Three in a Bed : The Benefits of Sleeping with Your Baby, by Deborah Jackson

Very interesting - lots of info about how mothers raise their babies in different cultures around the world. And very encouraging if you're taking a more natural/ close to baby/ extended breastfeeding sort of approach to being with your baby. Basically if you're a big softie like me ! Can be slightly academic at times, but lots of interesting stuff !

A brilliant book and worth reading.
This book, unlike so many others is based on research and is very reasuring when doing what feels natural amid so much concern from others!

I felt very strongly that I wanted to co-sleep with my DS - not as a something considered before he came along, but a real instinctive pull. It didn't feel 'right' to leave him in the moses basket. I worried he was cold, hot, covered/uncovered, comfortable, hungry, wet.... in bed with us I could check easily and feed in my sleep.

Hearing that kids DON'T necessarily become super-clingy ('spoilt' for holding and cuddling) was a real relief - and as in some of DJ's examples my son made the transition to 'his own little bed' easily at 3.5. His appearance in mine is now a rarity.

This is a lovely book. It really saved me from feeling a failure and gave me the confidence to believe in myself and doing it my way.

Someone who was already co-sleeping gave me this. As my second son was ok in his cot, I hadn't really planned to go down the co-sleeping route and was ambivalent about reading the book. However, once I picked it up, I could not put it down. This is a fantastic book and is possibly the best book I have read on caring for babies (and I have read a few!)

What I like about it is that it does not, as so many do, simply outline an approach and present it as the answer. Instead, it considers what babies need and why they need it. It considers how babies have been looked after over time and all over the world and draws on a lot of research. Once this has been considered, it gently concludes that yes, co-sleeping would seem to be the best option. It also goes through the concerns and even objections we have in the West and addresses these too.

Needless to say, I am now co-sleeping more and more and have a settled, contented baby to boot. What's more, it has reminded me what ds2 needs overall, not just with regards to sleep, or food or some other aspect of his life and this has helped me enormously.

I can't recommend this book enough!

It is the best parenting book I have ever read. It not only taught me that it is OK to sleep with your baby, it also got me to think from a newborn baby's perspective. As a result I had a lot more patience and understanding at 3am with my second child (after having just read the book) than I had with my first child.