Co-sleeping what the big deal?

[teaaddict2012]

excluding you're not drunk of course,

I am actually quite interested I hear snippets of that is quite controversial

was watching breakfast the other day about controlled crying and how one mother did controlled crying from birth nad her kids were never allowed in her bed I was quite [:o]

Why do a lot of people disagree with co-sleeping ?

My co-sleeping is becoming an issue now as my toddler is 2 but the size of a 4 year old. but other than that I'm actually relieved I didn't pace the floors.

AIBU to wonder why co-sleeping is a controversial issue.

Oh and the continuum concept was trendy in my local circle. I read it and ate the hay and spit out the sticks (and there were plenty IMO)

Ah, yes. The Continuum Concept. How to raise a horrible, spoilt child and bore people to tears at dinner parties.

And just for the avoidance of doubt, this comes straight from FSID:

It?s dangerous for your baby to sleep in your bed... if your baby is less than 4 months old.

They are at the forefront of Cot Death research, I think they know what they are talking about.

given that in countries where cosleeping is the norm they have much lower levels of cot death than us....i'm not sure i will give up on cosleeping yet.

i'm happy for people t do what they want and dont believe cots ruin kids, but the fact remains that cosleeping is the default setting - cots are the big new thing, and i therefore dont think its inherently unsafe, whatever some study says.

funny how, on mn at least, its fine to poo-poo 'studies' and laud 'common sense' which support something a bit 'woo', but not when it supports controlled crying, cots etc.

I just read a bunch of their stuff (have never heard of them before) and they have so much conflicting advice that frankly I don't trust them as a reliable source.

Plus pretty much every study ever done points out that breast feeding is one of the best things you can do to prevent cot death and that it is widely known that breast feeding is more likely to happen (more likely, not only) if you are cosleeping.

What I want to see is the stats for cosleeping when you aren't drunk, on a sofa, on drugs or smoking or have a sleep disorder. I suspect it it would be a very different story.

no sheba that is not true, they say that as its easier to do that than to explain safe co-sleeping guidlines. look at the link i posted on the last page.

hopandskip if you look at the link i posted ont he last page it covers stuff like that, makes interesting reading! as statistically about 47% of babies that die of sids are in cots, and 53% co-sleeping but that included NOT safe co-sleeping! which isnt always a true sids death iyswim? so actually cots are just as 'dangerous' as co-sleeping when you look at the figures etc, but they dont say that! as i said the link i put on the last page gives a good review :)

I was encouraged to co-sleep (if we must call it that) by midwives in the postnatal ward when DS1 was born 12 years ago, in fact they put a Tomy toddler bedguard on the side of the hospital bed to avoid him falling out. How sad that the tide has turned, I was given all the anti bed sharing propaganda when DD was born but just smiled sweetly and ignored. those posters are horrifying. why havent we seen any "my mummy smoked when I was in her tummy and now my growth is stunted" ones then?

From what I understand, the one study that made the link between SIDS and co-sleeping was New Zealand Cot Death Prevention Programme, with the whites, the indigenous Maoris and the Pacific Islanders. The study ignored the high rate of co-sleeping with low rates of SIDS with the Pacific Islanders, and concentrated on the high rate of SIDS with high rates of co-sleeping with the Maoris.

Two years later, back tracking on their original study, the original researchers maintained that co-sleeping was the main factor in the high rates of SIDS with the Maori; when in fact it was the non-traditional factors that had overtaken Maori lifestyle: alcoholism and maternal smoking.

But the damage has been done. Despite many, many countries such as China, India and Japan co-sleeping just through circumstance because of dense population/one bed flats etc, and low rates of SIDS in those countries, people think there is a definite connection between co-sleeping and SIDS.

You do your research and you make your choices. I'm not out to persuade anyone to make different choices. Just don't disparage mine. Likewise with Continuum Concept - I would argue that it is adopted to avoid a spoilt, horrible child but I fear I would bore you to tears

Sorry that should be - the researchers back tracked about co-sleeping being the main factor in the high rates of SIDS with the Maoris.

the analytical armadillo explains that if you read the full research article taht the sids rates ARE only higher if you co-sleep either on a sofa!! which is not recomended or if you have drunk two or more units of alcohol or taken drugs ie sedatives. taking away those factors the risk of co-sleeping are NO higher than a baby in a cot.

sheba nobody is arguing with you that that is what FSID say. Yes they might be experts in the field BUT their research is not exhaustive & there is plenty of research to the contrary if you are interested enough to read it. I won't list it here as I get the general impression is be better off banging my head against a brick wall. Yes its probably safer, yes in an ideal world I'm sure many mothers (myself included) would rather not co-sleep but when you are sleep deprived, exhausted & reaching your wits end at 3am you do what you have to do. It's all about the path of least resistance.

None of us who co-sleep are going to sway you that it's acceptable so perhaps just leave us to it?

I'd be*

Damn autocorrect.

I had Libby Purves ' How not to be the perfect Mother'.

I had forgotten that one-great for common sense.

Reading all this through I am a bit puzzled as to why people need to tell others their sleeping arrangements. I can't remember telling anyone at the time, not even grandparents-it isn't very interesting- and I can't remember anyone telling me.

