So I've recently become a father and have done a lot of reading into co-sleep, crib, etc out of my own paranoia of being a bad father and such.
I could go on and on about the back and forth. The one thing I do want to say and point out that is many articles like this BBC one use statements like "the rest of the world" or is "common in many other cultures" when discussing co-sleep and other "older" practices.
But what percentage of the world actually practices co-sleeping? While it is indeed common in Asia and Africa, only 40 percent of documented cultures practice co-sleep regularly [1]. So it has become a minority practice in the world at large, despite the fact that many blogs or articles make it seem like Western society is strange for not doing it as much.
So instead of Western society being novel and strange, could it be that we're onto something? Saying "it's always been done this way" isn't a scientific statement. While having babies sleep in cribs is a newer practice, there is still a lot of data backing it.
There is indeed some bad research when it comes to demonizing co-sleeping (equally equating co-sleeping parents who use drugs and alcohol with those who don't). But even when controlled for those variables, it still has been shown that co-sleeping still increases the risk of SIDS when there are no hazards present, although not as much as some studies suggest [1].
As a data driven person, when I read all of this, I opted to not co-sleep. It's just what a lot of data supports, so I don't see why it still gets demonized a lot.
I'm not saying you shouldn't co-sleep. If you like it and want to do it, go for it. But I just don't understand the vilification of Western practices when it's been shown to work in many cases.
1: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/05/21/6012896...