Just try kbakyibhyb
to figure out what the American Academy of Pediatrics and this spokeswoman are saying in this Good Morning America interview about babies and their sleep. Apparently the AAP has reversed its stern directive which said that babies should be in the same room — but not the same bed — as their parents for six months, but preferably for the first year. This was presented as a must do as recently as October of 2016. Here it’s explained HealthyChildren.org:
Room share—keep baby’s sleep area in the same room where you sleep for the first 6 months or, ideally, for the first year. Place your baby’s crib, bassinet, portable crib, or play yard in your bedroom, close to your bed. The AAP recommends room sharing because it can decrease the risk of SIDS by as much as 50% and is much safer than bed sharing. In addition, room sharing will make it easier for you to feed, comfort, and watch your baby.
But now it seems to be saying that babies sleep better in a separate room after four months. And the expert here on the TV segment adds that, “Poor sleep leads to obesity,” as if a fussy baby having a hard time getting to sleep is destined for a life of Weight Watchers frozen entrees. And once again there’s the exhortation to get rid of all blankets in the crib, which are lately treated like scorpions.
Finally — bizarrely — listen to the expert’s story of her own two kids: “One slept alone in their own room from 11 weeks of age, one just got out of bed at about 14, 15.”
“One got out of the bed at 14 or 15 YEARS OLD?” responds Michael Strahan.
She nods.
So I think the real takeaway is this: There are a LOT of different ways to raise your kids. What works well for you may seem bizarre to someone (everyone!) else.
By the way, this is also an argument for not putting parenting advice into law.
Putting babies to sleep on their backs does seem to have been proven to be safer, in terms of preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Of course, if the baby can’t sleep that way, you do what works. But as with most childrearing decisions, we can trust our guts.
In some cases, our weird, weird guts.
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45 Comments
So, this is based on one new study? And who funded the study? The crib and baby room decor business? The only way my baby (and I) was sleeping was right next to me. And who was in this study? Did the moms bottle or breast feed? How many people? etc. People need to stop putting so much stock in news clips and think for themselves.
Do these experts even know what they’re talking about?! Hospitals have abuse experts who I swear who wouldn’t know abuse if it came up and hit them. Maybe these are same type people talk like they know what they’re talking about but no clue in reality.
And in a few years we’ll be back to the cry it out method (which isn’t really letting your kid cry themselves to sleep, but it sounds catchy enough for a headline). I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to accept that different things work for different people. Your kid was sleeping through the night at six weeks? Congratulations. I tried everything you did and my kid took almost a year.
Parents must also go to sleep for naps and at 7:30 p.m. with their babies, or rather preferably stay awake next to their sleeping babies.
“Poor sleep leads to obesity,” as if a fussy baby having a hard time getting to sleep is destined for a life of Weight Watchers frozen entrees. And once again there’s the exhortation to get rid of all blankets in the crib, which are lately treated like scorpions.”
I just laughed so hard, thanks for that!
Expert opinions conflict with the reality of actual parenting the baby you got….some lucky fuckers get ones that sleep through the night from the get-go. Others try desperately to soothe screeching-possessed fussy babies and will literally do anything to get that kid to sleep. No one sets out to smother a baby co-sleeping…but the “best place for baby” is often where baby wants to sleep, sometimes in bed with parents, sometimes in another room.
My kids were all over the charts with sleep habits, but my oldest daughter was an absolute nightmare to get to sleep and I totally admit to putting her in the swing way, way too long and using the vibrating bassinet (world’s best invention) to soothe her to sleep. We also had to drive around to get her to sleep and she slept many nights still tucked away in her car seat that was gently put in the crib. Whatever worked, we did.
I remember so well the guilt I felt when I confessed to putting the baby in her swing for 5 hours straight at the highest level- I was told by my MIL and several others that I was basically scrambling her brains. Fast forward 14 years and she’s the smartest academically and always in motion at different sports-and quite athletic.
And she slept. In swings. Cars. Pushed endlessly in the stroller..all over the place.
Just figure out how to get sleep with YOUR baby. Unless these experts want to volunteer to come rock a screaming baby in the middle of the night, they are useless to me!
My oldest would only sleep in a swingy-thing that went through eight D-Cell batteries every two weeks. Totally worth spending the money on the batteries.
A thousand years ago we didn’t have these experts, and the human race still managed to achieve the technological and social pinnacles that we see today.
