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

McKenna has a pretty useful overview of the risks (though it's from 2005):

www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf

"Most USA and other western infants die from SIDS or
from fatal accidents during solitary sleep outside the supervision
of a committed adult. Moreover, the overwhelming
number of suspected accidental overlays or fatal accidents
occur not within breast feeding?bedsharing communities but
in urban poverty, where multiple independent SIDS risk
?factors? converge and bottle feeding rather than breast
feeding predominates. Additional adverse risk ?factors? associated
with bedsharing in high-risk populations are maternal
smoking, infants placed to sleep on pillows or under duvets,
with other children and co-sleeping with infants on sofas,
waterbeds or couches. Bedsharing when the infant sleeps
with an adult other than the mother, maternal exhaustion,
alcohol or drug use, or leaving infants unattended on an adult
bed also increase SIDS risks and/or fatal accidents."

Hackmum "The evidence, for example, that kangaroo care can save the lives of premature babies is overwhelming".

Find me the evidence that says that. 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.

When you consider that one of the biggests causes of mortality in premature neonates is NEC and there's still major differences in opinion about what causes it and best ways to treat it,it's clear that Neonatal research is very complex and clear answers aren't as easy to obtain as you might think.

There is also the issue of people wanting mothers to be enslaved by research.

Ladies, never mind what suits you, your family and what appears to suit your baby (what do you know, you only gave birth to it and look after it every day), this piece of research has come out and you must do what it says or you will harm your baby!! Doom! Wickedness!

It's hugely disempowering to women.

I must have been years ahead of my time then!! I never listened to anyone, anyway. I was a single mum so this was the ONLY option for me plus the fact that I breast fed him for 2 years - indeed, now he is 13 and has ONLY JUST managed "to go it alone".... some of you will chuckle, I know.

Don't forget folks, that a paediatrician is a just that and The Telegraph has only stated just one view... unless there was something I missed.
The article may have carried more weight for me if the source was an expert in the field of child/adolescent behavioural psychatry or someone equally as worthy on the academic/intellectual scale, but glad the Telegraph brought the subject to the attention of the public.

If I was writing recommendations I'd probably blanketly ban the use of duvets near babies too, but I used one with DS after our heating broke when he was 8 weeks old, it was December. He was freezing, blankets were absolutely pointless. I used my common sense and put the duvet on his legs - he was fine and we used it since then.

It's okay as long as you know what the risks are. It's if you're unaware of the risks and doing things incorrectly because you've read somewhere that it's safe that it becomes risky.

Overheating and smothering deaths are difficult to ascertain IIRC. Which is why they are included in the SIDS statistics.

I co-slept with my premature twin sons till they were 5 yrs old and b/fed till they were 28 months. The plus side of this was that I was right there immediately they woke/ wanted feeding, cuddling/felt scared - and so were less likely to wake the other baby. They happily stopped b/feeding -going 'cold turkey' at 28 mnths and happily transitioned to each in his own room and bed at age 5 - with no difficulty at all re. bedtimes ever. I also 'believed' that I was doing something good for them, what was natural and that this was how to be as a mother. We slept on a double and single mattress all pushed together on the floor (single mum from start, so no partner BTW, so no issues with him wanting babies elsewhere). Never bought a cot at all.

The down side was that I didn't ever sleep for more than 25 mins at a stretch, myself, for at least their first 3.5 YEARS, was massively sleep deprived for yrs and yrs, so that my memory of their infancy is compromised, as it was all a daze really. Sleep deprivation meant that I couldn't actively enjoy time with my babies. It was just excruciatingly hard work.

In retrospect, I'd still probably have co-slept for about their first 1 to 2 yrs or at least had a sleeping 'set up' where, if they were disturbed in the night without me, I could just go in and lie beside them and hold them close and then sleep a bit myself, rather than having to stand or sit beside a cot. I would have balanced my own needs more and not just believed that martyring myself for them was a good thing. I'd have had more pleasure from them if they'd slept longer, alone both at the same time. But I'll never know if their sleeping might have evn been worse without co-sleeping - or better.

