The Herts North Branch of the National Childbirth Trust
tel: 0844 24 36 163 email: nct_hertsnorth@hotmail.com
Co-sleeping - the Big Debate
When I was pregnant with John, my first child, I had unthinkingly assumed that we would follow a traditional night time “routine” with our baby, and I have to say I was dreading it! During ante-natal classes, it was Marcus who picked up Deborah Jackson’s book “Three in a Bed” and suggested we look into the possibility of co-sleeping. I read the book and felt that I’d like to give it a go.
Once we had got over the initial muddle of having a new baby we settled into a pattern of putting John in the cot once he was asleep and then bringing him into bed as soon as he woke for a feed, then he stayed in the bed. John was always a very wakeful child and fed a lot at night, but despite the fact that I was breastfeeding him a lot at night, I rarely felt sleep deprived. I’m convinced that this is because I didn’t have to keep getting up and down in the night.
John is just over three now and still leaves his own room in the middle of the night to get into bed with us, and more often than not we don’t even realise he’s come in because we’re so soundly asleep! Neither of us felt that we wanted to impose rules on a baby and now that during the day there are rules and discipline in John’s life, at night we’re both happy for him to do whatever he needs.
I know at some point when he’s ready he’ll sleep through the night in his own bed, but until then if he needs us we’re there. We could never use a controlled crying technique with him as we both felt that it was wrong for us, and it is something I personally find very hard to see as a positive experience for a baby.
Our second child Paul, is a much better sleeper, he has had exactly the same “routine” from birth, but doesn’t wake as frequently as John, I suspect that he will start sleeping through before John does. John still needs a cuddle to get to sleep and he isn’t very good at getting back to sleep when he wakes in the night, but we all manage to get enough sleep. I don’t believe that by co-sleeping we have in any way impaired our children’s development, social or otherwise; in fact I can only see it as a very positive part of our lives together. We get lots of cuddles at the moment, but I know there will be a time when cuddles are few and far between…
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Gary and I decided from the start that we would not co-sleep with Kiera. Although there are proven benefits to co-sleeping, we felt that the personal disadvantages to us, as a family, outweighed these.
Our first concern was the risk factor, that there was the possibility of suffocation and SIDS. About 60 children a year die in their parent’s beds. Of course, this can also occur in a baby’s cot, so we took all precautions with this too. She slept in her Moses basket in our room until she got too big for it and her cot has no bumpers or soft toys. We endeavour to keep her room as close to 18 degrees as possible.
Our second concern was for our wellbeing as a family. We wished to preserve our own relationship, as we had seen friends whose marriages had suffered due to pressures of baby. We have achieved this and feel our time alone in our bed is our little oasis! At 10 months, Kiera sleeps in her own room from 7pm to 7am.
Speaking to friends who have co-slept, we are even more convinced that we have done the right thing. They have had problems with them all disturbing each other all night, baby refusing to have daytime naps, unless in bed with Mummy, and being too hot in the summer. All have then had problems getting their babies to sleep in a cot.
I believe that there is a case for both views of co-sleeping and you need to weigh up what is best for your whole family. Also, be prepared to be flexible if it doesn’t work out!
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When Richard was born, we decided he should sleep in his own bed from day one. We’d read horror stories of parents smothering their own babies in their sleep or babies overheating under the bedclothes and neither of us felt we’d relax enough to sleep. For the first few weeks, Richard slept in a carry-cot by the bed and seemed very happy to go along with our ideas. Getting out of bed to feed him wasn’t an issue because, although he was breastfed, he was a poor feeder initially and had to be given formula supplements so I had to get up to prepare a bottle anyway. At around ten weeks old, we moved the carry-cot from our room into Richard’s room and to our amazement he slept through the night. From that day on, Richard was the perfect baby. He could be put down in his cot after his last feed – awake or asleep, it didn’t matter – and we wouldn’t hear a peep out of him until morning.
However, before we could become too smug and too confident in our wonderful parenting abilities, along came Alex! We had planned to follow the same pattern with Alex but Master Alex had other ideas. He would NOT settle in the carry-cot. He could be fed and cuddled to sleep, but the minute he was placed inside, he would wake up and cry. Chris was still very wary about having a tiny baby in our bed so I began to take Alex into bed with me in the spare room. I would lie him on top of the duvet with his own blankets so I found I wasn’t worrying about smothering him and I discovered that mothers, perhaps particularly breastfeeding mothers, have an instinctive knowledge of where their child is in the bed and I was never concerned that I would roll on him. Alex was a good feeder and never needed a bottle so I soon discovered the big advantage of co-sleeping a breastfeeding baby when I could just latch him on and hardly even notice I’d woken up.
In the short term, co-sleeping worked well as everyone got enough sleep but as the weeks turned into months and Alex showed no inclination to sleep in his own bed, we began to wonder if we’d done the right thing. Our ultimate aim was to have both boys in one room but Alex was still waking in the night at a year old and we were worried he would wake Richard too.
Finally, when Alex was around 15 months old, my patience snapped. I had had enough of never managing a whole night in my own bed and I felt our relationship as a couple was suffering so I decided to put my foot down. Alex’s cot was moved into Richard’s room. We decided that when he cried in the night, he would be taken out and cuddled but put back again. If we had to do this a hundred times a night, we would persevere until he learned to sleep in his own bed. To our astonishment, Alex slept through pretty much straightaway. He seemed content with Richard’s presence and no longer cried for Mummy. We had the odd night where he was restless but on the whole he has become an excellent sleeper.
