Baby Makes three

My infant son Christopher slept with us as often as i could manage it, despite my wife's objections and preferences otherwise (she'd had two previous children by another marriage; Christopher was my first and only). I loved the nights he slept in our big King-sized bed, and I encourage this practice.

The New York Times
December 29, 2005
And Baby Makes Three in One Bed
By AMY HARMON

JENNIFER JAKOVICH has spent most of her 5-month-old daughter's life dodging questions from friends, family and strangers about how and where Chloe sleeps. But since hearing that Dr. Richard Ferber, the country's most famous infant sleep expert, has relaxed his admonition against parents sleeping with their babies, she has taken a different tack.

"I now mention Ferber's new view while openly admitting to co-sleeping," said Ms. Jakovich, an engineer in San Diego. She has broken the news to friends that Chloe sleeps in the same bed with her and her husband, John, a computer programmer. "I feel I have now been given the green light, that it's O.K."

The Jackoviches are part of a growing group of American parents who share a bed with their baby, a common practice in the rest of the world, which had become nearly taboo in this country. A survey by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found that about one-fifth of parents with infants up to eight months old said the baby usually shared a bed with them, more than triple the number of a decade ago.

The trend appears to be driven largely by the increase in breastfeeding working mothers, who say it allows them to connect with their babies and still get some sleep. But given the prevailing cultural distaste, many parents say they have felt compelled to hide their shared sleeping arrangements.

It is a testament to Dr. Ferber's influence that even the halfhearted nod he has given the practice in interviews has inspired a kind of collective coming-out party among co-sleeping parents. Transcripts of his network news and talk show appearances last month are being circulated on the Internet and recited on the playground.

"Even though I shouldn't have to defend myself, it is nice to have that," Ms. Jakovich said. Like many other parents, she never intended to sleep with her daughter. "My view was that granola-hippie-type people co-sleep," she added.

But Ms. Jakovich, 30, quickly found that she slept better when she didn't have to get up in the night to nurse Chloe. To make things more comfortable, the Jakoviches took one side off Chloe's deluxe crib and pushed it up against their mattress, which they upgraded to a king-size.

The old Dr. Ferber would not have approved. In his best-selling 1985 book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems," he advised parents to let babies cry for intervals of up to 45 minutes without responding, to train them to sleep on their own. Should the child cry so hard that he throws up, parents are to clean up and leave again. "If you reward him for throwing up by staying with him, he will only learn that this is a good way for him to get what he wants," Dr. Ferber wrote.

Parents who take a baby into their bed instead, the book suggested, damage the child's development as an individual and are probably only trying to avoid their own intimacy problems. "If you find that you actually prefer to sleep with your infant," it warned, "you should consider your own feelings very carefully."

Practiced by millions of parents and widely promoted by pediatricians, Ferberization and its variations tap into the American desire to imbue children with independence from an early age. Setting babies apart in their own cribs also eases a typically American tendency to see sleeping arrangements as sexual rather than social, some anthropologists say.

Concerns about safety, albeit contested, added to the consensus against bed sharing, so that a baby's completing a sleep-training regimen has come to be seen as a developmental milestone comparable to crawling or cutting a first tooth.

Now, in a flurry of publicity for a revised version of Dr. Ferber's book, he has allowed that his technique is not suitable for all babies and that children can develop healthy sleep habits sleeping in their parents' bed.

A spokeswoman for Dr. Ferber's publisher, Marcia Burch, the vice president for publicity at Touchstone Fireside, a division of Simon & Schuster, said he had been taken aback by the interest in his position on bed sharing and that Dr. Ferber, the director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital in Boston, would not comment further until the new edition is published in March.

"He totally underestimated the reaction," Ms. Burch said. "He totally misunderstood that this was going to be really big news."

Still, Dr. Ferber's shift has sparked celebration among some parents, who have faced criticism for defying the American dictum that babies should learn to sleep alone. And in a child-rearing battle that has become as ideological as it is intimate, others say vindication is in order, not from Dr. Ferber so much as from fellow parents who evangelize his teachings with moral fervor.

