View Full Version : Co-Sleeping ?
dec05mum
31-12-2005, 17:48
Ivy is now9 days old and sleeps well during the day in her bassinette(but refuses to sleep in her cot)
At night she resists all attempts to keep her in either!
right from the start I think I may have blown it by putting her down next to me in bed.
She sleeps so well like this but I'm afraid maybe this is a dangerous exercise any advice/techniques would be greatly appreciated.
Am I being a bad parent allowing her to co-sleep with me?
No your not being a bad parent my lil girl is 10 mths now & she still co-sleeps but im am starting to think about putting her in her own cot now.
It is a bit scary at first for the fact that you think your going to roll over & squish them or something.
Hay you should do what works for you & you lil one & what ever you feel comfortable doing
Hokey Pokey
31-12-2005, 17:55
Heyy
I don't know how to help sorry as I simply refused from word go to have my babies in my bed with me, unless they were sick. I chose not to for 2 reasons 1. I did not want to make it a habit and 2. I was worried about the safety (I had a friend who let her little baby in her bed and her hubby rolled at night and suffocated the little one to death:( ) Was enough for me to refuse co sleeping.
I would not say you are a bad parent I know how desperate we all get for an ounce of sleep at these trying times! Maybe you could speak to a child health nurse see what they have to say??:)
Rainbowbrite
31-12-2005, 17:57
MJ is 7.5 months & we co-sleep most of the time too. You'll find a fair amount of people here do :D
Now if only JanetF is around, she can post some links & give you info on just how safe it is :)
RB
Rainbowbrite
31-12-2005, 17:59
Should have added that what we do which is probably a safe method of co-sleeping is that we removed one of the sides of the cot & have it pushed right up against the bed. That way MJ can be put in the cot, & if she wants me at night for a feed or cuddle, all she does is roll over to me :)
Goodluck
RB
dec05mum
31-12-2005, 17:59
Thanks
I seem to notice every little movement she makes when she is next to me.
plus I love being that close to her!
Yeah where is that JanetF she always has really good advice. :D
SweetSerenity
31-12-2005, 18:02
I too am not sure how to help!:confused:
I too refused from day one. He was in his cradle next to our bed when he was little then went to his cot when he out grew it.
The only time he slept or sleeps in our bed is when he is sick and wont sleep AT ALL in his cot. Like at the moment i think his eye teeth are coming and he had a horrid night the night before...i tried to get him to sleep for 2hrs and everytime he was put in his cot he screamed...so he slept with us...
Ihope others can give you better advice :)
Co-sleeping is the best! :D
My 21 month old son sleeps with me, and has done so from day one.
There definitely are safety guidelines to help you feel a lot more at ease.
http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/familybed.html
James McKenna is a reputed sleep researcher, and his work on co-sleeping is very interesting.
http://www.naturalchild.com/james_mckenna/babies_need.html
The fact is, it is NOT a bad habit, 80% of the world sleep in co-sleeping arrangements, it is something peculiar to modern western society to closet vulnerable infants off by themselves.
Babies need a lot of close contact, day and night, they have spent 9 months in a close embrace inside your body, no wonder they sleep better when they are close enough to smell your familiar smell, hear your breath, and your heartbeat.
It is as it should be.
And co-sleeping really makes those night feeds a breeze! :D
I simply sleep through most of them these days, as few of them as there are now.
There is a LOVELY book called 'Three in a bed: The benefits of sharing your bad with your baby' By Deborah Jackson. It really really reinforced how good i feel about co-sleeping.
All the best,
I seem to notice every little movement she makes when she is next to me.
plus I love being that close to her!
I think that's part of the reason co-sleeping works so well. You are very aware of where the baby is and the baby is just as aware of where you are, so you both feel more peaceful and you don't have to get up at night to tend to bub so even if you sleep lighter, you get much more of it!
I believe James McKenna did research into the incidents of parents rolling onto babies and it generally happens when:
* one parent is not aware the baby is in the bed
* a parent is under the influence of alcohol or drugs
* a parent is a smoker (I think..?)