I think you misinterpreted the segment. He basically opens with (accurately), “This study goes against everything the AAP recommends.” It’s not that the AAP has changed its recommendations (which have to do with safe sleep, NOT getting a baby to sleep through the night), but that one study suggests that the AAP safe sleep guidelines might delay babies sleeping through the night.
Of course, everything that contributes to babies sleeping well seems to increase the risk of SIDS, and everything that reduces SIDS makes babies sleep worse, at least in part because babies sleeping too well (not arousing frequently) is apparently a risk factor for SIDS.
And personally, we coslept for over a year, because as a newborn, my son would sleep in 5-15 minute intervals, all night long, unless he was being held. I still haven’t had a doctor or other expert be able to tell me what the safe, pediatrician-approved thing to do is in that situation. We spent 4 nights alternating 2-hour shifts where we held him while trying to stay awake, and we got tired-er, and that got progressively more dangerous, and eventually we got rid of all the pillows and blankets and brought him into bed, and we could all sleep, much more safely than we had before.
Well I feel weird now. My wife and I had our now five year old daughter in a small crib in our room for the first two weeks after her birth and then we put her into a bigger crib in her own room. We did have a video monitor in her room for at least the first year so we could check on her but as parents we felt we needed sleep just as much as our daughter needed attention.
This whole co-sleeping or sleeping in the same room for months seems too controlling in my opinion. I know of other parents that feel it works but not for us.
Even in the five years that we have had our daughter a number of recommended practices regarding child raising have changed. Its hard to keep up. No wonder some parents are frazzled and unsure of what to do. As older parents (in our 40’s), we found that our natural instincts and honest conversations with each other about parenting have been the guiding principles for us. That includes free-range parenting. 🙂
SIDS is one factor when deciding how you want your baby to sleep, but even if you do everything “wrong” it’s still pretty rare and not a death sentence. If you do everything “right” it’s not a guarantee life will be lovely. There are other factors. I say do whatever is best for the family as a WHOLE. My first kid slept in the room with me for exactly three days. Then I figured out I couldn’t sleep with all that extra noise (not crying-just grunts, groans, etc.) so into his own room he went. Were there times he woke up and I didn’t know and he was crying or in distress for a few minutes? Possibly. But it’s hard enough to get rest when they need to be fed every few hours let alone waking up for random noises. It was better I did this than be a sleep deprived grumpy mother (though of course we sometimes have those moments and there’s not necessarily harm done). My third child I flip flopped because she was a very quiet sleeper I discovered so it was easier to keep her near me for breastfeeding. Nothing wrong with reading studies and analyzing what you do, but let’s take other things into account and make decisions based on what’s best for everybody.
“We definitely need more data..” Why?! For what??
We co-slept for awhile in the mid 90’s. It just felt right to us, so that’s what we did. I learned, through doing that, to trust my instincts and do the best I could. My 21 year old is none the worse for it.
It baffles me that our culture has such a hard time accepting the obvious: Babies have different sleep cycles than adults. There is no use paddling upstream and trying to work against this indisputable fact of nature. Sqaure peg + round hole = destined for failure.
We’re not the first generation of parents trained to freak out about every last move our babies make. Gradually, pediatricians and scientists came to replace the traditional Women of the Village, and ever-changing, contradictory parenting advice started rolling in. My mom recalls a time with her first baby in the late 60s, when she sat most of the night by the baby’s crib to make sure that the baby—get this–stayed sleeping on her stomach! Yes, back then, everybody convinced parents that their babies would die from spitting up and choking if they slept on their backs. So my big sister would roll onto her back, and my vigilant, sleep-deprived mother was RIGHT THERE to roll her right back. The experience gave “helicopter parenting” a whole new meaning.
My mom went on to have three more babies, each with different sleep positioning preferences. Somehow, she finally convinced herself to start sleeping, at least a little. 😉 And somehow, all four of us survived infancy and are alive today.
Have you recently visited the parenting section of your local, brick-and-mortar bookstore? Parents are on Information Overload.
Use the Babywise Method. No, no, no!!! That’s cruel! Read up on Attachment Parenting, instead! No, not AP!! That’s overly indulgent, you naughty mommy!
Hey, you’re too authoritarian and controlling with your child! Read some Alfie Kohn. No, no, no, no, no!!! The problem with parents today is that they don’t exercise enough discipline!! James Dobson is the *real* expert!
