Babies 'should sleep in mother's bed until age three' (Telegraph)

[Teaandcakeplease]

Admittedly its the Torygraph but what do you ladies make of this? Interesting.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/8854674/Babies-should-sleep-in-mothers-bed-until-age-three.html

:rolleyes: - well if you /really/ can't manage to find somewhere in the house to have sex I don't think it's up to me to find a solution!

It's not the place Olivia, it's the time. Cosleepers always say (understandably) that they go to bed early and are too tired for sex when they get there anyway, but when do you have sex if your older DCs are awake until 8/9 and don't nap? Am I missing some really obvious solution?

Well DS is 3 and is quite happy in his bed now so I don't think if I had another baby he would be jealous. The theory is if you let them sleep with you until they (or you both) are ready to stop, mum & dad's bed doesn't become this hugely desirable thing.

I guess if you have children with that age gap, you get creative with distractions, do it when the youngest is asleep and won't notice, or do it sparingly when some or all of the children are out without you.

I still went to bed at about 11ish when I was co-sleeping full time. Sometimes I'd fall asleep earlier, but not always.

well my elder children have never been jealous of their younger siblings co-sleeping, they all know/remember that they co-slept when they were babies/toddlers and they often come in in the morning anyway or if one of them is ill or has a bad dream then my dp will go and sleep in their bed with them.

re sex, my children all go to bed by 8pm even ds1 who is 12 (he sometimes stays up as a treat) the elder ones read etc in their rooms, but they know they go up at 8pm so that dp and i can have some time to ourselves. so we have sex in the evenings when they are in bed/asleep and you can have sex in bed with a baby/toddler asleep in bed with you. it helps that our bed is a futon so the mattress is firm and not spring so no bouncing the baby around! but you just use your innitiative and have sex when you can/feel like it, be that in bed, on the sofa, the table or the floor, whatever works and floats your boat ime

oh and isnt that what the tv is for, so you can dump the kids infront of it whilst you go upstairs for a quickie?!

and re the going to bed early, i did that when mine were little babies, but dd is 10mths old now, she goes to bed at 7:30 and i dont go up till anytime between 11-1am, so even if the elder kids stay up till say 9-10pm then there would still be time for sex once they have gone to bed.

@GothAnnGeddes: "When kangaroo care was first discovered in an NNU in Columbia there was indeed a drop in mortality rates, but that was in comparison to decidedly sub optimal NNU conditions there.

What research there is out there focuses on benefits of KMC, not on it as a life saving tool. The Cochrane review of papers relating to KMC and skin to skin, generally proved that it did not harm the babies, was rather neutral on there being definite proved positive benefits and certainly made no claims whatsoever about it being life saving."

OK, that's fair enough. The drop in mortality rate in Colombia was from 70% to 30%. My understanding of the Cochrane Review (having read summaries, not the full thing) is that it found kangaroo care was linked to a drop in mortality as well as offering other benefits, such as offering a drop in infection rates and hypothermia.

I don't think many people are co-sleeping with their 8 and 14 year olds.

It was more the fact that that you can't really say to a 14yr old -please give us privacy in the dining room for a while. You are very lucky if you get a 12 yr old in bed by 8pm.

well my 12yr old goes up to his room most nights by 8pm or probably neared 8:30pm and then he reads etc, he knows that is the rule and he doest stay up at wkends, holidays etc but is generally in bed by 10pm at the latest and then we still have an hour/two hours to do with what we wish.

our sitting rm door has a small hook and eyelet bolt at the top, so we could lock that if we wanted, but we would hear them getting up out of bed, coming across the landing and down the stairs before they got to us, so would have plenty of time to stop whatever we were doing. but given that ds1 saw me give birth ten months ago he has had a good view anyway and he may be embarrassed to walk in on us, but he knows we have sex and he is smart enough that he would probably knock or shout through the door rather than come in if he suspected anything/had heard anything. i do think its ok to teach children/teens that actually some evenings we will want some time alone/privacy and they can go up to their rooms and sit and chat or read or watch a film etc but that they dont disturb us unless they are ill/need something important etc.