And if you are worried, as Rainbowbrite said, putting the cot next to the bed might be safer, or another option is to buy a bedguard from any baby store (I saw them at target today) and put the baby on your side of the bed between you and the bedrail (not in between you and DH) so he can't get anywhere near the bub, if you are worried about that. :)
They have to leave the bed at some time or another, and the longer you leave it the harder it will most likely become.
When the time is right, leave her in her bed/cott, and no matter how much she crys, do not remove her. Check that she is ok, but do not touch her.
PLEASE tell me this post is a joke?????:confused:
With all due respect, Dilly - what a crock! Many mums who co-sleep will tell you that their babies happily went to their own bed when they were good and ready.
And in this case, we're talking about a 9 day old baby, for goodness sake. Anyone who advocates leaving her to cry for WHATEVER reason needs their head read. :mad: I've heard that advice given before to a mum in a similar situation. The next day mummy came back saying "It broke my heart" (well that's sad) and "This morning I noticed she'd burst a blood vessel in her eye from crying so hard" (that's verging on criminal IMO).
I agree cosmic, babies go through stages of being clingy and then independant, its natural and leaving a bub to cry won't make it happen any quicker!
That and needing affection is just as important and real to a bub as needing milk, I respect peoples decision to control cry but don't understand why people do it and certainly don't advocate it, esp not for such a young baby.
Of course they leave the family bed! When they're ready so it's not traumatic at all then! Children do actually grow and mature and their needs change and if we allow them to do that in their own time then no one is traumatised at all. As for not touching babies, it's simply ********. Imagine a scared, helpless, devastated adult lying sobbing in a room and someone goes in, refuses to make eye contact, pats them a few perfunctory times and then leaves. Would they be comforted by that? I wouldn't! Human babies are THE MOST helpless of all mammals and designed to be close to their mama.
If we really wanted babies to sleep safely we'd ban cots because that's where SIDS occurs, right? It's called cot death for a reason, people! In countries where breastfeeding and cosleeping are the norm SIDS is almost unknown. Only logical really. Westerners expect helpless babies to somehow regulate all their new bodily systems alone as well as go without nutrition and hydration for hours at a time. A newborn baby needs to be breastfed 10-12 times in 24 hours and how you do that with a baby in another room I don't know!
So dec05mum you are taking care of your baby in an appropriate way for the helpless human mammal. You are maintaining her breastfeeding capabilities in the best way possible, keeping her safe and secure and what could be better than that?! My son has coslept from the day he was born because I wanted him to be safe and I wanted him to be nourished 24 hours a day and I didn't want to get up to a crying baby. He has very rarely woken crying, and as a newborn he just shuffled about to be fed. He fed every 2 hours at night until he was 10 months old and I was only rarely sleepdeprived.
I love this article! It shows so much which is great about evidence based, age appropriate parenting!
I'm sure my son will want to move into his own bed and room at some point. Probably by the time he's sexually active but then again, at least I'll know who he's having sex with... :D Waddya reckon? ;) Or maybe he'll still be breastfeeding then too roflmao!
Common Co-Sleeping Myths
Children Can Suffocate.
The recent Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) finding that adult beds are inherently hazardous is both misleading and inaccurate. Parents should know that this recent campaign is sponsored and financed by the Juvenile Product Manufacturing Association (i.e. crib manufacturers), an organization that has everything to gain from parents choosing to buy cribs. Parents should also know that perhaps millions of parents sleep safely with their infants every year. A recent study persuasively documented that babies who sleep on their backs with a nonsmoking, non-drinking, parent who did not abuse drugs show no greater risk than solitary sleepers.
Dr. McKenna, professor of anthropology and director of the Mother-Infant Sleep Lab at Notre Dame, gives the following safety suggestions: "Infants should sleep on firm surfaces, clean surfaces, in the absence of smoke, under light (but comfortable) blanketing, and their heads should never be covered. The bed should not have any stuffed animals or pillows around the infant and never should an infant be placed to sleep on top of a pillow. Sheepskins or other fluffy material and especially beanbag mattresses should never be used. Water beds can be dangerous, too, and the mattresses should always tightly intersect the bedframe. Infants should never sleep on couches or sofas -- with or without adults -- where they can slip down (face first) into the crevice or get wedged against the back of a couch."
