Cribs vs. Beds: Parenthood's all-out war

A wise woman once said it takes a village to raise a child, and as a new father I have found this to be true.


But lately I have also found the village to be dominated by two gangs of extremely, frighteningly organized parents, whom my wife and I spend a lot of time trying to avoid. Members of these gangs are lurking in every Pain Quotidian and farmers' market in Los Angeles, fighting tooth-and-nail turf wars over the best way for kids to be born, eat, learn and especially sleep, which is how the gangs came by their now notorious names in our house: the Cribs and the Beds.


The Cribs, as you probably know, believe in "crying it out," "walking it off," and midcentury modern furniture. The Beds, of course, believe in co-sleeping, home birthing and placenta soup. Both groups believe that I, as a new parent, am a dangerous idiot, and they are not at all shy about letting me know that.



More: http://www.salon.com/life/parenting/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/07/02/cribs_v_beds_parenting_wars

Great article. I don't think one can really say that one approach is inherently superior to the other. I mean, crib vs. bed will not define your child's personality by itself.


Do what you feel is right. As long as the kids get lots of love as well as reasonable boundaries and consistency crib or bed becomes a pretty irrelevant argument. Love, boundaries and consistency are the important things.


For the record, we went with crib and cry it out, but that was perhaps more a function of our lifestyle than derived from a belief that the child would be a certain way because of it. You (eventually) get more sleep that way, a good idea if you live in a modern "career-based" society and you weren't getting enough even pre-children.