Babies must ALWAYS sleep on their stomachs. Wait, scratch that. They must ALWAYS sleep on their backs! Oh no! Now their heads are flat. They need helmets! That’s YOUR fault for keeping them on their backs them in carseats all the time!
Is your not-so-flat head spinning yet?
In a memorable episode of Mad About You, the couple paces around while trying the cry-it-out method to get their baby to sleep. Through a closed door and over the screeches of a panicked baby, Dad exclaims, (paraphrased), “Sweetie, I’m so sorry! We’re only doing this because some sick-o at Columbia University told us that it was the best thing for you!” I watched the episode before becoming a mother and couldn’t wrap my mind around why they trusted a stranger at Columbia over their own instincts.
It bears mentioning here that SIDS and suffocation are two different things. SIDS gets its very name because nobody knows precisely why it happens. Suffocation is the result of things like scorpion-blankets and babies falling asleep with parents knocked out on painkillers.
“And in a few years we’ll be back to the cry it out method (which isn’t really letting your kid cry themselves to sleep, but it sounds catchy enough for a headline).”
And catchy enough for every other parent to be judgmental when they hear that you used that method……
My kids are grown, but when I had them, stomach-sleeping was recommended. And no one ever told me not to use a blanket or quilt. They both lived. I’ve never researched the number of children who have died from sleeping on their backs or while covered with a quilt, but its weird that I’ve never known anyone this has happened to in the 30 years since my daughter was born. Not that it hasn’t, but you’d think one would run into an example during the walk of life.
Oh, and they slept in their own rooms after a few weeks in the cradle in our bedroom. Oops.
“One slept alone in their own room from 11 weeks of age, one just got out of bed at about 14, 15.”
“One got out of the bed at 14 or 15 YEARS OLD?” responds Michael Strahan.
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???
I believe it means that the kid stayed in Mom and Dad’s bed until age 14 or 15.
I’m sorry, this post is incorrect in its two main points.
1. That woman is not an AAP spokeswoman, she is the “senior medical contributor” to that show, which means she is just a doctor acting as a consultant, not a researcher or member of any standards-setting body.
2. The AAP has not reversed its directive. A group of researchers at Penn State did a study, then wrote a paper in which they suggested that the AAP should change its directive.
The second night after our first baby was born, still in the hospital, she was snoring so hard I couldn’t sleep. I put her in the bathroom adjacent to my room. She just turned seven. She’s perfect in every way and I love her to bits. We just don’t sleep together, and almost never have after that first night…
I learned very quickly to just take the advice that felt good, and disregard the rest.
Delurking — that’s exactly what I got out of the segment too. One study does not mean the recommendations are wrong. The study itself could have been flawed.
How do we actually do controlled research on SIDS anyway? We have parents reporting, after-the-fact, in a horribly stressful situation. We could set up a sleep study on infants, but few parents would agree to such a thing and I would think most hospitals and universities would have very strict protocols on doing research with minors, especially newborns. We can’t set up a dangerous situation and see if the child survives. Instead, we have to rely on parent reporting of the position the child was in when they discovered the death, or something in the pathology report that explains how the child suffocated. With SIDS, we don’t know.
As far as sleeping inconsistencies, I know a lot of people who read in bed or watch television in bed, or work in bed, or whatever. The light and activity COULD prevent the baby from sleeping (my son could sleep in a construction site, but we still kept our bedroom isolated as a “sleeping” place.) We had a co-sleeper basket-type thing (looked like a shallow laundry basket) that allowed him to sleep in our bed until he got too long for the basket (about 8 months, I think.)
I think we should keep in mind all this research is done for the best possible reason: to prevent the death of children. I can’t fault them too much for changing or re-evaluating recommendations. They aren’t trying to make our lives difficult. The end goal is to eliminate SIDS and infant death altogether.