"It is at her next doctor's appointment, her 12-month checkup," Christina Harrison said of her daughter, Alyssa, "that I relish the chance to bring it up the most." Ms. Harrison, 29, let Alyssa cry until her voice was hoarse at her pediatrician's urging. "It was horrible."

Ms. Harrison has resolved to sleep with Alyssa until she is happier about being in her own bed.

Stephanie Lazure, 31, hopes to show a clip of the ABC News interview with Dr. Ferber to her husband's boss, who bought the couple Dr. Ferber's book as a baby present. "She comes over and shakes her finger in the baby's face and says, 'You have to learn to self-soothe,' " Ms. Lazure said. "It's not that I feel criticized. It's that I feel my baby is being criticized for not sleeping."

Pressure not to co-sleep isn't coming only from relatives and other parents. Many pediatricians discourage the practice because they worry about parents rolling over and smothering the baby. But the question of how co-sleeping affects the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, known as SIDS, is contested. Last month the American Academy of Pediatrics SIDS task force released a statement discouraging parents from sharing beds with their babies.

But the academy's own section on breastfeeding argues that bed sharing is safe in many circumstances and can benefit babies by facilitating breastfeeding. And an epidemiological study published in the fall in the journal Pediatrics found no higher sudden infant death risk for infants older than 11 weeks unless the mother smokes.

"Some of the opponents of bed sharing persist in their beliefs in spite of the scientific evidence," said Dr. Martin Lahr, who is an author of the paper on bed sharing.

Co-sleeping has long been embraced by devotees of Dr. William Sears and his philosophy of "attachment parenting," who dismiss Dr. Ferber's earlier methods as cruel. Ferber fans have in turn derided co-sleepers as sacrificing themselves and their romantic relationships in the name of spoiling a baby who needs parents to set limits.

But many of the new co-sleepers appear to base their sleeping arrangements on a blend of pragmatism and pleasure, rather than on a particular approach to parenthood. Some push together queen mattresses with twin mattresses, others snuggle closer together or improvise each night. Cribs, Pack 'N Plays and bassinets become useful repositories for toys and laundry.

Rita Hunt Smith, 39, a children's librarian in Hershey, Pa., began co-sleeping with her first son, Ezra, after spending an agonizing night listening to him cry in the crib down the hall. Then she came to treasure the closeness it forged among Ezra, her and her husband, Kurt, a graphic artist.

Now 3½, Ezra spends most nights in his own bed, while the Smiths' 14-month-old son, Fletcher, sleeps with them. Perhaps because her husband has an older son from a previous marriage, Ms. Smith said, he has been supportive, even though he would like more room for his 6-foot-3 frame.

"He knows the day is coming when they won't even want to be in the same room with us, so let's soak it up now," Ms. Smith said. Upon waking, Fletcher, who has just begun to talk, greets his parents with "hiya."

Ms. Smith said she used to be highly secretive about their co-sleeping, but has begun talking more about it during baby story-time sessions she runs. Her mother, though, "continues to think I'm ruining my sons' sleep habits forever," she said.

Child development experts have said that Dr. Ferber was likely to be reacting to accumulated research since his earlier edition that supports the notion that babies have different temperaments and that their development is best served when parents are able to adapt to their individual needs.

"It is clear that children of differing temperaments need different things at night, just as they do during the day," said Sara Harkness, the director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Health and Human Development at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Harkness, who has conducted cross-cultural research on infant sleep habits in several countries, said no studies have borne out the connection originally drawn by Dr. Ferber and others between teaching babies to sleep alone and their ability to develop autonomy.

"It's an American myth," Dr. Harkness said. "It's fine to think about training children to be independent, but there has been this misguided effort to extend it to an area where it's really not developmentally appropriate."

Some co-sleeping parents say they do not need advice from experts to decide where their baby should sleep.

"With no intended disrespect to Dr. Ferber, I do not need his opinion to validate my view that co-sleeping is the healthiest, safest and most natural sleep situation for my child," Kristi Buxton, 29, a microbiology researcher in Portland, Ore., wrote in an e-mail message. "The individual who has most influenced (and radically changed) my beliefs about co-sleeping is my child."

