To lie to the midwives/health visitors about sleeping arrangements

[Butitssafe]

My fourth is a week old. Not my first rodeo.
I’ve done all my research and was really pleased that recent advice (ie lullaby trust et al) has changed in terms of not completely de-crying cosleeping and sharing ways in which to do
so safely.
I have decided to sleep with my baby in my bed at night following all this guidance.
However, I know trusts are slow to update policy/change culture etc and I’ve been asked so often about how she is sleeping and been told sharply so many times they ‘can’t recommend and don’t advise’ cosleeping that I decided, before she was born, that I was going to fib and tell them she goes down in her Moses basket (she has one for daytime naps etc) and that’s what I’ve been doing.
aibu?

Seems reasonable they enforce it in hospital to be honest, usually the mother is recovering from birth and this might mean not as responsive when asleep, the beds are usually single beds in which co sleeping is not recommended, and as they have a direct duty of care to the baby until discharge seems reasonable that on the balance of risk its not deemed appropriate. It doesn't mean their stance on it at home will be the same. I don't know why you wouldn't just say we co sleep, I've read through the lullaby trust guidelines and feel content it's the best thing for us. If you're happy with that decision why are you bothered by what they'll say?

I coslept with my twins but I confidently told hv I was following the unicef guidance (I now happily sleep without pillows regularly years later). It feels totally unnaturally to me to not comfort a baby by not snuggling with them. Dd1 was in a cot and utterly miserable but as my first I did what the hv told me. I’m not a hippy mum by any stretch. My sister died at 3mo due to SIDS in her cot which also helped make my decision personally but I know others will disagree and that’s fine. Imo you don’t need to hide cosleeping.

Why are you seeing a HV with baby 4? You surely don't need their old fashioned twaddle and can visit a GP for health concerns as they arise?

Do they actually ask where the baby is sleeping or do they just ask if the baby is sleeping? (I cant remember).

I wouldn’t lie if asked. I remember asking for advice on co-sleeping safely and got great advice (this was 20 years ago though).

I lied with all 3, I wouldn't have slept for over 6 years otherwise. We had a moses basket downstairs and a next to me by our bed, we had good intensions everytime but they just never wanted to go down. I will add I was very disciplined about how we did it though, baby had half the bed, no pillows or covers near and a bedrail once they could roll, I never put them in the middle of so to not risk my husband rolling over and if he ever had more than 2 pints (vvv rarely) he slept downstairs. I lied to the midwives everytime, even showed them where the baby sleeps with the first, I think our first child spent about an hour tops in where I said she slept every night. I kind of justified it to myself as "if I am exhausted and sat holding them in bed and I fall asleep, the risk to the baby is far greater than if I safely set my bed up for them to sleep next to me safely". We did a lot of sitting up in bed holding our first born before we moved to co-sleeping about a week in. I declined the health visitor after the first child too.

Coal won’t in hospital from night 2. Midwives helped to do it safely and have done ever since (although dd is now more in her bed through choice!!). We didn’t lie and I can’t remember getting any negative responses - possibly some information about doing it safely.

You’ve got 4 DC, and you know the risks and benefits and research. Do what you like, say what you like to them. I wouldn’t bother lying - it’s literally just an extra minute of explanation from them during a visit - but if you prefer to duck the question nothing terrible will happen, they won’t know!

My mother lost a son to cot death during co sleeping he was 6 months old.

In hospital one midwife encouraged co-sleeping and put DS in the bed with me, I had a solid 4 hours sleep! The next day a different midwife removed him from my bed.

My health visitor advised me to “do anything” I needed to do in order to get some sleep including co-sleeping and she pointed me towards the lullaby trust safe co-sleeping guidance. So I don’t think you need to lie. But then no one ever asked me about how DS slept other than “how’s he sleeping?”

DS is 10mo so all recent.

Many health visiting staff were redeployed to hospitals during initial months of covid. Also lockdowns then created a huge safeguarding backlog which health visitors (again not enough staff ) have to wade their way through. Large amounts of their work now anyway is in safeguarding vulnerable families/meetings/cp etc.