I don’t think this new study contradicts the AAP refommendations at all. From what I understand, the reason it is thought that room sharing is associated with decreased SIDS risk is precisely BECAUSE babies who room share don’t sleep as well. I believe the thought is that babies who wake more frequently don’t sleep as deeply and thus are less likely to stop breathing. I haven’t actually read the study in question but it sounds like they conclude that having babies sleep in their own rooms helps them sleep through the night, but the AAP recommendations are for preventing SIDS, not helping your baby sleep through the night. That said, there is no freaking way I would be able to keep a baby in my room for 6 months, let alone a year. I lasted 10 weeks with my first in the room, and I’m at 6 with my 2nd and already itching to have him in his own crib. I do think it’s interesting that there seems to be less of a stigma around parents’ decisions to room share or not than there is around parents’ decisions to let children wait in the car for 5 minutes. I have never heard a judgy comment about a parent not room sharing for 6 months, but if a parent even thinks about leaving their kid in a car for 2 seconds everyone freaks out. Seems to me like both of these decisions involve some small risk that parents should be able to weigh for themselves.
“My oldest would only sleep in a swingy-thing that went through eight D-Cell batteries every two weeks. Totally worth spending the money on the batteries.”
Just to illustrate the random nature of infants: We put my baby girl in one of these and she let loose a scream that would have made a Banshee proud. She HATES things that vibrate!
The diversity makes sense, though. I mean, look at adults. Some prefer hot climates, some cold; some prefer sleeping with a lot of blankets, some with few; some prefer sleeping in the same bed as someone, some prefer sleeping alone. We should expect similar diversity with infants because–despite what “experts” appear to believe–infants are human beings.
@John:
“This whole co-sleeping or sleeping in the same room for months seems too controlling in my opinion.”
For my wife it’s about ease of feeding. I’m often not home at night, and spending all week getting up with the baby to feed is not a fun way to spend a week. Co-sleeping allows the baby to feed as needed, while minimizing the disruption to my wife’s sleep (it’s still disrupted, but a lot less so).
My son spent the first 3.5 weeks of his life sleeping alone in the NICU. Once he got home, he slept in a bassinet at the foot of our bed for 4 months, but constantly woke up whenever we made a sound, when the sound machine turned off, when the nightlight turned off, if we got up to go to the bathroom, etc. At one point he was sleeping only in 20 minute intervals. At 4 months I had enough and we moved him to his crib in his own room, with a closed door. Slept through the night that first night. Been sleeping on his own ever since.
Every kid is different, every house in different, and every situation is different. Do what works for you, and forget about everyone else.
When I had baby #1 in 1978, doctors were telling mothers to put babies to sleep on their stomachs and warning of all the horrible things that would happen if we failed to do this. By the time I had baby #4 in 1995, doctors were telling mothers to put babies to sleep on their backs and warning of all the horrible things that would happen if we failed to do this. All of my kids being naturally ornery, baby #1 wanted to sleep on her back and baby #4 wanted to sleep on her stomach, and I was so sleep deprived that I just did what worked… and amazingly, they are both still alive. (So are #2 and #3.) Incidentally, ALL of them slept with all kinds of blankets, quilts, toys, stuffed animals, etc. in their cribs — another major no-no in the opinion of the “experts.” Good thing CPS never found out about it.
We tried a cradle next to our bed when my daughter was first born. After about a week or so when she slept horribly in it I put her in her crib in her own room and she slept great. She’s a terrible sleeper now at five but I suspect that may be genetic as I am also a terrible sleeper.
I also wonder about correlation vs causation in studies like this. The kids sleep better *because* they’re in their own rooms, or they are able to be out in their own rooms *because* they sleep better? The thought of putting my son in his own room was just laughable, because we would have had to get up literally every 15 minutes to go get him. That’s not sustainable. A baby who was sleeping at least an hour or two at a time might be a candidate for his own room, but that baby is already a better sleeper than mine was.
This confirms that most studies have a bias. (sell magazines, security, or safety features) It’s easy to quote the scientific evidence (that agrees with the direction that you want the study to go) and to ignore, overlook, or discredit scientific evidence that says otherwise. All that you have to do to sell a story is to claim to reduce SIDS, kidnapping, or childhood obesity and find (or manufacture) an expert that agrees with you. Can we see a list of companies that give funding to AAP?
The sad part is that many parents are so unsure of themselves that they only trust the ‘experts’. These experts conclude that the right thing to do is whatever happens to be in vogue or to agree with whoever sponsors the story.
“We definitely need more data..”
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need more people that have confidence in their own abilities. Kids inherit more than hair color and shoe size. They also inherit insecurity, low self worth, and negative self talk. BTW that’s where narcism comes from.
