With Dr Ferber, Weisbluth and all the doctors who have written books telling parents all about the importance of independent sleeping, your grandma, your mom, and the enormous variety of cribs and mobiles and crib bedding sets available in retails stores across the nation, you could be forgiven for thinking that every baby in the world goes in a crib and co-sleeping families are few and far between.

In fact, some studies claim that 70% of parents have co-slept with their child for some or all of the night.

For anyone who’s co-sleeping and thinks she’s the only one, try this experiment: if you are at a playdate with other mom, admit you co-sleep. You might be surprised as to how many other moms do too. I can think of a lot of co-sleeping moms I know, and it’s not all the hippie granola stereotype moms – one is the ex-vice-president of a multinational company, another one is a dentist.

When my son was an infant, he woke up every hour to nurse. He started the night sleeping in a bassinet beside the bed, and by 4 a.m. he was in bed with me so I could get some sleep.

By 12 months, he was sleeping through the night. It was somewhat of a relief to have him sleep all night in his crib, although I did miss having the little wiggly fidgety thing in bed with me.

Then around the time he turned two, major changes happened in our family – a cross country move and his dad leaving the home. He refused to sleep in his crib. So he’s back in bed with me. It’s nice to have him back, although now things are settling down around here I’m planning to get a toddler bed and gently try to have him sleep in there.

So basically, I’ve been flexible about where my son sleeps, and adapted, depending on the circumstances.

So how do you decide what to do? There’s pros and cons of co-sleeping, and the correct place to put your baby to sleep is only something that you can decide. You, your partner, and your baby are the people who should decide where baby should sleep. Partly because it’s you being woken up at night, and partly because you are the one who knows you and your family best, and what is working or not working for you.

If you do decide to co-sleep, here’s a must-read list of safe sleeping practices for co-sleeping families.

I am in continual wonder of the subculture I entered when I decided to stay home with my babies instead of heading back to work. Stay at home moms are a hearty breed of women, but it can be an awfully lonely occupation. Sometimes there are days when I don’t get to talk to another adult until my husband walks in the door, and then I assault the poor man with conversation.

I was watching a dad at a play area with his kids and I started to wonder if it’s even lonelier being a stay at home dad. At least with stay at home moms we can spot each other by the dazed looks on our faces and the kids circling around us. We can always strike up conversations with other SAHMs because we know that there will always be some common denominator to discuss: kids.

With dads, though, I wonder how much the gender issue comes into play. Are SAHDs afraid to approach women to chat because they are afraid the women will think it’s an attempt at flirting? Obviously, a SAHD probably can’t suggest a playdate at his house like a SAHM can to another woman…at least not without raising a couple of eyebrows.

My days are always more fun when I can get together with other SAHMs and let out kids play themselves into exhaustion. I wonder if SAHDs have the same resources as we do? They are definitely the minority, so it’s probably harder to find other men to hang out with who are in the same position.

Stay at home dads, I applaud you. I think it’s awesome that your kids have the benefit of having a parent at home, and I think it’s great that you can tackle a role traditionally held by women.

Rock on, SAHDs.

I once read a great article that discussed the cliques that form with playgroups. The article compared this to the same phenomenon in high school where certain leaders arise, some people just kind of follow along, and there are some people who simply don’t fit in. I’ve attended more than a few playgroups during my reign as Mommy, and I will say that I have to agree with the author of the article. Perhaps it isn’t merely a high school phenomenon, but merely a natural, anthropological-type occurrence that’s bound to happen no matter what the group. Get a bunch of high schoolers together, and they’ll form groups. Get a bunch of parents together, and they’ll form groups too. For all I know, you can get a group of random tribesmen from the far corners of the earth, put them all in a big room, and they’ll form groups too even though nobody can speak the same language.

For the record, I don’t have a degree in anthropology, so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about here.

Anyhow, the point is that even though we all have the common bond of parenthood it does not necessarily mean that all our other differences melt away. There are different parenting styles, opinions, and cultures that make us all who we are. Rest assured that we can’t hide behind the Parent label for too long before our true colors start to shine. I remember one playgroup – we had all known each other for a couple of months – where a mom all of a sudden went into a very loud, opinionated diatribe about abortion. The rest of use stood there with our jaws open, not really understanding when our playdate had turned into a political rally.

Look for a playgroup full of parents who you would want to hang out with outside of the playdate. Things will run much smoother and you won’t dread playdates as you would if you couldn’t stand the other parents. Your kids can pick their own friends when they get older, but when they’re babies it’s up to you to find social interaction for them…don’t make it torturous to you.

What do you think about this cocktail? Moms, babies, toys, and glasses of chardonnay?

A growing fashion is for moms to be opening a bottle of wine at afternoon playdates. Have a look at this NBC story on the trend.

I used to belong to a moms group in California (where else?) who met once a month at someone’s house for brunch and (weak) mimosas (a self-imposed limit of one each). And half the moms in attendance were pregnant or the driving half of the carpool pair and not drinking, so there would have been plenty of people to drive an injured child to the hospital just in case.

Someone I told about this was absolutely horrified. Drinking while you should be looking after your child? I think she wanted to call the Child Protection Service on us.

There’s a little bit of a double standard, it seems to be socially acceptable for Dads to have a beer while watching the baby on Sunday. Is it not ok for Moms to have a glass of something?

Or is a glass of something, once in a while, regaining a bit of your old life, and a valuable bit of me time, in a life of motherhood?