Sometimes, "perfect" really is the enemy of done. Even in parenting.

When my wife and I brought our first child home from the hospital, we planned on diligently following all of the expert recommendations regarding his care: he would breastfeed exclusively and sleep in a bassinet beside our bed, on his back, in a properly ventilated room. We had read about SIDS and would take every possible precaution. What could be more important than preventing harm from coming to our child?

Almost immediately, however, we ran into trouble. Our baby stopped peeing. He was dehydrated and hungry, somehow, although he spent pretty much all day at my breast. So we fed him some infant formula using a medicine dropper, which he lapped up hungrily, sending me into a shame spiral that took months of therapy to crawl out of. But at least with the supplementary formula we were able to keep him happily fed.

The second problem sent us into a territory that was even more mortifying. In spite of the fact that my breasts were only partially functional, the baby was extremely attached to them. As in, he would only sleep if they were right there, right beside him, skin to skin with his tiny cheek.

Every time he feel asleep while nursing and unlatched his little rosebud lips, I moved as stealthily as possible to try to get him into the bassinet. But more often than not, he woke and started crying. And even if I could get him to lie in the bassinet, it often didn’t last long. The end result was that I spent a lot of time nursing him in the chair, and, in my desperation and exhaustion, I often fell asleep.

My wife could tell, just by looking at us, that this was not a safe situation. Since it wasn’t possible to get him into the bassinet, we cleared our bed of blankets and pillows and let him sleep where he wanted to, right next to my body. We didn’t tell anyone. We had been taught that bed-sharing with a baby was deadly, so we certainly weren’t going to admit to doing it.

This was all back in 2009, before economist Emily Oster began publishing her bestselling books, in which she brings a unique, data-driven perspective to the art of parenting.

In her second book,

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