Quote Originally Posted by sparks19 View Post
I don't think sleeping arrangement dictates what the child will turn out like.
Ding ding ding!! I think the proverbial nail has been hit

There is an enormous multitude of studies and research that both prove and disprove the benefits of sleeping arrangements. I would believe that the results are so variable because the issue is so *subjective*. I have a hard time believing that co-sleeping overwhelmingly leads to clinginess. Likewise, I have a hard time believing that separate-sleeping inherently leads to independence.

We can tout anecdotes all day long, but, then again, there's those pesky "confidence bias" and "illusory correlation" issues we have to keep in mind

On that note, regarding our anecdotes of clingy, co-slept children, we should also keep confounding variables in mind, too. Couldn't it be that the co-sleeping mothers one knew were just more inclined to have emotionally dependent temperaments? Temperament is strongly genetic, so, therefore, couldn't co-slept children simply have inherited that emotionally dependent temperament?