'Reading all this through I am a bit puzzled as to why people need to tell others their sleeping arrangements. I can't remember telling anyone at the time, not even grandparents-it isn't very interesting- and I can't remember anyone telling me.'

I think we must be contemporaries exotic, and from a similar mindset.

i would have loved not to have told relatives but they asked and also any visitors could see we didnt own a cot! plus we had relatives that bought us a travel cot and got all funny about us not using it!

and i think people ask more about babies and sleep now, ie how do the sleep etc, parenting in general is just more talked about esp in the media and of course on the internet!

I'm sure we are, FallenCaryatid! On here you get people who argue with ILs because they are co sleeping and ILs don't approve. Why the need to tell them? And why have to persuade them and have the last word? Nod and smile and don't discuss.

LeQueen always puts it better:

The second some parent starts explaining to me, in very earnest terms, 'Yes, you see we parent Tabitha, using the FaddyPaddyLooLaLa Behavioural Concept Approach, devised by Dr. Sawucumin...my brain just glazes over, and there's a tiny voice in my head going 'Noooooooo, please, noooooooooo...'

Boring, boring, boring! But sadly we all know them.

Well, it's your choice of course, but for most mothers it just seems to be a source of stress rather than support. I used to have dozens of conversations that weren't child-related and felt more like a human.
Why whip myself into a tail-spin? Who does that benefit?

Just tell them in a matter of fact way that doesn't invite further comment 5madthings. The mistake is to try and justify -just a vague 'we like it'-and a change of subject should suffice-if not sound like a broken record.

We loved our travel cot, it was a fantastic place to dump all the tiny annoying pieces of Lego and let our five year go to town. I didn't stand on them and the baby couldn't eat them. To be fair he did stand/kneel at the cot and wail sometimes though. Ds#1 loved it too because the destroyer couldn't rampage through all his creations

oh that is indeed what i do and they dont question it now, 5 children down the line, but its just something that crops up here and there. and if someone is asking for help/support ie struggling with sleep issues and they say what do you do etc, it seems natural to say, well we did this and it worked for us, but always with a it may not be for you.

and on parenting forums like this we discuss all sorts and it helps to break myths and stop the spread of misinformation as well, and that in turn helps other people that come looking for advice?

i dont talk about it in rl particularly but on a discussion board if its relevant then i will post about it, why not it doesnt do me any harm, unless of course you take to heart criticism from others on the interent, but as a general rule i dont!

Having forgotten Libby Purves I have just found 'How not to raise the perfect child' and dipping into it it is just as relevant today. I wish that I had time to type out the funnier bits. The bit on mum-upmanship and other children's parents is particularly funny.

i have a libby purves book upstairs somewhere, mainly the parenting books we have have been bought for us by other people tho, lol! i also had a miriam stoppard one when i had ds1, bought by my mil. she also gave me a spock one that she had from where dp was a baby!

i had some shelia kitzinger books on birth and a few bfeeding books, most i gave to my sister when she was pregnant.

oh i have one that was quite funny and called something like 3 socks and a hairbrush or something?

We co-slept for the first 3 weeks, then cradle in our room until about 5 months when DS out grew it and had to go into his own room (no space for gigantic cot bed in ours!). Far from it being a problem, I WISH he would sleep in my bed. When he's having one of his (thankfully rare) 4 hour wide awake sessions at 1am I would love to be able to bring him in with me and know he'd drop off. I would seize the rod for my own back with both hands

I thank my lucky stars I found mumsnet and a whole lot of sensible advice about co-sleeping when DS was 3 weeks old. He just wouldn't be put down and DH and I were sleeping in shifts holding him. I posted in desperation at 3am one night asking for ideas on how to settle him in his cot. Instead lots of lovely people came on and taught me how to co-sleep safely.

From that moment I relaxed and started to sleep again. 11 months on and we are still going strong, and we've managed to bf for all this time too. I am so grateful to everyone who helped, as I was previously convinced co-sleeping was too terrible a risk to take. In fact, it saved my sanity and a possible accident with horrific consequences as DH and I became increasingly sleep deprived. Now I tell everyone I know that I co-sleep in the hope it'll help it seem more normal to others. My mum hates it too though .

Oooh always emotive this.

I ignore the debates on here and just feel that the majority of mums around the world cosleep for a variety of reasons (poverty to war etc) and guess bloody what their kids grow up fine.

I coslept with ds from aged 1 to year 1. He told the teacher - she wasn't very happy - but so f'cking what.

He does fine at school, has good mates, does his own thing.

We don't cosleep now and it took oooh of all 24 hours to get him to sleep in his own bed at the age of 5.

Depends on who you are and your lifestyle. My dh works all hours so I wasn't in any rush to do 'sleep training' (great if you go back to work at 6 months) as I was on my own with ds and had no romantic evenings planned or big nights out.

I really don't get why it's such a bloody big deal.

I coslept with my mum even though we had a big fuck off house until I was about 7 I think. I'm pleased about it and it didn't hinder my life chances whatsover. In fact, I remember cosleeping sometimes with my lots of female extended family (talking 2 mums and young kids in a bed).

It's like camping - a great deal of fun. A big bloody sleepover with people you love with videos (back in those days), monopoly until midnight (and lots of cheating). The stuff childhood is made of.