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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

cosleeping and bf promotion

37 replies

cantthinkofagoodname · 09/07/2010 18:12

My PCT has a policy of actively discouraging cosleeping and if you admit to a HV that you do it they are supposed to tell you off and write about it on your notes (I found the PCT guidelines on the internet!) I lie to my HV about it as a consequence...

Given that it's pretty difficult to bf for any length of time without cosleeping (I know it can be done but really don't fancy trying) and that UNICEF seem to be happy with cosleeping as a way to help bf continue past the first few weeks, do you think that the NHS should give all sides of the cosleeping argument rather than a blanket ban which promotes a "don't ask, don't tell" approach?

OP posts:
ZuzuandZara · 10/07/2010 00:33

Blimey Mars, big bed?

DuelingFanjo · 10/07/2010 11:52

I find it really strange that there's a feeling from some people that BF won't work, or won't work as well, if you don't co-sleep. Isn't there enough pressure on being able to breastfeed successfully without implying that by not co-sleeping a mum is maybe not doing the best she can?

sweetkitty · 10/07/2010 12:04

Same as Mars apart from having 5 and DTs (grin), currently cosleeping and BFing 9 week old DS (no4).

We have a bedside cot where he starts the night but depending on which side I am feeding from he sleeps at that side. I find I wake frequently in the night to check on him, I need to place a hand on him to check him, too lazy to get out of bed though.

I have a friend who put her DS in his own room from day 1, different folks, different strokes.

Cosleeping is demonised in this country, I have been told I WILL roll over and smother him and that they will still be in my bed at 5. I have 3 other DDs who went into a bed fine. I think if you honestly asked new mothers an awful lot of them probably will admit to cosleeping at least part of the night but you don't admit it to the HV.

5DollarShake · 10/07/2010 16:19

I have full respect to ladies who do do it.

I just didn't feel confident enough in myself to do it safely even though we don't carry any of the risk factors, and even though I was exhausted in those early months, and obviously, the only one doing all the feeds.

I was also put off by too many stories of not being able to get a baby into a moses basket or its own crib, of having to be breastfed to sleep every time it woke / needed to go down, of waking up loads during the night, since the boob was right there, etc, etc.

For me, even though co-sleeping makes it easier in the early months, I just saw too many bad habits becoming ingrained, which would inevitably have to be dealt with later - and which would probably end up being way more hassle than a bit of sleep deprivation in the early days. Short-term pain, long-term gain, sort of thing.

Yes, it did sometimes take a while to settle DS who slept in a moses basket literally right next to me in bed, but settle him I did, and it all quickly paid off.

We soon got to a point that he'd wake twice a night for a feed, be put back down in his basket (and eventually his cot in his own room), and go straight off to sleep without a murmur. That then dropped to one feed a night, and then by 7 months he was sleeping through.

Of course, I've only got experience of the one child, and things might be wildly different with DC2, but again, I am just too wary of the long-term habits that might (not necessary 'will') have to be painfully broken further down the line.

But, as I say, fair play to anyone who does it, you have more guts than me!

I do definitely agree that more advice and literature needs to be out there for those who want to do it.

MarsLady · 10/07/2010 16:19

sadly not a big bed ZZandZ... lol Just a bog standard tiny double. Oh but I dreamed of an emperor bed! Still do... sigh...

grapesandmoregrapes · 10/07/2010 19:18

surely if a baby is suffocated by a duvet/pillow etc. then it won't be recorded as SIDS but as suffocation? I thought SIDS was an unexplained death, very different to suffocation.

BertieBotts · 11/07/2010 11:43

Grapes I believe that suffocation doesn't show signs, or something, so unless it was obvious that it was defintely suffoation it's reorded as unexplained.

StealthPolarBear · 11/07/2010 11:47

My health visitor co slept

DuelingFanjo - I only co slept with dS when he was older, between about 6m and a year, before that I didn't dare or feel the need. I am still feeding him and he's 3, so you certainly don't need to. It does make life easier though - DD is 9mo, I hvae co slept with her since birth with a tiny bit of trynig to put her down in her moses basket, and as I had to deal with DS too I don't think I could have coped this time without co-sleeping. As it is, I have had OK sleep since she was born, there have only been a handful of nights I'd class as dreadful

StealthPolarBear · 11/07/2010 11:48

i sometimes think she might be an MNer

ZuzuandZara · 11/07/2010 23:17

Mars, I was thinking of you this morning...

I fed one DT lying down in bed, left her sleeping while DH passed me the other and I fed her and left her sleeping with me in the middle. In the meantime, DH got back in bed lying widthways along the bottom of the bed by my feet

Let me wonder how you all fitted in bed?!

MarsLady · 13/07/2010 22:27

You know... I think we all just squashed up really. lol. Those poor babies, but they were well fed and happy. Me... I'm a great believer in Malcolm Xing sleep... by any means necessary!

Druzhok · 13/07/2010 22:46

The advice re SIDS prevention doesn't really tie up with the breastfeeding promotion, but that doesn't mean that either is wrong; they are just different factors, recommended upon from different sources, that happen to overlap.

I wish I had received more support re co-sleeping when I had my first baby. The advice my DH and I received seem to indicate that co-sleeping was both dangerous and would create some kind of abnormally dependent monster child. I actually did co-sleep a bit with him, but it was through sheer exhaustion and so probably not as safe as it could've been. That exhaustion arose from trying to settle him on his own in a cot ... god, that was awful.

I finally decided to please myself when I had DD. Guess what - happy mother who got enough sleep and a happy baby who rarely cried.

I get a bit agitated about the SIDS recommendations, tbh. I know that the Back to Sleep campaign made a difference, but I do get shitty at the implication that there is only one safe way to put a child to sleep i.e. on their back, on their own and unswaddled.

My experience of what works best (by which i mean results in least distress and most sleep) is diametrically opposed to those recommendations. Best option for my DD: sleeping in my arms. Second best option: sleeping on her front. Third best option when she was tiny: being swaddled.

I still feel sad and angry about the way I went about my DS's sleeping. Wish I'd known more and received a wider range of advice.

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