Information about co-sleeping

[Lily_Pad]

DD is only 4 days old so i'm not making any fast decisions about co sleeping with her, but i'm wondering what other people's opinions and experiences are...
last night she woke up for a feed at midnight and i fed her lying side by side in bed, and i was trying to stay awake but i fell asleep. my eyes flew open at 6am and there she was sleeping peacefully next to me... she slept for 6 hours straight! usually she wakes around every hour and half/two hours. (since my milk came in she is feeding a LOT more).
what are the risks? and advantages?

[MimiGrace]

Risks include:
suffocation (but if you are very careful about not having excess blankets and pillow's on the bed, and use doona's instead of sheet sets etc, that should not be an issue).
falling off the bed - but i think its unlikely until she starts crawling. You managed one night, and she stayed in the crook of your arm.

If you or your partner have been drinking or taking drugs (i mean prescription ones of course :p) then its recommended to not let her sleep in the bed because there is a risk of you rolling onto her.

But i was co-slept, my brother was co-slept, and we're both great.
A mums instinct is to know exactly where her baby is, and that usually means they're very very safe with mum :yelclap:
if it really worries you (especially while she's so small, which would be my worry), i'd put the bassinet right next to the bed.

Advantages are:
you'll both get more sleep, because she can latch on without having to wake you up.
You'll form such a close bond!
You won't have to keep running to another room to make sure she's still sleeping.

A lot of people believe that co-sleeping reduces the risk of SIDS (provided there are no suffucation/strangulation possibilities on the bed), because the bub will match her breathing to you. There's a belief that sids might be a child simply forgetting to breathe (having seen the stats about sids, in countries where co-sleeping is the norm, that makes a lot of sense to me!)

I hope you manage to do what is best for you :thumbsup:
and congrats on the new bub!

[JabberJaw]

The risks are really only if you are under the influence of alcohol/drugs are are a smoker. Mums seem to have an natural inbuild instict which wakes us at the right time.
I have co slept with all 4 of my kids, i am a dirty disgusting smoker but....i have a shower before bed, and dont have another smoke, so the smell is off me.
The benifits are endless! Breastfeeding is easy, less waking etc, easy to comfort bub if she/he wakes (so as not to disturb the other household members)



Harvard psychiatrist Michael Commons and his colleagues recently presented the American Association for the Advancement of Science with research that suggests that babies who sleep alone are more susceptible to stress disorders.

Notre Dame anthropology professor and leading sleep researcher, James McKenna, has long held that babies who sleep with their mothers enjoy greater immunilogical benefits from breastfeeding because they nurse twice as frequently as their counterparts who sleep alone.

In his book on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, pediatrician William Sears cites co-sleeping as a proactive measure parents can take to reduce the risk of this tragedy. McKenna's research shows that babies who sleep with parents spend less time in Level III sleep, a state of deep sleep when the risk of apneas are increased. Further, co-sleeping babies learn to imitate healthy breathing patterns from their bunkmates.

Every scientific study of infant sleep confirms that babies benefits from co-sleeping. Not one shred of evidence exists to support the widely held notion that co-sleep is detrimental to the psychological or physical health of infants.



http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading_room/co_slepping.html

[Admum]

my eyes flew open at 6am and there she was sleeping peacefully next to me... she slept for 6 hours straight! usually she wakes around every hour and half/two hours.
what are the risks? and advantages?

Awwww.... as for advantages, I think there is your answer! Sooo beautiful, and it forges such a close bond... zzzzz :)

[Maybelline]

my daughter is 1 month old..i was sleeping with her in the hospital on the 2nd night!!..now at home i sleep with her in bed from midnight to morning..although im trying to put her in her bed after the 4/5 am feed...it worked this morning..she was in her bed for almost 2 hours!!!...just make sure no bedding can fall over her face..and no drinking..although i did have half a beer last night..which i thoroughly enjoyed!!!...

[AM]

try to get hold of the book "Three in a bed" Deborah Jackson, it is brilliant!

Google james McKenna, he has done heaps of co-sleeping research, and can't say enough good about it :)

There is a right and wrong way to do it:

www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/familybed.html

[Lily_Pad]

thanks everyone!

DD is definitely happier when she is sleeping next to me... i've been trying to put her in her bassinet after she falls asleep while feeding, but she wakes up less than half an hour later crying for me. it still worries me to have her in the bed but if it makes her feel better... i don't know. :o

[*Bec&Bel*]

then what happends when you have a nearly 4 yr old that doesn't want to go to her bed and wants to sleep in your bed and you try everything to get her in her bed but she wont, then you get too tired and just give up and she ends up in your bed. :detective: Sorry for hijacking

[misskittyfantastico]

then what happends when you have a nearly 4 yr old that doesn't want to go to her bed and wants to sleep in your bed and you try everything to get her in her bed but she wont, then you get too tired and just give up and she ends up in your bed. :detective: Sorry for hijacking

My 3.5 year old has her story in her bed, then goes to sleep in our bed and then we shift her back into her bed after she's zonked. Sometimes she'll reappear in the early hours of the morning, other times she'll stay put in her bed till morning.

DS is 1 and I co-slept with him from birth. He now goes to sleep in his cot and comes in with us at about1/2am.

I don't really worry about when they'll stop wanting to sleep with us, I was about 7 when I decided for myself that I didn't need to keep visiting mum and dad during the night.

[Lily_Pad]

then what happends when you have a nearly 4 yr old that doesn't want to go to her bed and wants to sleep in your bed and you try everything to get her in her bed but she wont, then you get too tired and just give up and she ends up in your bed. :detective: Sorry for hijacking

that's what i worry about all the time! :(

the other night she fell asleep while we were sitting on the couch and we went to bed and i put her in her cot and she slept for about 2 hours in it. it was sooo nice for DH and i to have the bed back to ourselves... and then she woke up! and would not stay asleep in the cot for the rest of the night. :(