If they sleep in your bed, they'll never leave. This has never been studied or documented, and anecdotal evidence from co-sleeping parents does not bear this out. Many co-sleeping parents report that their children become willing to leave, with little or no persuasion, on their own around age two or three, as they mature physically, emotionally and cognitively. These families also report that there are many ways to help children find their own sleeping space.
Co-sleeping families tend not to see things in terms of habits that need to be broken, but as patterns that can be established, but that continually evolve and change. For co-sleeping families, laying the foundation for security and closeness takes precedence over early independence.
http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/5-ap/312-co-sleeping-safety.htm
http://www.drjaygordon.com/ap/cosleeping.htm
http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFactSheet.htm
The Crib Industry wants you to know that 60 "accidental" infant deaths have occurred per year in adult beds for age birth to 2 years.
Why did they forget to mention that cosleeping actually reduces bed deaths??
Suffocation in a crib is more often reported as SIDS, while suffocation in an adult bed is reported as "death by adult bed."
http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/tami_breazeale.html
Cosleeping
by Tami E. Breazeale
Solitary infant sleeping is a principally western practice which is quite young in terms of human history. The practice of training children to sleep alone through the night is approximately two centuries old. Prior to the late 1700s cosleeping was the norm in all societies (Davies, 1995). Today in many cultures the practice of cosleeping continues, with babies seen as natural extensions of their mothers for the first one or two years of life, spending both waking and sleeping hours by her side. Cosleeping is taken for granted in such cultures as best for both babies and mothers, and the western pattern of placing small infants alone in rooms of their own is seen as aberrant (Thevenin, 1987). Comprehensive studies of western nonreactive cosleeping, defined as family cosleeping from birth as a custom, rather than as the result of childhood sleep disturbances, are not yet available. However medical and anthropological evidence suggests the western movement to solitary infant sleeping in the past two centuries may have consequences in the areas of attachment security and physical safety.
http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/sleep/family-bed.html
http://www.apparenting.com/cosleeping-cpsc.html
http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/sleep/ball.html
In a further study, we videotaped regularly bedsharing parents and infants sleeping together at home, and compared the bedsharing behavior of 10 sets of breast- and formula-feeding mothers and infants. Breastfeeding bedsharers slept together in a characteristic manner that has been independently described by several researchers: The mother spontaneously adopted a distinctive lateral position facing the infant, with her knees drawn up under the infant's feet and her upper arm positioned above the infant's head.18-20 This position facilitates the baby's easy access to its mother's breasts, and babies orient themselves towards their mother's breasts for most of the night. It also provides several safety benefits:
• the baby is flat on the mattress, away from pillows
• the baby is constrained by the mother's knees and arm so that it can't move up or down the bed
• the mother controls the height of bed covers over the baby
• it is very difficult for the baby to be rolled on by either parent, as the mother's elbow and knees are in the way
• the mother is close enough to monitor the baby's temperature and breathing continually
The presence of a father in the bed did not present any universal pattern or implications for bedsharing infants. The vast majority of fathers of both breast- and formula-fed infants faced away from their infants for the majority of the night, and their presence did not alter the proximity or orientation of the mother-infant dyad. We did note great individual variation in paternal arousability in response to infants during the night.
http://www.attachmentparenting.org/artbenefitscosleep.shtml
Long-term Benefits
Higher self-esteem. Boys who coslept with their parents between birth and five years of age had significantly higher self-esteem and experienced less guilt and anxiety. For women, co-sleeping during childhood was associated with less discomfort about physical contact and affection as adults (Lewis & Janda, 1988). Co-sleeping appears to promote confidence, self-esteem, and intimacy, possibly by reflecting an attitude of parental acceptance (Crawford, 1994).
More positive behavior.In a study of parents on military bases, co-sleeping children received higher evaluations from their teachers than did solitary sleeping children (Forbes et al., 1992). A recent study in England showed that among the children who "never" slept in their parents bed, there was a trend to be harder to control, less happy, exhibit a greater number of tantrums, and these children were actually more fearful than children who always slept in their parents’ bed, all night (Heron, 1994).
