to really not get why people co-sleep?

[LaLaLaLayla]

I really do not understand why people co-sleep. Apart from research telling us how dangerous it is for the baby, I also feel a bit sorry for the poor husbands who are almost invariably turfed out of the marital bed to make room for them.

What is the point? Is there one? Is anyone else as baffled as me by this?

[hgrin] at my new name!

Best of luck with your growing family Layla. I have 3 daughters now, the 12 year old co-slept for 5 years. She's beautiful. Your risk of losing another baby is very, very low... Which I know isn't anything like reassuring enough. I wish I could give you an absolute guarantee, but you're not so naive as to fall for it if I did. We both know there is no such thing.

Keep reading up if you want to, it helps to feel like you can do something and doing something to feel like you've minimised risks for your own family is really healthy. Sorting out a nice cot, with nice sleeping bags and so on will help you feel like you're doing something positive. Positive is the way forward. Not negative though, not crusading, that wont really help, it's a fake friend.

You say you didn't mean for this to come up, but obviously it needed to. If you need to talk any time there are boards here, although I already see you've found support from the FSID. Hopefully your friends and family would also be open to listening to you now too. Seems like you need to talk some more. Having a new child brings up all kinds of feelings.

HuntyCatInaWitchyHat, no, my child was alone. Although we did co-sleep usually, but it happened during the day. We have an apnoea mattress which is kind of the same thing, but it is a pad that goes under the mattress, not stuck to the baby's tummy. I'm not even pregnant yet, so we have lots of time to work out how to mitigate the risk of it happening again.

Because my dh wants to as much as I do? Because nothing can compare to snuggling up with a beautiful little person after a hard day? Because it is actually FAR safer than not co-sleeping if done correctly.

OP, there are many reasons to co-sleep. Co-sleeping does not lead to SIDS. If babies die when co-sleeping it is for reasons other than SIDS. In fact, co-sleeping protects against SIDS when it's done safely, because it stops your baby from falling into too deep a sleep, and it prolongs breastfeeding, which is a protective factor in itself.

It is, however, imperative that it is done safely. Here are the safety guidelines and here are five good reasons that parents might want to consider bed-sharing (bed-sharing is a better word, by the way, because co-sleeping on a sofa or chair is very dangerous).

I think that you should do what feels right for YOU. For me, after almost losing my DD, the right thing for me was to co-sleep safely. It may not be the right thing for you.

But no amount of research will give you the answers you are looking for. Just like having a stillbirth (which I have been through), not everything bad in life can be explained. I feel for you, I was so nearly in the same position as you, and I have seen the effect that going through this had on a friend of mine.

I have had another 3 dc since my DD almost died, and my friend has had two more dc, that are now aged 5yo and 7yo. She chose to co-sleep with them after losing her eldest dc to SIDS when he was in a travel cot.

Unfortunately, scary as this sounds - you can lower the risks of it happening again, but there is no way of totally eliminating all the risks associated with SIDS - because not ALL the risks are actually KNOWN yet.

For example - when I had my first 3 dc, we were told that giving a dummy in the night was a risk factor in INCREASING the likelyhood of SIDS. Those dc are now 13, 9 and 7. Fast forward 7 years, and when I was pg with DS3 (9mo) I was told that actually, giving a dummy could lower the risk of SIDS.

Advice changes all the time - it's no different to weaning age and plenty of other parenting topics that are obsessed over.

I did, to get more sleep when I was breastfeeding. There's much less crying, less need to even move about, more relaxation and more actual sleeping.

With my DC1, I was becoming sleep depirved when she was a cot. I took her into bed and everything changed for the better immediately. I had my DC2 in bed with me from the start. He was premature so it really helped him, too, with body temperature, body contact, security of smells, etc. They both thrived.

I dislike the 'co-sleeping' [stupid word] scaremongering intensely. Is there anything that women aren't told they are too dumb to get right without expert intervention? FFS.

Jesus some of you are ridiculously ignorant.

I coslept with both my children. It was easier for BF, they wanted to be close to me naturally and it meant I could sleep (terribly lazy I know but I don't see why I have to be a martyr about it). I read up on it and made sure it was very safe. DH was happy and it did not affect our relationship (we are still very happy and our sex life never suffered - you don't always have to do it in a bed!). Nor did I 'turf him out' we just got a bigger bed instead of a cot.

Both moved out of the bed by 2 and have been in their own rooms since with no problem.

Why is wanting to get a proper night's sleep being lazy?? Really don't get that one.

Bed sharing is very lovely and helped me sleep, helped my babies sleep and I did it safely until being in their own cots was better for them.

OP has been through something more awful than we can know if we haven't been through it ourselves so should do whatever makes her comfortable. She asked for reasons why though, and that's what she's got, along with a lot of very valuable advice and links to interesting info on the subject. I just hope it helps her. Good luck.

And if I hadn't had my DD in bed with me after trying her in a cot, my sleep deprivation would have made me ill.

My hubby isn't turfed out either. DS2 sleeps in between us and DH loves sleeping with him and we both cocoon round him, keeping him safe. I was away with the kids last month and DH got no sleep at all without us there with him, bless him.