No it’s not right that other more stable families don’t get the same attention and it wasn’t the community staff that decided they weren’t needed to be HV etc in covid but much much higher up. It actually highlighted the actual real need for the service in the end, but reading here many don’t want it anyway. So maybe more should opt out.

I've always been honest about cosleeping with the HV and she had no problem with it. Look up the 'safe sleep 7' and enjoy the closeness.

I said to my HV "I know you can't recommend it, but we're cosleeping following the guidance" and she said "actually if you follow the guidance then that's great, it's a great way to get extra sleep!" This was at his 9-12 month check a few weeks ago.

Can you imagine in a hospital a nurse doesn’t advise you not to co sleep, as per guidance in hospital and the baby dies while in the hospital care.

What would happen? Oh well the nurse didn’t tell me I couldn’t…. Nurses fault then? The hospitals? It’s no one’s fault but a tragedy but you can see why it’s discussed.

it’s advice, a discussion can be had, it means the parents can be signposted to further info and be aware of the risks and documented. It’s not illegal. Many healthcare professionals may agree or disagree and understand the reasoning from a parent view but have to follow the official advice at the time. .

I know you say you have done your research which is great (basis online should be everybody's Bible for safe sleep advice!) But if you lie to us then we can't give you individualised advice and we can't provide the care we set out to.

Really, all parents whether they plan to bed share or not should be getting safe bed sharing information because actually most parents do it at some point even if they didn't plan to and we know that most risks are taken when circumstances change and things are unplanned.

I would opt out of the health visitor service if I was you. It’s not compulsory.

Elaborate please. There are certainly ways to cosleep safely.

Much like there are very unsafe ways for children to be put sleep in cots (too many blankets, cot bumpers etc)

The problem is people incorrectly put planned cosleeping in the same category as accidentally cosleeping and they are very different. Falling asleep holding your baby on the sofa or in bed are far more dangerous than sleeping with your child on a clear bed, in the 'safe c' position and with bedding away from the baby. Obviously both parents should be sober non-smokers and ideally the mum should be breastfeeding too. The baby should be next to it's mum and not in between the parents until much older.

hv are not quoting old fashioned twaddle
they keep up to date,

I told the truth on my first child, lied to the PHN on my second.

Congratulations!

When I had mine I was invited with some other new mums to an antenatal class to talk about our early experiences. I put DS in his own room on night 1. I was honest about it. They shut me up & sent me home.

Not the same as co sleeping though is it. Co sleeping can benefit both parent and baby, baby in a different room from day 1 only benefits the parent whilst increasing the risk of SIDS. Talking to an antenatal class is also different from talking to a HV.

@Ponoka7 I completely disagree with you. There has been lots of research to show that co-sleeping is very unsafe.

There's lots of information out there, look at the Facebook group "Safe sleeping and baby care: evidence and support" for example. There's links to loads of research on there.

There's no point getting into a back and forth on this though because we will never agree. You have read research which suggests it is safe, I've read research which says the opposite.

I am happy with the way I looked after my babies and I am sure I did the right thing by them. You think differently. That's fine. As I said in my first post, so-sleeping isn't against the law, so people will do what they want to do.

That sounds odd
How long ago was that?

@MrsLargeEmbodied

In my experience none of them understand breastfeeding, centiles or weaning e.g they truly believe mushy carrot will help a baby fill up.

I sent them away as soon as humanly possible with both DDs

That sounds brilliant when you put it like that, however I actually needed the help, GPs asked HVs to contact me and still nothing. Perhaps because I have a stable home (!)

Well my midwives and HVs all told lies, that they had referred for this and that, that x, y or z wasn't a problem, that they would visit before 11 the following day and turned up at 4.30, etc.

I therefore had no concerns about telling them the information I thought they wanted to hear. Respect begets respect. Although to be fair I raised a formal.complaint about my HV and removed myself from the service, if it could actually be called a service.