Champagne

Champagne: How Low Can You Go?
By ERIC ASIMOV

FOR lacy, effervescent moments, prosecco has its special place. Sparkling Vouvray is certainly distinguished, and I recently enjoyed a superb crémant d'Alsace from Barmès-Buecher. I'm always happy with a bottle of Schramsberg, Iron Horse or Roederer Estate from California, less so with fizzy wine in a pink can like Sofia Mini blanc de blancs, though I don't meet Niebaum-Coppola's target audience of young women for that product.

But when talking about sparkling wine, let's be honest: There is Champagne and there is everything else. The others are good, but they're not Champagne.

Which raises the question, is Champagne always Champagne?
No wine region in the world has done a better job than Champagne of creating a mystique about itself. Whether Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa or Tuscany, consumers are aware of an upper echelon of high-quality wines, separated from a larger pool of mediocrity.

But Champagne? The mere mention of the word connotes joy and celebration. Most people need only to know that they are drinking Champagne to be happy. Slightly more discerning types prefer one brand to another, possibly - to be cynical about it - because of the superior marketing of that particular brand.

The truth is that in Champagne, as in every other wine region in the world, the wine made by producers who are passionate, committed and skilled can be transcendent. As for the others, well, the best thing those bottles have going for them is the name Champagne on their labels. The trick, obviously, is separating the good stuff from the bad.

In quest of a few good bottles, the Dining section's wine panel recently tasted 25 Champagnes at the lowest price level, which nowadays can rise up to $30. Contrary to the blithe image that a tasting like this may bring to mind, it was no easy task. Champagne, especially cheap Champagne, can be harsh and acidic, and with 25 glasses before you, before long the tongue seems to swell and the inside of the mouth feels rasped by steel wool. Nonetheless, we were relieved and happy to find some Champagnes that we could recommend enthusiastically.

Why relieved? Because this category of Champagne is no sure thing. Producers tend to baby their more expensive vintage Champagnes. Those wines receive the best grapes, grown in the best sites, and in the cellar these bottles are attended to like favored children.

The basic Champagnes, for the most part, receive far less consideration and consume fewer resources. They are made from purchased grapes, or often enough from wines that have been purchased, already made.

The best wines are not likely to go into the blend that will result in the final
nonvintage product, which can differ from year to year depending on which wines are available. These are cash-cow Champagnes, intended to maintain a steady flow of income.

Of course, some Champagne houses are far more serious than others about their basic bottlings. Brands like Bollinger, Louis Roederer and Billecart-Salmon are just a few of the bigger houses that make superb nonvintage Champagnes, and many other labels do, too. Smaller houses like Gosset, Alfred Gratien and Bruno Paillard also make excellent nonvintage Champagnes. But you are not likely to find any of these bottles for $30 and under, certainly not anymore.

That leaves an assortment of brand names - some familiar, some not - along with cooperative brands, which buy and blend the grapes for a number of growers, and a few small growers who produce Champagnes from their own grapes. Alas, most in that last, highly interesting category don't quite meet the $30 cutoff.

In the Champagnes we tasted, I was first of all looking for a sense of liveliness and vivacity, the sort of taut energy that keeps you refreshed and coming back for more. Our favorite wines had that quality, and even a modicum of complexity, though intense minerality and the sort of baked bread and occasional berry flavors that you find in better bottles were hard to come by, as was the exquisite texture of a fine Champagne.

"I think you have to go to the next level for that," said Evan Spingarn, a wine salesman and an author of "The Ultimate Wine Lover's Guide 2006" (Sterling Publishing), who joined Florence Fabricant and me on the panel, along with our second guest, Rebecca Foster, the wine director at Cookshop, a new restaurant in Chelsea.

The tasting reminded Ms. Foster of how difficult it is to grow grapes in Champagne, which is the northernmost of any fine-wine region. Historically, growers struggle each year to ripen their grapes sufficiently in the region's chill, and, naturally, grapes from the best plots - those designated premier cru and grand cru - are generally reserved for the better and more expensive Champagnes. "This tells you they have those designations for a reason," Ms. Foster said.