Increased life satisfaction. A large, cross-cultural study conducted on five different ethnic groups in large U.S. cities found that, across all groups, co-sleepers exhibited a general feeling of satisfaction with life (Mosenkis, 1998).
LilShenanigans
31-12-2005, 19:51
Oh something almost turned into a fight there and since nobody said anything - calm down... each parent knows what their child needs and how to deal with them... it's cool, settle :p
DD sleeps with me pretty much every night she wakes up in the middle of! I don't mind and haven't had any trouble.. I also have a very lonely queen size bed when she sleeps through the night!!
She loves it, but doesn't like being in bed when needn't be (gets edgy if I even change her clothes on there!) :o
's OK! We're fine! :D
Thanks for caring though, <blows kiss> ;)
Rainbowbrite
31-12-2005, 21:40
Thanks JanetF & ApprenticeMomma, dont know what we'd all do without you both :) Those links & comments really do remind me why we do it too. That book sounds great too, have to hunt it down. Another book that you recommended & sent to me was the Happiest Baby On The Block which has made the rounds with all my pregnant friends.
Co-sleeping really does make night feeds a breeze. Even my DH is a fan now. MJ is always on my side of the bed, not in between but he feels so much better knowing MJ is with us & safe. He is first to jump on people who tell us to put MJ in her own room :D And dont even get us started on leaving MJ to cry.
Cosmic, you are going to be one great mum :D So knowledgeable about everything.
RB
Oh something almost turned into a fight there and since nobody said anything - calm down... each parent knows what their child needs and how to deal with them... it's cool, settle :p
It's ok, Erin. I'm sure Dilly throws posts like that around the place just to get a reaction. He'd be disappointed if we ignored him.
And if he provides an opportunity for Janet to post more of her good information and links, I'm not complaining. ;)
Cosmic, you are going to be one great mum So knowledgeable about everything.
Thanks, RB. :)
dec05mum
01-01-2006, 10:01
Thanks everyone,
JanetF and ApprenticeMomma,
Your advice is greatly appreciated and I will be picking up a few books to read on this topic!
Last night we had a great sleep all 3 of us......
I feel better knowing not everyone frowns upon this sleeping arrangement:)
Many Thanks.
O is 17 months and now sleeps in his own bed after co-sleeping with us, no problems. Co-sleeping was great for us as we didn't need to go through the distress of him getting into hysterics after leaving him in his own cot. He now sleeps through (most nights) in his 'big boy bed' without drama.;)
Last night we had a great sleep all 3 of us......
I feel better knowing not everyone frowns upon this sleeping arrangement:)
Good for you, Paige! Get your hands on some of that info so when someone inevitably says to you "oh, but aren't you afraid of squashing the baby!" you will be armed with responses. I have already had the conversation with my MIL and my bub's not even here yet! :D
Hokey Pokey
01-01-2006, 10:27
Glad to hear you all had a great night sleep!! :)
joshiesmum
01-01-2006, 11:34
Why does co-sleeping seem to get everyone going i have never let josh sleep with me as my partner is a smoker however i would not pass jugment on those who do! But i do sometimes feel that the jugment is passed back to us who dont co-sleep as if we a depriving our children of comfort by getting up to them and teaching them to be happy and settled when you are not in the same room.
Everybody has different ways of doing this & as i said before you should do what you feel comfortable with.
Rainbowbrite
01-01-2006, 11:49
If you dont want to do it, or dont feel comfortable with it, thats your choice. We dont judge people who dont do it. Though you will generally find that us who do co-sleep get pretty much told off for it (not so much here but out in the "real world") The simple fact is, us westerners are the minority. Most of the world co-sleep, infact it used to be the norm everywhere.
We all have things that we are passionate about or that offends people, this is just one of them.
RB
joshiesmum
01-01-2006, 12:47
just wanted to note this was not aimed at anyone in this forum! Mainly this stemed from other mums in my mums group who mean well im sure but tend to think they are the only ones who cop critisium because they co-sleep however i have from them for not! (hope that makes sense i think im rambling!)