My oldest despised his crib. DESPISED it. There was no crying it out…we tapped out at the hour mark first (and last) time we tried it. However if we put him in his car seat on the floor next to our bed he slept solidly all night. His younger brothers had no such revulsion. The middle slept pretty typically waking once or twice in the night and my youngest slept through the night before he was a month old. Every kid is different.
We don’t all sleep in one position so I am not sure why we expect all babies to be comfortable in one position. My nightmare sleeper ended up co-sleeping (in my bed, not in a side-car) on her stomach because it was the only way she would sleep. I can’t really blame her. Sleeping on your back in a barred box-like bed with no pillows or blankets looks damn uncomfortable to me.
Might be tangential, but I once did a mini research project on reports from a database called VAERS. A lot were SIDS incidents, and I still remember it as some of the most appalling reading I’ve ever done. My main finding writing it up was a massive correlation with co sleeping. I heard back from people who said that appropriate precautions can remove the risks. I respected their experienced, but it was and is my strong opinion that it’s better to avoid the situation.
It’s not true that room-sharing is safer than bed-sharing. The only study that found bed-sharing is “more dangerous” was specifically concerning smoking parents, not non-smoking parents. For whatever it’s worth, bed-sharing is only “more dangerous” if the parents are smokers.
Have there been any studies done that show that back to sleep is actually effective? My understanding is most of the studies combine with things like not smoking in the house, not having puffy blankets, etc. Probably hard to study, but i would wager that once controlled for factors like smoking and puffy quilts or pillows, the rate of back v. stomach sleeping would not be statistically significant.
K: “Of course, everything that contributes to babies sleeping well seems to increase the risk of SIDS, and everything that reduces SIDS makes babies sleep worse, at least in part because babies sleeping too well (not arousing frequently) is apparently a risk factor for SIDS.”
This seems true to me. I discovered early on that my son slept MUCH more deeply and longer on his stomach, so I just decided to let him. It just seemed unnatural to do otherwise. After all, there might be a tiny increase in the chance of SIDS, but if I wouldn’t myself be willing to sleep badly every night to avoid a slight increase of some health risk (and I certainly wouldn’t), why should I make that choice for my baby?
I still think they are eventually going to back off that “back to sleep” nonsense. I disagree that it’s proven. Correlation does not equal causation. And back sleeping, where the baby doesn’t choose it herself, causes many long-term problems. Back to sleep will be exposed eventually and I’ll be all “I told you so.” 😛
“I also wonder about correlation vs causation in studies like this. The kids sleep better *because* they’re in their own rooms, or they are able to be out in their own rooms *because* they sleep better? The thought of putting my son in his own room was just laughable, because we would have had to get up literally every 15 minutes to go get him. That’s not sustainable. A baby who was sleeping at least an hour or two at a time might be a candidate for his own room, but that baby is already a better sleeper than mine was.”
Yes. We adjust to meet our kids’ individual needs. I had one baby who slept soundly for 6-8 hours, starting at 6 weeks old. No matter where he was sleeping, when he was out for the night, he was out. Even as a newborn, he would sleep four hours, eat, and then go right back to sleep. I had to wake him up and keep him away to make sure he ate enough. He slept in his crib in his room. My next child would not stay asleep. The only way I could get any sleep was to put her next to me in the bed. She still woke up every couple hours, but it was manageable and I didn’t have to use much energy nursing her back to sleep. She slept with me until she was almost two years old.
I feel like I’m the only one that thinks a 14 or 15-year-old sleeping in his/her parents bed is weird? Just from the lack of comments on that, I guess. Yes, I know each family needs to make their own decisions about what’s best, but this might be bordering on not best for the teen in my opinion.
@Dee: “””One slept alone in their own room from 11 weeks of age, one just got out of bed at about 14, 15.”
“One got out of the bed at 14 or 15 YEARS OLD?” responds Michael Strahan.”
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???”
No younger siblings, that’s what it means…
“In some cases, our weird, weird guts.”