Yet, our No. 2 wine, the Louis de Sacy Brut, full-bodied and rich with a creamy texture and dry, toasty flavors, was labeled a grand cru, highly unusual for a $27 bottle. (This may have been shopper's luck. The importer says the price is scheduled to rise soon.) The other wines we tasted, like our No. 1, the Lanson Black Label, had no such designation.

Nonetheless, I felt the Lanson was the classiest of our tasting, lively with a juicy, lip-smacking acidity, and mineral and citrus flavors. If it had a bare hint of sweetness, the overall sensation was dry because it was so well balanced by the acidity.

In some of the other bottles, a sense of sweetness was apparent, too. Whether this was intentional or not is hard to say. Some Champagnes are meant to be a little sweet. Moët & Chandon's White Star is a rich, full-bodied Champagne that is very popular in the United States.

t is specially formulated for the American market, which is thought to prefer some sweetness, and is labeled Extra Dry, which paradoxically is a step sweeter than brut. We judged it too sweet for our tastes. Similarly a bottle of Heidsieck & Company Monopole Extra Dry was somewhat sweet and didn't make our list.

Does this mean the two are bad Champagnes? No. We simply preferred a drier style. A much more serious issue in some of the Champagnes that didn't make our list was the high level of sulfur that had been used as a preservative.

Sulfur, in the form of sulfur dioxide, is almost universally used by winemakers at various stages of the production process. But if too much is added, it mars the wine, resulting in an off-putting aroma of burned matchsticks. This made it impossible to enjoy several of our Champagnes.

Two of our top 10 were blanc de blancs, which means the wines were made entirely of chardonnay, rather than of the usual blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier. These blanc de blancs are not necessarily lighter than conventional Champagnes.

Indeed, some can be full bodied. But they often have a creamy texture, surprising complexity and, depending on where the grapes are from, precise mineral flavors. The Paul Goerg, our No. 3 wine, had a toasty quality that we all enjoyed and also a complex combination of floral and fruit flavors.

The other blanc de blancs, from Pierre Gimmonet & Fils, is a different kind of Champagne. It had great mineral flavors as well as apple and herbal aromas that seem more characteristic of conventional wine than of Champagne. That vinous quality is typical of a grower-producer Champagne like this one. It's not a Champagne style that appeals to everybody, but it did to me and the rest of the panel.

Over the last five years I have found Nicolas Feuillatte to be a particularly reliable Champagne, a good value at almost every price level. The brut was full bodied, with lingering flavors and, if not completely dry, was well balanced. It was also the least expensive in the top 10 at $24.

Some well-known names - Piper-Heidsieck, Pol Roger, Perrier-Jouët and Mumm's - were among the Champagnes we tasted that did not make our list.
It shows how dicey this category can be. For $10 more, you can buy Champagnes that are not only more reliable, but offer more dimensions of aroma, flavor and texture.

If you choose wisely, at $30 and under, you can certainly find satisfying bottles. But too often, the result is Champagne on the label, but less than you hope for in the bottle.

Tasting Report: Lively, Energetic, and Under 30

Lanson Black Label Brut NV$28***Dry and refreshing, with snappy acidity and mineral and citrus flavors. (Importer: Caravelle Wine Selections, Avon, Conn.)

Louis de Sacy Brut Grand Cru NV$27***Toasty and full bodied with a creamy texture and persistent flavors. (House of Burgundy, Port Chester, N.Y.)

Paul Goerg Blanc de Blancs NV$26***Yeasty, toasty aromas, with persistent, complex floral and fruit flavors. (U.S.A. Wine Imports, New York)

Pierre Gimmonet & Fils Brut Blanc de Blancs NV$29**½Unusually complex and persistent flavors of apples, minerals and anise. (Michael Skurnik Wines/Terry Theise Estate Selection, Syosset, N.Y.)

Nicolas Feuillatte Brut NV$24**½Bright and substantial, with citrus and floral flavors; not quite bone dry. (Pasternak Wine Imports, Harrison, N.Y.)