Rainbowbrite
01-01-2006, 13:01
I know joshiesmum :) You cant please anyone in this world. We as mothers are always doing something wrong in someone's opinion :rolleyes:
I get the opposite from my baby group because we're the only ones who co-sleep. But i figure that if it means we sleep then its all good ;:)
RB
Hi Joshiesmum,
I think in every decision we make in regards to our children someone will disagree. I have found the easiest way to deal with it with these people is not talk about it anymore. IYKWIM.
Good on you for finding what works for you and you son.;)
Foxymoron
01-01-2006, 13:46
The fact is, it is NOT a bad habit, 80% of the world sleep in co-sleeping arrangements, it is something peculiar to modern western society to closet vulnerable infants off by themselves.
Amen :D
Paige, congrats on the birth of your little one! Janet has provided you with some great links there.
Just a side note~~
All ANY of us can do is make our own decisions on how we will parent and then choose not to let people who have a dig about it get under your skin. I think some of the emotional responses we see in these kind of threads have a lot to do with the projection of our issues IRL... I think all of us, no matter how we parent get upset by thoughtless comments from friends of family... parenting is such a personal thing and we all LOVE our children, we all only want the best for them... and when our sense of who we are as parents is attacked we tend to take it on board. I think there are some wonderful women on this forum who advocate for the knowledge and empowerment of mothers, and they do so without personal attack or shaming..... I think generally the bubhub boards are very supportive- when you compare them with other boards where chaos and personal attacks seem to be the order of the day... Anyway I'm rambling :rolleyes:
Chickadee
01-01-2006, 14:14
When DD was just born I coslept with her in a single bed in her room, leaving DH the big bed and a peaceful nights sleep. The single bed was firmly against the wall and I made sure there was no gap between wall and bed, and then because I was worried about rolling onto DD (I usually roll onto my stomach at some point in my sleep) I usually positioned her perpindcular to myself, with her feet against me and her head furthest away, and not cuddled in, It was still easy to wake and bf her, but I didn't worry about rolling so much. I found I was generally aware of her position in the bed, but still did wake up once when I rolled onto her feet - which made me very glad she wasn't cuddled in with her head next to me! We stopped co-sleeping when she started wriggling around so much that I couldn't be sure where she was while I slept. We periodically tried co-sleeping after that but she wriggled so much and just seemed to prefer to be in her own space in her cot. It's only now, at over 2 years, that she has started getting back into bed with us again.
So co-sleeping can be done safely, provided youre aware of your and your partner's sleeping habits and make allowances. It won't set up bad habits for later.
reAllytee
02-01-2006, 01:41
Do what YOU want to do dont listen to anyone else bagging you out for your choices. Keara basically said all that i believe on parenting.
I co-slept with my bubs for a few months until he became too restless but that being said if thats the only way he will have a sleep in the afternoon is to be in bed with me then thats what i do !
You have to do what works for you & your sanity !
Yes you will know bubs movements unless your a very heavy sleeper etc as your maternal instinct is always there. Even the other week when i had bubs in bed with me for us to have an arvo snooze i was dead to the world but something made me wake up instantly & reach my arm to the side at about hip level. I did this just in time to grabs bubs shirt as he was about to crawl off the edge :eek: One of our cats had come in & was sitting on the floor beside the bed so bubs has obviously woken & wanted to play hehehe he had pushed all the pillows off the bed & out of the way. Thats sorta why i stopped co-sleeping as he is a bugger & takes off when awake hehehe. My parents co-slept with me for a few years much to the horror of family & friends but this was the only way i would sleep & my parents did it for their own sanity, i may be a little crazy but i can assure you it isnt from that :p
Tea Lady
02-01-2006, 11:56
Hi I'm coming in late on this one, and not wanting to get into a bun fight, but felt I had to say something about a comment that's been bothering me...
"If we really wanted babies to sleep safely we'd ban cots because that's where SIDS occurs, right? It's called cot death for a reason, people!" (posted by JanetF)
1) It's NOT called cot death, it's called sudden infant death syndrome.
