Most of us “remember” Dr. Ferber with a sort of cringe.  For those of us that follow attachment parenting philosophy, Dr. Ferber has long been a member of the enemy front.  He criticized co-sleeping incessantly from the 1985 publish date of his “famous” book, Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. His method is just another wolf in sheep’s clothing – another version of the “cry-it-out” system, except made more “humane” by only allowing the baby to cry at small, but increasing intervals.  It’s promise is, of course, inticing – solitary, all-night sleep from your now “ferberized” infant. 

He began to backpedal on his criticism in 1999;  he was quoted as saying that there were “plenty of examples of co-sleeping where it works out just fine.”  Now, he appears to be drifting even more toward the proverbial “middle ground.”  Ferber is now speaking more softly on a previously hard line “crying it out was not meant to solve all sleep problems.”  His newer works even go so far as to outline other ways to solve infant sleep problems.  Surprise and hooray; Co-sleeping made the list of approved methods!!

If you’ve ever felt you needed permission from an “opposing force” to co-sleep, I think you have it!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Co-Sleeping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.