Pannier Brut Sélection NV$25**½Rich and full bodied, lively and fresh, with yeasty, floral flavors. (Martin Scott Wines, Lake Success, N.Y.)

Pommery Brut Royal NV$27**½Rich, with mineral aromas and nutlike flavors. (W. J. Deutsch & Sons, White Plains)

Jacquart Mosaïque NV$27**Toasty caramel aromas with creamy, tropical flavors. (Tri-Vin Imports, Mount Vernon, N.Y.)

Deutz Brut Classic NV$30**Straightforward, but lively and refreshing. (Maison Marques & Domaines, Oakland, Calif.)

Charles Lafitte Brut NV$27**Full bodied and fruity with intriguing fruit flavors; slightly sweet. (Vranken America, New York)

New Directions for Psychotherapy

The New York Times
December 27, 2005
Psychotherapy on the Road to ... Where?
By BENEDICT CAREY

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The small car careered toward a pile of barrels labeled "Danger TNT," then turned sharply, ramming through a mock brick wall and into a dark tunnel. A light appeared ahead, coming fast and head-on. A locomotive whistled.

"Uh-oh," said one of the passengers, Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist and a pioneer in the study of positive emotions.

But in a moment, the car scudded safely under the light, out through the swinging doors of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and into the warm, clear light that seemed to radiate from the Southern California pavement.

"Well," Dr. Seligman said. "I don't know that I expected to be doing that."

One of several prominent therapists who agreed to visit Disneyland at the invitation of this reporter, Dr. Seligman was here in mid-December for a conference on the state of psychotherapy, its current challenges and its future. And a wild ride it was.

Because it was clear at this landmark meeting that, although the participants agreed it was a time for bold action, psychotherapists were deeply divided over whether that action should be guided by the cool logic of science or a spirit of humanistic activism. The answer will determine not only what psychotherapy means, many experts said, but its place in the 21st century.

"In the 1960's and 1970's, we had these characters like Carl Rogers, Minuchin, Frankl; psychotherapy felt like a social movement, and you just wanted to be a part of it," said Dr. Jeffrey Zeig, a psychologist who heads the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, which every five years since 1980 has sponsored the conference in honor of Dr. Erickson, a pioneer in the use of hypnosis and brief therapy techniques.

"Now," Dr. Zeig continued, "well, therapists are becoming more like technicians, and we're trying to find the common denominator from the different schools and methods to see what works best, and where to go from here."

The meeting brought together some 9,000 psychologists, social workers and students, along with many of the world's most celebrated living therapists, among them the psychoanalyst Dr. Otto Kernberg, the Hungarian-born psychiatrist and skeptic Dr. Thomas Szasz, and Dr. Albert Bandura, the pioneer in self-directed behavior change.

"This is like a rock concert for most of us," said Peggy Fitzgerald, 56, a social worker and teacher from Sacramento, holding up a program covered in autographs. Ms. Fitzgerald said she attended war protests during the 1960's, and "this has some of that same feeling."

Calls to arms rang through several conference halls. In the opening convocation, Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams - the charismatic therapist played on screen by Robin Williams - displayed on a giant projection screen photos from around the world of burned children, starving children, diseased children, some lying in their own filth.

He called for a "last stand of loving care" to prevail over the misery in the world, its wars and "our fascistic government." Overcome by his own message, Dr. Adams eventually fell to the floor of the stage in tears.

Many in the audience of thousands were deeply moved; many others were bewildered. Some left the arena.

At the conference, many said they found it heartening that psychotherapy was finding some scientific support.

For example, cognitive therapy, in which people learn practical thought-management techniques to dispel self-defeating assumptions and soothe anxieties, has proved itself in many studies.

The therapy, some participants said, has even attracted the attention of the Nobel Committee. The two men who developed it, Dr. Albert Ellis, a psychologist in New York, and Dr. Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania, brought crowds to their feet.

A frequent theme of the meeting was that therapists could not only relieve anxieties and despair but help clients realize a truly fulfilling life - an idea based on emerging research.