We now have a lovely bedtime routine – bathtime, milk and stories in bed, then lights out. Richard always falls asleep easily. Alex sometimes grumbles a little but we leave him and he falls asleep within ten minutes or so. Unless they’re poorly, they sleep all night and, even if one boy wakes up, it doesn’t seem to disturb the other. Of course, we still have the odd night with illness or teething when we have to get up to them and I will take them into bed with us on those occasions but they are few and far between. Our only regret is that we didn’t put our foot down earlier with Alex as we’d have saved ourselves a lot of restless nights.
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“Don't put him in your bed. You'll never get him out!" That's what my friend's mum told her about co-sleeping. She wishes she had listened.
When my friend's son was born, she and her partner were living temporarily in a hostel. This arrangement meant one room for all of them and the cot was next to their bed. This was fine in the beginning but as he got older, they moved to her parents' house whilst they continued to wait for a house of their own. Understandably, they felt the need to be as quiet as possible and not disrupt her parents' normal routine. "I would panic that he would wake people," she said, "he would wake about one o'clock in the morning." This is when he started sleeping in their bed.
Eventually, they moved into their own house and their son had his own room. He slept in his cot but would wake in the night, wanting to be in the room with them. My friend admits that it was laziness and her own need to get sleep that brought her to the point of going to get him every night. "If he woke in the night and heard us still awake, he would just go back to sleep. But if it was all dark and quiet and he knew that WE were in OUR bed, then he wanted to be there too. It's hard when you're half asleep and your partner has to go to work early in the morning."
The health visitor gave them an information packet with suggestions on how to break him of this habit, but my friend was afraid it would be a nightmare to try and wasn't convinced it would work. "They are a lot more aware than we think. They know when they are close to you, and they like that and want that." Having said that, she did know that it would be down to her to find the strength some day to make it happen, but a cold or fever was always finding its way into the excuses. When asked where his bed is, her son will indeed point to his bed in his own room. But if asked, 'whose bed is that?' (referring to the grown up bed), he will answer that it is his as well.
He is about 2½ now and still sleeps with them, though she says the older he gets the later he is sleeping. It's now about 3 or 4am that he wakes, and about once a month, he sleeps through the night. Though, rather than keep trying the health visitor's suggestion of controlled crying, she is hoping it will just keep getting later and later until he simply wakes for the day. "It's very stressful for the parents."
For my friend this was an uncomfortable situation, literally, and she says you need to be strong to be able to get them out, something she admittedly has been unable to do.
She ended our conversation by saying that they would like to have another baby, which I was thrilled to hear. Unfortunately, they need to get the first one out of their bed before they can even try!
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In the early stages I did co-sleep with Jasmine a lot as, whilst breastfeeding, we would both fall asleep during the feed. She would always be put down to sleep in her own bed first which, at that time, was next to ours. I could then easily grab her when she cried and pull her in bed for a feed.
However, I would plan this so that she would be on the outer side of the bed with my arm round her to ensure she did not fall out. She would be in her sleep sack on top of our covers so I did not have to worry about her blankets falling off in the night or ensuring ours did not cover her. This meant if I woke up I could just slide her over back into her cot. Her sleep sack ensured I did not have to mess about tucking in covers. Plus Geoff my husband is not only a really deep sleeper but does turn over in bed a lot and I have often woken up with my circulation cut off in an arm or leg because he had moved over onto it. So I was not happy with the idea of her sleeping in the middle, just in case.
I was in control of the co-sleeping and, with regular co-sleeping, I was extremely aware of my little one lying in my arms. Sometimes I would jolt awake as my arm slipped off the bed, only to find that Jasmine was fast asleep in her own cot.
Jasmine is now in her own bed in her own room (from 6 months) and goes to sleep very easily and very well. I think this is due to her always going to sleep in her own bed first. OK staying asleep and going back to sleep once she has woken in the night is still a problem and whether this is due to the extensive co-sleeping, I don't think so, but I will leave the jury out on that one. However, I neither regret nor would change the co-sleeping I did as I really enjoyed it.
We still co-sleep but usually one of us will go into the other room as the bed is too small for all three of us (sometimes four if the cat decides to join us). This usually only occurs now if she is ill when I prefer to keep a closer eye on her or if she is having a bad night and nothing else will get her back to sleep and, believe me, we have tried everything. Do it again? Well, probably, particularly if I am breastfeeding but maybe I would move them to their own room earlier so that they would get used to waking up alone earlier.
Like everything to do with children, there is no right or wrong and every choice has its pros and cons.
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Co-sleeping: Opinions For and Against
Despite being widespread practice in many non-Western cultures, co-sleeping, or sharing a bed with your infant, is still controversial in Europe and the United States. However, supporters believe there are many benefits:
Co-sleeping allows you to be aware of your baby’s small breathing pauses, (apneoa), even in your sleep. You move or make sounds that bring your baby to a brief arousal so that he can tune into your breathing and join in again at the same pace, without waking fully.
Night-time breastfeeds require nothing more than turning over, far easier than crawling out from under the warm blankets, trudging down the hall, picking up your baby, settling into a rocking chair and then feeding
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) recommends that your baby sleep in a cot next to your bed for the first six months so that you can turn to her easily when she stirs, but she can sleep under her own bedding. This, they say, will reduce the risk of your baby over-heating under your duvet. However, alternative research suggests that babies who co-sleep work as a thermostatic unit with their parents. When the baby heats up, the mother cools down, bringing her baby's temperature down with hers.
Studies have shown, however, that the risk of cot death increases when one or both co-sleeping parents is drunk, has taken drugs, is a smoker or is obese. In addition, the CPSC (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) identifies four primary hazards of infants sleeping in an adult bed:
Tips for safe co-sleeping