In the article, Cultural Variation in Infant’s Sleeping Arrangements, Morelli et al. examined Americans and Mayans’ decisions, and explanations regarding sleeping arrangement for their child.
Across the cultures, sleeping arrangements can reflect a child’s rearing goals, and values for interpersonal relations. In the U.S., where its society emphasis individualism, it encourages people to be interdependent from its members. As a result, American families “[believe] that it [is] important for their infants [to develop] independence and self-reliance” (Morelli et al., 1992, p.609) at a young age. Since, “cosleeping is often seen as a bad habit that it is difficult to break or as a practice that impedes the development of independence” (Morelli…