardous... or... once is a tragedy.. twice?

[getbent]

Vanessa and Mark Clark chose to have their baby sleep with them. This is not terribly uncommon and there are even books that support the practice...

Unfortunately, their first child was suffocated accidentaly while sleeping with them. During the investigation they were directed to no longer sleep with children... They had another child and....

yep. Killed that one too.

it would be unbelievable.. except... it happened.

[ASC67]

That's very sad indeed

[allen st. john]

Interesting how the Cafe Mom story spins it: "Doesn't she deserve some sympathy?"

[Stubee]

I'd call that more than coincidence w/o reading any further.

[hannigan]

Baby sitting .

[w3stie]

You starting a lynch mob GB?

[cnote]

That link sent me to a chat room for spring cleaning, so I can't comment on the specific tragedy, but the post made me think...

I'm definitely not an expert, but I've got 4 year and 4 month old daughhters and I was a kid (still am if you ask my wife).There is so much conflicting, scary, ambiguous, unintuitive information you get bombarded with as a new parent these days and the innerwebs are scare central for this stuff. Now toddlers are supposed to wear helmets while they learn to walk. SIDS fear is so high that there's a rise in kids with deformed skulls because their parents are terrified to let them lie on their stomach. I've even had different pediatricians tell me wildly different things. It will literally terrify and paralyze you if too much stock is put in a lot of this stuff.

The only way I've found to get on with life and enjoy my kids is take everything with a grain of salt and use your best judgement. You can do everything "right" and something can happen. There will be tragedys and horrible things will happen and have been happening throughout history, and losing a child let alone two is tragedy of the highest order. I hope they were doing what they thought best for there kids.

Sorry, don't know where I was going with all this...

[Jupiter]

They're doing it wrong.

[cnote]

Probably true. Still sucks. I wasn't trying to defend (or condemn) the parents as I don't know the full story. Just made me think about all those freaky pamphlets, websites and people that can infect your soul when you have young kids.

[' burn 08]

well, you can be sympathetic, but that doesn't mean it wasn't criminal neglect. They may have both been accidents, but accident's caused by negligence. I don't know a lot about o-sleeping and far be it from me to judge someone for it, but if the death of your first child was attributed to it and you were told not to do it again, and you did it again, and the same thing happened... it doesn't take a rocket scientist.

[TeleTim911]

I can believe once, but not twice....something is wrong here.

[getbent]

Originally Posted by w3stie

You starting a lynch mob GB?

is that an option?

I read the story in the midst of having attended some meetings this week where I have witnessed both stubbornness and the complete inability for people to accept that the data tells them some compelling things that they should consider and let guide their decisions...

Then, they don't heed the advice and get crushed when the outcomes are in line with the data... they continue to feel the need to deny the data and continue to pursue folly even using the data as an indicator of their independence from following good advice.

This mother (and her husband) were told that they were contributing factors to the death of their child... but they actively CHOSE ignorance...

The story is an illustration we see time and again (even in this thread!) that folks will create whatever evidence and conclusions that they want to serve their own needs...

I so don't want to do that... so, I purposefully bring it up to try to avoid that pitfall...

Years ago in my school district, we had a set of parents who had a child with a horrible and impossible inherited birth defect. The child cost 110K a year to educate under the law. The average student back then brought in 4500.00 per year (if memory serves) so, this child cost a lot to educate (and those 'gap' dollars essentially get subtracted from all the other kids.)

This 'parent team' were told by their physician that she had a 50/50 chance of any child she had having the same defect. She had 4 more kids. ALL HAD IT. ALL OF THEM.

Guess what the chances were that it would happen? 50/50...

There is a saying "being able to do math, pays."

there should be another one that says "not being able to math, costs"

If the parents killed the first kid by rolling over on them or crushing them or suffocating them by accident, I have sympathy for them...

The second one... sorry, I want to hit them in the head with a hammer (or maybe somewhere else) no child deserves them as a parent.

[getbent]

Originally Posted by cnote

That link sent me to a chat room for spring cleaning, so I can't comment on the specific tragedy, but the post made me think...

take 5 seconds to look at the page.. others have found it, you can too... or you could google their names, the story is common on news sites.

[Boubou]

Originally Posted by w3stie

You starting a lynch mob GB?

No need for lynching, sleeping between 2 polar bears should do it

Sent from my iPad using TDPRI

[getbent]

Originally Posted by Boubou

No need for lynching, sleeping between 2 polar bears should do it

Sent from my iPad using TDPRI

that is very funny! I like!

[w3stie]

Originally Posted by getbent

...

The second one... sorry, I want to hit them in the head with a hammer (or maybe somewhere else) no child deserves them as a parent.

So you start a thread to get others enraged?

It's very easy to get people upset, you just give them half the story and make it seem like there's a simple judgement. That's the business model for the tabloid press.

It's not so easy to hold your fire, as you should know.

[Bones]

Very judgmental thread, prurient as well. I'm disappointed.

[deadicated]

Me and my wife have a child who is a co-sleeper most of the time. I'm trying not to pass judgement because I don't know the whole story but jeez it's hard to see how it could happen even once much less twice. Even at his smallest there's no way I could have rolled onto him and not known it.

[Toto'sDad]

I don't think I can do anything about any of this. I didn't have anything to do with the situation being talked about here. I'm pretty sure any statement, or reaction I would have to this story would not have any effect at all on this story, or something like it in the future. I don't think I understand what it is you can say about any of this.

I really like my new American Standard Tele, sounds super in the middle position.

[spauldingrules]

I got a bunch o kids and they all co-slept. Perfectly natural and normal. Problems arise from three things:
1. Booze
2. Drugs
3. Obesity

All three can cause a parent to crush the kid and not know it. I slept so lightly that at any cough, bump, or whimper I was wide awake.