I know, I know, the article is pretty prescriptive and we don’t like to be told what to do all the time as parents, and rightly so.. but for those of us who are co-sleepers, gotta say it is just a little nice to see some balanced reporting on the safety issue of co-sleeping for once in mainstream media.. and in the Courier Mail of all places.
NEWBORN babies who share a bed with their parents are safer than those in cots, says a leading baby sleep expert.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome researcher Doctor James McKenna said that as long as co-sleeping is carried out in a responsible manner — not on a waterbed or couch and not by parents affected by drugs or alcohol — then babies up to 12 months old will reap the long-term benefits.
And.
Dr McKenna said in reality more parents co-sleep with their babies than admit to it. “People say they don’t co-sleep with their babies,” he said.
“But when you speak to them about what actually happens many parents, particularly breastfeeding mothers, share their bed with their babies for some part of each night.”
He said that trying to get your baby to sleep through the night at a young age can actually cause more stress for a family than waking to a baby does.
I know a couple who say their baby sleeps in his own room but when I stayed with them for a bit, they admitted to co-sleeping. Why the secrecy, I don’t know.
Obligatory lol: co-sleeping in a closet sounds uncomfortable.
James McKenna has been focussed on co-sleeping research for many years. I haven’t read that literature directly, but most people seem to credit him with the first joint sleep studies of mother and baby dyads co-sleeping and the shift from regarding those results as oddities to be contrasted with the ‘normal’ results obtained when they sleep separately.
I can’t believe I didn’t see that joke in my title. I am so sad arse.
“People say they don’t co-sleep with their babies,” he said.
“But when you speak to them about what actually happens many parents, particularly breastfeeding mothers, share their bed with their babies for some part of each night.”
We’re oddities, I guess. We say we’re co-sleepers even though it’s only part-time co-sleeping, rather than saying we’re not.
“But when you speak to them about what actually happens many parents, particularly breastfeeding mothers, share their bed with their babies for some part of each night.”
This has always been a “duh” thing for me, but it’s surprising how shamed people are by the fact that they’re going against typical parenting advice because it’s 1. easier and 2. feels right, usually.
And oh, look, it happens to be the right thing to do. Hmm.
Plunket and Midwives are two groups in NZ that make it known that its not safe to co sleep.. but none of my midwives have actually told me not to do it… We dont full time co sleep, just part of the night, and now that #4 is bigger its not even every night, but it been a big factor in my still breastfeeding her at 15 months.
One of the midwives we had at Birthcare in Auckland the second time actually recommended it and gave me a pamphlet. I was quite surprised!
We used a cosleeper while Petunia (our second) was little. A moses basket was better for us when Pumpkin (our first) was little. We started partial night cosleeping with both when they were a bit older, and yeah- it is just easier and less stressful.
So part of the night counts as co-sleeping? Well definitely guilty as charged then. Got lots more sleep when bubs was in bed with us feeding happily. Not so pleasant to wake up hours later after trying to roll over and find her still firmly attached. It pretty much ensured that she slept beautifully though, so in the end it was worth the occassional ‘hey, I fed you at 8.30pm what are you still doing on at midnight?’ wake up call.
Hehe…I found that my son Cadar was not, definitely NOT self-regulating feeds like all the advice said he would. When I decided (when he was 14 months) that I was sick to death of being pinched, bitten and having toes raked down my tummy, he all-of-a-sudden stopped waking up with tummy pains regularly (which I would stupidly try to soothe his wakefulness with feeding, not realising that actually that was causing it.)
I had NO idea he was still getting so much milk while I slept on oblivious until I had to deal with the results of making him quit cold-turkey.
But yes, more sleep, albeit lighter, worked best for me and my husband! Although I still left the bedside light on all the time so that I could see where he was any time I woke up!
After the birth of my third the midwife came in and asked where the baby was. When I said she was in bed with me the midwife said (sharp intake of breath) “you could have killed her!”. I kid you not.
If I had been a first time mum I would have been absolutely devastated. Instead I was just very very cross.
I was lucky enough to have the mothercraft nurse who visited me (The standard medicare area health service) explain to me that she was a grandmother, and had been a mothercraft nurse for 30 years, and she said, not only had she NEVER personally come across and incident of a mother (or other parent) injuring her baby by co-sleeping, but that the only incident she had even ever HEARD of in her career was when a woman rolled over and smothered her baby as she was in a drug-induced coma. That is hardly a terrifying statistic.
She was very reassuring. It seems to be so much the luck of the draw as to whether we are reassured and sensibly advised, or scared out of our wits, or made resentful and cross.
One of my favourite memories from the maternity ward at Hornsby Hospital was the midwife coming into my room first thing in the morning, seeing me apparently asleep with baby snuggled in beside me and saying in a happy warm voice “awww, don’t they look sweet” to the other staff member with her. I think that was with number 2 (it all blurs!).
I also remember a morning with number 3 which began with tut-tuts of disapproval, but, like Julie, I was merely irritated.
All three of mine started out in a cradle, made by my grandfather, alongside our bed and stayed in bed with me after the wee-small-hours feed. By about 6 months they were mostly sleeping through the night in their own room but we always began the day with an early feed and extra snoozing in mum and dad’s bed.