I can't think of anything worse than not being able to know my baby is safe and well in the middle of the night. With my first he was in a crib next to the bed and then a cot in another room...and I thought that was OK at the time. But I've read more since then so with my second I've kept him right there next to me. I can feel him, touch him and I can't imagine how I managed with my first. I remember how worried I was all the time at night and kept having to get up and look at him if I couldn't hear him. But with #2 all I have to do is move my arm slightly and touch him. I barely have to move at all, so I can drift back to sleep much more easily.

The same goes for dealing with night feeds & changes. We don't have to get out of bed and wake fully to deal with him. Just sit up to change his nappy and then recline to feed him back to sleep. And DS2 goes back to sleep much more easily because he's barely woken himself. I find myself waking up when he lifts his head, before he's even made a murmur. I can respond to those very early feeding cues because he's next to me. He never gets to the crying stage, ever!

I can imagine why mums don't co-sleep because I used to one of them...but knowing how it works and why, I can't imagine doing anything else now.

The point is, humans are mammals and are meant to sleep together. In countries where co-sleeping is the norm, SIDS is virtually unheard of. It's only dangerous if you've been drinking or are on drugs/certain medications or do it on the sofa etc.

OP I think you may be shit-stirring so I shall refrain from telling you what an ignorant prat you are making yourself seem.

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm not sure why you didn't start a thread asking why people put their small babies in a room on their own before 6 months though? As far as I'm aware this is a bigger risk than co-sleeping. Or why some people still put their babies to sleep on there tummies? Or why you mentioned husbands?

Very sorry to hear that you lost a baby.

But I am struggling to understand why the anti-co-sleeping stance is helpful? You weren't co-sleeping when you lost your baby, and there is a substantial weight of evidence that shows that co-sleeping actively reduces the risk of SIDS. So why criticise those who are doing something that actively reduces the risk of the very thing you are most concerned about?

I think it is China where co-sleeping is almost universally practiced and there is actually no name for SIDS as it is so unheard-of.

I understand the need to try to control whatever factors you can, but I think it is very unfair on co-sleeping mums to try to suggest that they are doing something unsafe in relation to the SIDS risk.

I would never, ever co-sleep. Not ever again. I tried it when my DS was very new and just home from hospital. Managed it for a couple of weeks until I suddenly realised one night that he had stopped breathing. This happened on two more occasions. We ended up spending a very frightening night in the local hospital so they could monitor him.

The hospital pointed out to me that the risks are much greater than people actually realise.

Never again.

OP, I am very sorry for your loss.

For anyone who would like the information I put some links to safe co-sleeping guidelines and safe sleeping positions etc here on this older thread recently

Chrissamissis, that sounds as if co-sleeping saved your son's life. If you hadn't been so close how would you have been alerted to his crisis? What caused him to stop breathing? In what way do you feel co-sleeping caused, rather than helped the situation.

It is so irrational to believe that a mother being close to her sleeping child carries more risk than isolating them.

OP, I am also very sorry you lost your little one. No wonder you are now trying to work out what is best.

I didn't co-sleep because my dd1 didn't seem to like it, cried a lot when in my bed, whereas loved her moses basket which was by my bed. With my second, I used a moses basket again, placing it on the double bed (for the first couple of months) so it was pretty much as close as you could be without curling up together. This meant I could hear any snuffling and she never had to cry for bf, as I used to hear her wake, feed and she would go back down in the basket immediately. My husband slept elsewhere for the first three months which suited him too as he found the sleep-deprivation affected his work a lot first time around.

I would never co-sleep with a baby and my husband as he's rather a large chap, let's say and has sleep apnoea himself, I felt the risk of him squashing a baby were high as when he does have his mask on, he sleeps very deeply and he didn't seem at all in tune with baby's breathing/movement (he sometimes squashes me). I didn't want the baby on the other side as they may roll off! If I'd been absolutely committed to it, I may have found a way round it but it wasn't for me.

Sounds like you are thinking through the options for yourself now, it must be so hard, perhaps hearing others' stories will also help.

It really depends on the DC, they are not all the same and, as Hardgoing says, some simply like their own space and peace and quiet (and so do I!)
It suits some parents and some babies so it is best for them-it isn't best for everyone.

Firstly, because I was concerned about cot death. If my baby stopped breathing, I wanted to be close enough to realise immediately. Having the baby in bed with my seemed like the safest and most natural option.

Secondly, I need my sleep. I went with the option that gave everyone the most sleep.

Thirdly, I liked us all sleeping together. DP wasn't turfed out anywhere, although he did choose to sleep on the sofa for the first couple of weeks as I was feeding for hours in the night and he had to get up early for work. Once I'd mastered feeding lying down in the dark then I wasn't disturbing him anymore.

We don't co sleep but with an 18 mo ds and one due in 6 weeks, we might find we have to! We have a superking size bed should we need to fit all four of us into it! I'm more comfortable with a Moses basket and an armchair (for bfeeding in the night) until 10 weeks then baby goes into his/her own cot in his/her own room.

It isn't always what the WHO suggest, but it's what works best for mother, father and baby...and if that one hour sleep extra (due to co sleeping) stops the mother/father from having a melt down the next day, then it's worth it.