I didn't go to bed earlier because I was co-sleeping with DS, except when we moved out here and the physical constraints of where we were living meant I had to. DH goes to bed way earlier than I do, even still. And (although this is probably TMI) he isn't up for sex at bedtime anyway - he's too tired by then. We find other times during the day when he's awake and capable.
It's not that difficult really...

Was a lovely thing to do with DD until she was about 7 months old and turned into a wild octopus. No one could sustain a night in bed with my DD!

Well if it works for you, OK, but I view the idea personally with complete horror! Mine all slept in their own cots in their own room for the most part and we all slept much better than we did on the few occasions that we did share when we constantly awoke eachother. It seems to me a very stressful way and unecessary way of doing things for both the baby and mother, but everyone is different. Guilt shouldn't enter into it - it's what's right for you both that matters, not what the 'experts' say because they aren't you and they aren't your baby and they change their minds every few years anyway. I suppose co-sleeping could have a useful contrceptive effect though...!

well it cant be that succesful legoundertheinstep as we have 5 children!

We co-slept until about 15 months at which point I felt my hips were going to break from how rigidly I was positioning myself in the bed and enough was enough. He slept in our bed last night for the first time since as he has an outrageously awful cough and it was nice for nostalgia and I do love a pudgy little face by mine in the morning.. but not feeling like a 90 year old with misaligned hips. So back he will be in the cot as soon as he feels a bit better

I realised this morning how much I miss this - waking up and finding a DC there or snuggling up to a DC half asleep. Youngest DC 2 years- goes to her sibling?s beds in preference to ours and DS who used to occasionally still come in especially when just me has stopped now.

I was lucky with first DC that MW and HV were sensibly and told us it was o.k. and how to be safe doing it. Second DC different HV ? went ballistic at told us we?d kill our DS. Expect whatever reports are published second MW still goes round saying this.

dd came into our bed last night as she had a nightmare. I'm really tired now because my night was broken and dh is tired because dd nicked all the covers and so he woke up early. I kicked her out after an hour or two. My bed is for me to sleep (and dh as well I suppose, but that's less important than me sleeping )

I'm very happy that other people find it works for them, and I'd not comment unless they said they were unhappy about it or started to have a go for me not co-sleeping. I do think that people ought to be better at realising that we aren't all the same. For me what worked best was to have the baby's room set up with a really comfy chair, so when they woke I got up, got them out of their bed, fed them, put them back to bed and then got back in my own bed and fell straight back into deep sleep. If I had the baby in bed with me I never really got to sleep properly at all, let alone deep sleep, and if I attempted to feed in bed the main result was milk everywhere, which was absolutely disgusting.

Y'know what would be really really revolutionary? A consultant being quoted by the press as stating that mothers (and fathers) should be encouraged to make their own decisions as to what works best for them. But I have no high hopes of ever seeing the day.

You never will cory-someone always knows best for everyone.

And it always seems to be male doctors pronouncing on how a woman will have the happiest and best experience: giving birth, sleeping with the baby, going back to work or not. Couldn't run the risk of letting those fluffy brained creatures think for themselves, now could we?

I think we as parents do what suits our families theres no right or wrong in this case, some children just need that extra security I suppose

I disagree that it should even be thought of as 'extra security'-it takes a lot more than sleeping in the same bed to give a DC security.

Co-sleeping is brilliant if mother and child sleep/feed better as a result.
If they don't, then what is the point?

exoticfruits Mon 31-Oct-11 11:58:48
"I disagree that it should even be thought of as 'extra security'-it takes a lot more than sleeping in the same bed to give a DC security."

Sometimes it's the only thing you can do to make a difference, though. If I could take away the underlying problems which cause dd to hyperventilate and struggle to breathe in the middle of the night, I would: as it is, the best I can do is to lie next to her and model calm (and very loud) breathing at 2 o'clock in the morning. Not for my own enjoyment, but better than sending for the paramedics or letting her get too exhausted for school the next day. Of course not having the anxiety in the first place would be the prefererable option, but you work with what you can.

Similarly, my parents found occasional co-sleeping very effective in helping db to get over his adoption trauma and I believe it is actually recommended in this type of situation.

Some children just do have extra insecurities that you can't instantly fix for them.

I would agree with that cory-I have certainly done it when they were ill.

My point was that it goes with other things. You can have someone who co sleeps from birth and they can have lots of other things going on in their life and a very insecure DC.