2) It's called that because there is NO apparent cause for the baby's death - it's not caused by them being in a cot. SIDS does occur in cosleeping arrangements (even if at a lower rate) so it is impossible to know whether a SIDS death could have been avoided by cosleeping.
Just remember there are prob people reading this forum who have lost bubs to SIDS and they've got enough issues to deal with without people implying that they may have somehow caused the death by putting the baby in a cot.
I'm not saying you meant it this way of course Janet, just concerned about how people might take it.
The point is though that people concentrate on supposed dangers of cosleeping when actually it's the safer place for babies to sleep shown by countless studies. I think people should just use logic when they talk about the silly myths which abound about cosleeping ;)
I think the best thing to do is do your own research and make up your own mind as to what best suits you and your bub.
Below is my story, but you need to work out whats right for you.
My son sleeps in his cot most nights, goes down about 9pm, wakes at about 5am for a feed after which I always bring him to bed with me for the rest of the night. If he's upset he spends the whole night in our bed but he usually has no problem sleeping in his cot.
When he was first born he had colic (the night he was born he had it really bad) and would ONLY sleep if he was snuggled up beside me or being held by DH. For the first 2 weeks of his life he slept in our bed, a waterbed, cuddled up to my chest wrapped in a bunnyrug with our bed clothes/pillows well away from him, then I read on the SIDS website waterbeds are dangerous for co-sleeping and I freaked out! :eek:
hubby and I don't smoke or drink and I knew to keep the bed clothes away from him but I still freaked about the waterbed bit and tried to make him sleep in a bassinet which he hated(the cot dosen't fit in our room). Eventually after more research I decided the risk was minimal and Tommy slept in our bed almost every night until he grew out of the colic, at about 3 months old, then he quite happily went to his cot, where he sleeps better anyway! (hubby's snoring used to wake him up)
So in summary; ;) Know the risks, know how to minimise them, know what your bub wants/needs, pay no attention to people trying to push you one way or the other because noone but you can be 100% sure whats right for you, make your own choices.
Definitely never have a baby in a waterbed. We have one but ds and I sleep in another bed and we keep the waterbed up for dp to sleep in and as an *ahem* adult space.
For me, the whole point of this thread was to SUPPORT a mum who was feeling bad about co-sleeping.
No-one wanted to make anyone else feel bad, we just wanted to let her know that we LOVE it, and exactly why we do, and how we do it safely.
Simple!! :D
Tea Lady
02-01-2006, 17:28
Cool, I didn't think that was the intention :)
Lucybelle
02-01-2006, 18:40
I remember when I was little and sick with a cold or whatever tiptoing into my parents room. Mum would just throw the covers back and in I'd hop. Mmmmm I always felt better all warm and cosy next to mum in the big bed.
I'd never deny my babies that same warm, safe feeling!
dec05mum
02-01-2006, 19:19
I 'm sorry that this post became an argument..I didn't mean for that to happen
I appreciate everyones points of view.
Right now co-sleeping is working for us and I'm loving it.
Since posting this thread and reading the articles advised by several posters DH and I have talked very seriously about the pros and cons we have decided that at this stage we will continue until Ivy is happy being on her own.:)
Once again thankyou.
Mum2Lucas
02-01-2006, 19:40
I co-sleep with my son and he sleeps right through the night that way bu he only sleeps for an hour in his cotBut i was told that hammocks are really good for babies instead of a cot.
sometimes our kids sleep with us, sometimes they dont. i like it, dh doesnt, although he didnt mind when they were little and needing regular feeds, it meant i wasnt asking him to get up and get them for me! ive mentioned before, i think the gift of being able to get a good nights sleep is a really important thing, but each child is different, and have different needs, so what works for one, may not work for another. whilst i found my boys loved to cosleep and did so most peacefully, my daughter refuses to have any part of it now shes a bit older, and jumps around and squirms for ages! i always let the boys jump in bed with me when dh is at work, but what makes me laugh is the comments about 'oh you'll never get them out of your bed' yes i know so many 18 yr olds who still sleep with mum and dad:rolleyes:
love to all you great mums who want whats best for your little ones, and are doing the best you can to make it through the night:D
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