Suddenly I have so many questions…
My kids have both co-slept with us. My daughter slept relatively well, starting to sleep 4-8 hours at night from just a couple of weeks old. As we breastfed there would be nights when she would want to up the production and then she might wake every hour but her normal was either 2+4+4 hours or 2+2+6 hours. When she was around 1 she started sleeping less well and I finally at 15 months realized that we were waking her up in bed and I tried a mattress on the floor next to me and she went on to either sleep through the whole night or wake up once when we switched her sleeping place. At 2 she started sleeping in her own room and she is generally a good sleeper (she is now soon to be 5). My son is 10 months and he is not as good of a sleeper. He likes to sleep 1-2 hours and will occasionally do a 3-4 hour sleep but is still not very much of a good sleeper. I first thought he was just waking and feeding this much because he was close to me but having moved him to a mattress doesn’t seem to help. I might have to night wean him if this don’t improve but I know that sooner or later he will sleep through the night regardless of what I do so this will have to wait for a little while longer at least.
I know I’m late to this party (been on vacation), but if my experience is any guide, I can attest that a baby sleeping in her parents’ room (at least, my baby sleeping in her parents’ room) is in no danger of dying from SIDS. Babies actually have to sleep for that to happen – my daughter didn’t sleep a wink the entire time she shared a room with us.
I am well aware that others have had exactly the opposite experience. Again, how about if we just let parents do what works for them?
I agree with SKL, even if I don’t take into account the fact that sleeping on the back can cause the flattening of the head, I’m still not convinced that it’s that much better. Maybe it’s because I once read a study that said that the most dangerous situation for SIDS is when a baby has slept on his back all his life and suddenly someone (usually someone not in the already established routine like a babysitter or a grand-parent) put him to sleep on his stomach when he’s not used to it. Of course then you can say the baby died while he was on his stomach, but it doesn’t mean that a baby use to sleep on his stomach from birth has a greater chance of dying from SIDS.
Sleep in the most important thing for everyone, infants, children, adults, everyone. So my opinion is to do whatever you can do to achieve the best sleep and you will be healthier (and happier) for it in the long term.
If co-sleeping were inherently dangerous, the human race would not be here.
@Lightbright
Correct. I wish people would break it down more specifically as opposed to saying over 3000 kids died from
SIDS.
“In 2015, there were about 1,600 deaths due to SIDS, 1,200 deaths due to unknown causes, and about 900 deaths due to accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed.”
It was a total of 3700 deaths between all 3 categories. I know some neglectful situations get put in with the accidental suffocation and strangulation. People who didn’t check their baby for extended period, etc.
Years ago the SIDS rates were through the roof because they put any and every infant death they could not explain in with SIDS. People say the back to sleep initiative drastically reduce SIDS cases, and I’m in no way saying it didn’t help, but I think better understand of various COD, and better classifications, helped in reducing the numbers as well.
I remember listening to all the debates and suggestions in the late 80s when I was 12 and my newborn nephew was living with us. He had a hellacious case of colic so no one was sleeping (unless I turned the vacuum cleaner on and left it running) but I kept wondering how parents were not half crazy. The advice seemed to change every other week.
I think SIDS has a lot more involved than sleeping tips as well. You’re not going to be able to prevent most cases of actual SIDS. I completely understand parents hyper vigilance during the first 4-5 months, but some do go overboard and drive themselves crazy looking at monitors they have hooked up to their healthy baby, or making sure the room stays at an exact temperature or …
It’s all subject to change.
@lightbright
I also (obviously) agree that there is info overload. Considering babies are different with their sleep habits, etc, I think it’s good there are different voices to give advice BUT I don’t think parents are handling it well. Jesus Christ! The parenting method/guru (stupid word) wars are horrific.
Some ideas need to be shot down and destroyed in discussion because it’s absolute neurotic garbage. I read an article today about the new progressive (regressive) mommy trend. It’s all about asking your infant (especially your sons) permission before you do anything… pick them up, etc… and waiting to “feel” their permission. Why? So they don’t become rapists in the future. What else? We should all treat boys as potential rapists the moment they pop out. Have to deprogram the patriarchy, who got to them in utero.
The general wars over parenting methods have reached extremes. I think that does contribute to a lot of people trying to get their preferred guru enshrined in law.
I become livid myself every time I hear a helicopter say… Cabt we just try it my way? They are ones to talk. Can’t you stop trying to get every parent doing something different arrested?
I keep imagining a baby sitting around looking like Pig Pen for days or in a dirty diaper for hours because mommy hasn’t “felt their consent” to change or bathe them yet.
Of course that’s just a pointless something she tells herself and others, like a lunatic, while believing she’s making the world a better place through virtue signaling and slacktivism. I’m sure she “feels the permission” every time she needs to.