co-sleeping

http://livermore.patch.com/articles/moms-talk-co-sleeping-with-your-baby
Moms Talk: Co-Sleeping with Your Baby

Our Patch Moms Council takes a look at sharing your bed with your baby.

March 9, 2011


This week, our Moms Council weighs the benefits and potential dangers of falling asleep with a baby.

The idea came to us after Walnut Creek Patch Editor Martha Ross shared her bedtime experiences with her son. She also examined the American debate over co-sleeping:

Co-sleeping is controversial in the United States, especially after the American Academy of Pediatrics discouraged the practice and the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported at least 515 deaths of infants and toddlers younger than 2 years of age sleeping in adult beds from January 1990 to December 1997.

Co-sleeping also has its proponents, who say it encourages breast feeding by making it more convenient for mothers, helps nursing mothers get their sleep cycles in sync with their babies and helps babies fall asleep more easily, especially during the first few months. Research also shows that co-sleeping may help prevent sudden infant death syndrome.

We checked in with our Patch Moms Council from the Tri-Valley about this topic. Here's what they had to say about sleeping with your baby.

Kathleen Schoening, a mom council contributor, writes:

Co-sleeping with a baby should be up to the parents, the family.

When our daughter was born, we chose to keep Emma in a crib for the first four months in our room because it made breast-feeding easy. Even when we transitioned Emma to a crib in her room, there was a bed for us. As a mom, I never wanted to be far away if she cried (letting the baby cry it out was not an option for us). We found ourselves somewhere in the middle of the co-sleeping issue.

However, as Emma made the passage into her room, I realized I had a limited amount of time with Emma as a baby. I would rock her until she was asleep. When Emma moved to her toddler bed, my husband or I would lie down next to her and read books. On more nights than I can count, one of us has fallen asleep with her, especially if she is sick. Fever seizures, croup, colds, you name it — when Emma has had it, I have slept next to our daughter.

Few things are sweeter in life than to wrap your arms around your innocent sleeping child knowing the days are numbering and the child will be grown. The time with our daughter will be gone in a flash, not to be captured again. I want to cherish every minute.

Now she is old enough. Emma sometimes wakes early and climbs into bed with us. She will take my husband’s hand and mine and place our three hands together and say, “We are family.”

If this is the middle ground of co-sleeping, I will take it any day, because we are family.

Contributor Deborah May says:

My three children are past the breast feeding and co-sleeping age now, but it would never have worked for us. I'm not an expert on the safety issues, so others can debate that angle. I can say that my husband, my children and I got much better sleep by choosing to put the babies in their cribs at night (even the twins slept in separate cribs).

Yes, they were all breast fed-- though half of the nighttime feedings were bottled breast milk served by my husband. We both worked outside the home and needed to get a reasonable amount of sleep, which just wasn't possible with a baby in the bed. My children all slept through the night fairly early and are excellent sleepers to this day.

Different families will have different needs and tolerances for sleep deprivation. There seems to be a lot of pressure these days to parent in certain ways and every expert out there has written a book telling parents (especially moms) how to make life perfect for their baby, often at the mom's expense.

Except in the cases of major medical or safety issues, parents should feel empowered to make decisions that work for their whole family. If co-sleeping works for you, and it's safe, then do it. If you want your adult space and privacy then don't co-sleep and don't feel guilty about it. Your child will not grow up feeling unloved because they sleep alone.