In his talk, Dr. Seligman spelled out the principles of this vision, called positive psychology. By learning to express gratitude, to savor the day's pleasures and to nurture native strengths, a people can become more absorbed in their daily lives and satisfied with them, his research has suggested.

A just-completed study at the University of Pennsylvania found that these techniques relieved the symptoms of depression better than other widely applied therapies, Dr. Seligman told the audience.

"The zeit is really geisting on this idea right now," said Dr. Seligman, who has consulted with the military on how to incorporate his methods.

Dr. Dan Siegel, a child psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, was one of several speakers to emphasize how psychotherapy changes the wiring of the brain. For example, he said, brain imaging findings suggest that secure social interactions foster the integration of disparate parts of the brain.

"When I'm telling you my feelings, discussing memories, in this close relationship, I'm achieving better neurological integration," Dr. Siegel said. "I'm repairing the connections in the brain."

Many therapists at the conference said that if the field did not incorporate more scientifically testable principles, its future was bleak.

Using vague, unstandardized methods to assist troubled clients "should be prosecutable" in some cases, said Dr. Marsha Linehan of the University of Washington, who has developed a well-studied method of treating suicidal patients.

Yet it was also apparent in several demonstrations of the spellbinding thing itself - artful psychotherapy - that some things will be difficult, if not impossible, to standardize.

Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, research director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment in Miami, showed a film of the first session he conducted with a woman who was suicidal months after witnessing her boyfriend die in a traffic accident. After gently prompting her to talk about the accident, Dr. Meichenbaum then zeroed in on something he had noticed when the woman entered his office: she was clutching a cassette tape.

He asked about the tape and learned that it was a recording of her late boyfriend's voice, expressing love for her. "I play it over and over, and it makes me so depressed," said the woman, in a tiny voice.

And here Dr. Meichenbaum stopped the film and addressed the audience.

"The tape!" he said. "When during the session do you go for the cassette tape? What do you do with the tape?"

For several long moments not a creature stirred, not even a laptop mouse. This community of therapists was now trying to save a soul, a person who was alone and did not want to live. What to do with the tape?

"Consider between now and the next time I see you, in two days, consider whether you would be willing to play the tape," Dr. Meichenbaum went on to say he had told the woman. "I would be privileged and honored" to hear it.

"Why?" he now asked, turning to the audience. "Because it not only increases the likelihood she'll return but empowers her to come back" and take an active role in therapy. Which is exactly what she did, he said.

"Now, is any research study ever going to tell you exactly the right thing to do when your client comes in with a tape of her dead lover's voice?" Dr. Meichenbaum asked.

Most of the audience of more than 1,000 people wandered out of the talk wide-eyed. One, Terrina Picarello, 40, a marriage and family therapist from Greensboro, N.C., said, "That is what you come for: inspiration."

Ms. Picarello said that the conference was well worth the money she spent, more than $800 in fees and travel, and the week she had taken off to attend, even though she found some of the presentations on marriage counseling disappointing.

"Way too much talking by the therapist, I thought," she said, after one of them. "It seemed so old-fashioned, like it was drawn from another era."

And there was the rub. As psychotherapy struggles to define itself for an age of podcasts and terror alerts, it will need ideas, thinkers, leaders. Yet the luminaries here, many of whom rose to prominence three decades ago, were making their way off the stage. And it was not clear who, or what, would take their place.

Across the street at Disneyland, where just about any metaphor is available for the taking, Dr. Siegel was working out the meaning of the park for himself. A native of Los Angeles, he has many memories of visiting as a child, perhaps nowhere more so than the circular drive in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

"The circle of choice," he said, looking around. "This is where you decide, where you think about your mood and which way you want to go - to Frontierland, Tomorrowland."

By all appearances in Anaheim, the field of psychotherapy has arrived at the circle of choice.

The question is, How to get to Tomorrowland?

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
* Home
* Privacy Policy
* Search
* Corrections
* XML
* Help
* Contact Us
* Work for Us
* Site Map
* Back to Top

Le Quartier Chaillot in Paris

Coldest Temps Ever for me