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

Doesn't look like this is based on much evidence, and it's impossible to assess how good that evidence is without knowing exactly how the study was conducted. Surely more than this is needed to challenge the current evidence-based advice NOT to co-sleep, in any meaningful way?

Sounds more like a newspaper trying to whip up 'controversy' than anything else really. I certainly don't think anyone should be changing what they do based on this article.

Over here (NZ) we still have coroners and others openly castigating mothers who bedshare - when what they should do is teach about safe and unsafe co-sleeping habits, not co-sleeping per se. A good news story is welcome relief tbh.

These researchers are forgetting the golden rule that every baby is different.. mine slept alone until 2 months when I had to start work and needed some sleep, at which point he came in with us.

Now at 13 months he sleeps in what I would best describe as a nest (mattress on the floor with a blanket) beside our bed. He went there willingly (the strange child actually comes and fetches me when he thinks it's time for bed, and leads me to the bathroom to brush his teeth!), and has dropped to one feed, and often sleeps all the way through. We're all sleeping better because he'd got big enough that our double bed was rather crowded.

My sister took a different route with the baby always in a cot, and that works for her - both ways are completely valid, both ways work for different people, and both ways have their own risks, hassles, and rewards.

Oh, and mine definitely articulates how happy he is when I join him in his nest for a feed... then just as clearly articulates when it's time for me to get back in my own bed by pushing me away and rolling over!

See, that's why these studies are bad (sample size of 16 ), because it swiftly leads to uber-mummy crap, like the sort Leonie is spouting.

Like cosleeping, found it worked for you? Good.

Saying "No dummy or cot or breathing monitor* will ever duplicate what a baby experiences when s/he is in bed with mommy." Crap smuggness.

*A dummy, cot and breathing monitor are three very different things, so I'm not sure where the comparison arises.

I'd have loved to co-sleep but DD (now 3) wouldn't! If I brought her in with us, once the very early newborn days were over, she would wriggle, babble, kick, want to play games - in fact anything apart from sleeping.
When put to bed in her own cot, she slept wonderfully and still does now in her own bed.

As ususal, some things work, some things don't - do what works best for you. Usual papers making us feel either guilty or smug.

It is nice to have something positive written about it. People look at me like I have two heads when I cheerily mention co-sleeping for as long as my dc want to. DD moved to her own bed at 2.4 of her own volition and I'll allow ds the same choice.

Co-sleeping feels utterly right to me. Every instinct tells me it's right for us. In hospital they tucked both babies in with me asap after the emcs and there they stayed for the hospital duration and continuing to have them close is absolutely the only thing I can do. It never even occured to me to buy a cot. I'm pleased to hear it discussed as a positive thing.

But it's never going to be the only way. Parenting is a series of choices. It's just pleasant not to have my choice viewed with open-mouthed horror.

Why aim for 'no worse than' in your attitude to other parenting choices, Leonie? Why not aim for more pragmatic, more compassionate, more empathetic?

What about a co-sleeping baby with a dummy? A dummy and bf are not exclusive to each other.

It is extremely hard to express your instinctive feelings without sounding antagonistic.

I couldn't ever bring myself to use a dummy or a cot or to not co-sleep. The very thought upsets me. Which sounds nobby I know, I can hear it. But for me only ever for me, it's trying to artificially create what my body is designed to provide. Co-sleeping and demand bfing do fulfil the demands that things like dummies and apnoea alarms are also designed to address. Just for me, the former works better. For others the latter. For yet more people some or none of those options. You can never say any way is 'best'.

Is it correct that countries where co-sleeping is the norm, they don't really have SIDS to speak of? I'm sure I read or heard that somewhere. OT slightly, sorry.

my heart completely agrees with bed sharing, but not necessarily for health reasons. I often wonder what the benefits for my baby are by having him sleep on his own in his own room seperately from me when he actually prefers to be sleeping with me, and I prefer him to be sleeping with me. He does not need to learn independence yet he is only 23 months old. And in fact we brought him back into our own room after two months between 9-11 months until he was 14 months as he and therefore I was so unhappy with him away from me.

But logically, practically and allowing for the fact the decision is not exclusively mine, he is better in his own room.

But my heart often questions my head over this.

Is it correct that countries where co-sleeping is the norm, they don't really have SIDS to speak of? I'm sure I read or heard that somewhere.

I don't doubt that this claim has been made (although I do know there are also reports that say that SIDS is a comparable issue in the developing world, not quite the same thing but if accurate suggests that SIDS is a problem across a variety of cultures). I wonder what it is based on, though. Hopefully studies more exhaustive than the one in the Telegraph!

DD co-slept only when she was poorly, until 6 months her crib was next to mine, and very rarely if she woke up early I would breast feed her and we'd have a bit of a lie in together.

When she moved to her own room is was fantastic we both slept so much better (I'm a very light sleeper, she snores and DP SNORES)

She's pretty much slept through since then, with the odd excpetion when she's poorly or teething, but even then she tends to settle herself within 5 minutes

I have to say this article really cheered me up- I don't feel as guilty for letting my daughter sleep in bed with me!

"the only thing "good" to come out of this report is (hopefully) societies acceptance of co-sleeping"

I never admit to my friends and family that I co-sleep, and stopped going to the baby clinic because they don't get it (and as a result sometimes feel quite isolated) but I politely listen to many tirades about how wrong it is.

For me it is about gut feeling, and too much polemic advice makes people doubt theirs (whether to cot or to not).

SOH - Deborah Jackson, Three in a bed discusses SIDs and co-sleeping and pretty much comes to that conclusion.

DD spent about 3 nights in her 'own' bed recently (she has just gone 3) and I barely slept, she barely slept and it just felt wrong to me. She has moved back in with us, and we are all happier and sleeping more.

We have never owned a cot.

I had 3 children aged lust 3 and under.
Where would my OH and me have fitted in our bed if we had co slept until 3 yrs old?

scarlett oh that you ever feel guilty at all! It is a choice that we should be able to make and feel ok with. as others have said, there is no right or wrong way, imo as long as you follow simple safety rules to keep your baby safe I just cannot see how sharing a bed can be wrong and people be made to feel bad about it.

But likewise, a baby should not 'have' to co-sleep and parents should not feel bad about this choice either. DD would never have co-slept after 7-8 months, unless ill, not for all the chocolate in the world. She wiggles and fusses and tosses and turns and is a light sleeper, both she and us slept much better when she went into her own room at 7 months as she prefers to sleep alone. DS on the other hand, sleeps better with me ( i don't, as I am like DD!)

Just not lust

No one should feel guilty about co-sleeping! It is how babies have slept for 99% of humanity, how 100% of other mammals sleep and how the majority of babies in the world today sleep. It is normal and the current accepted Western way is the exception - I think people fail to see that.

FWIW I happily tell anyone that we are co-sleeping. If they have a problem with that thats their problem, not mine. I am more than happy to defend my choices to the hilt.

I tried co-sleeping, but didn't sleep a wink. I was so scared of squashing DD. Also I like lots of bedclothes and would have been far too hot for DD. Once she had her tracheostomy co-sleeping was a no-no anyway. Once the trachy was out DD fidgeted too much and I still wouldn't have got any sleep.

Co-sleeping wasn't for me. I get intensely irritated by the smugness that comes across from some co-sleeping families.

Daisy - I had two under three in with me & DH. We have a double and a single pushed together, but may upgrade to two doubles soon. Will not be any room left in the bedroom, but hey, bedrooms are for sleeping in!