I really think you do what feels right for you and works for you, certainly after the first 6 months or so. I was an ardent Attachment Parenting/LLL/Continuum Concept follower. I still feel that a lot of that stuff is right and good but needs to be tempered with what actually works for each individual baby and parent/s and family set-up, otherwise it won't work anyway.

We still co-sleep with DS (aged 3.1)

When DS was tiny, he was very ill, and I felt I needed to co-sleep with him in order to check that he was breathing throughout the night (he did stop breathing completely a few times, and I think he would have died if the change in his breathing rhythm had not woken me up - but all I had to do was poke him and he would start breathing again.)

Normally, I can sleep through almost any noise, but somehow I am still tuned in to anything that happens to DS (e.g. a few weeks ago, I woke up because DS was wheezing a bit, and then I noticed there was a car alarm going off nearby - DH said this car alarm had been keeping him awake for about 2 hours and that I had been sleeping through it )

DS has read that report, I think .

Ooh, feel all smug now. Not usually in agreement with Daily Telegraph, but this time .

My twins were 3 last Saturday and I've just put them in their own big beds tonight with clear instructions that THEY ARE NOT TO GET OUT AND SNEAK INTO MUMMY'S BED WHEN SHE IS TOO FAST ASLEEP TO NOTICE THEM GETTING IN

I haven't read all this thread but I am surprised that so many people feel 'guilty' about co-sleeping. I think here in Switzerland it's the opposite, you are ,ade to feel guilty if you don't do it. When both my DDs were born they were constantly telling me to put them in the bed with me, to do that skin to skin care etc. When I had problems bfing my second DD they saud we both needed to completely strip off and lie there for a couple of hours. It felt completely unnatural to me, didn't help the feeding and was highly inconvenient and embarrassing as I had a succeasion of visits from friends, family, nurses etc in that period.

I would never tell people they shouldn't co-sleep; i think they are absolute martyrs to do it, I am a light and very fussy sleeper and as others have said a baby in with me would have meant virtually sleepless nights for me. I wonder if successful co-sleeperz are very heavy sleepers?

I can't imagine anything worse than a child sharing our bed for years on end every night (doesn't that pretty much ruin your sex life?) but if others are able to do that thefw's no way I'd say fhey shoukdn't actually I'm in awe. On the other hamd, my 2 DDs who've both been in their own beds from vwry early on are good zleepers and we are very close and affectionate. I hug them all through the day but night time is sleeping in our beds time. at 3.5 and 6.5 they seem to be ok.

I love co-sleeping! It works well for me and my family, I accept its not for everyone but I think people who are against are usually ignorant of the benefits. If you do not understand something please hold your comments!

I think most people could list benefits of cosleeping. They just choose not to do it because the disadvantages outweigh the benefits for them.

We have coslept for the last 3 years. It's fine, sometimes lovely but I dont romanticise it much, we do it to get sleep.

DH and I do often talk about celebrating our 40th birthdays in 6 years by going away to a hotel for a long weekend without the kids and just sleeping.

As much as I like cosleeping I am looking forward to them going in their own beds at some point.

Lots of people have mentioned that they wonder how co-sleepers are able to, er, boink. I don't know about co-sleepers but DS is still in our room in his cot at 11mo and we use the spare room, the dining room, the kitchen... Our bed is pretty much just for sleeping, and to be honest by the time I go to bed I'm pooped anyway.

anyone know how i delete this thread from my 'i'm on' list so i don't have to see it anymore?? finding it increasingly irritating!!

jjkm you know touch doesn't just equal co-sleeping right??!!

Don't think you can - you'll just have to comment on lots of other threads so they appear above it in your 'I'm on' page!

If you hide the actual thread, I think that it will disappear from your "threads I´m on"

I'm not quite sure what you do with your system Octavia if you have an 8yr old-or a 14yr old who is around most of the time and doesn't have an early bed time!

BertieBotts - yes, overheating and accidental smothering probably would be included in SIDS statistics and that might be reasonable - but in most cases, the baby is found "under the parent" (obvious cause of death), "at the foot of the bed" (obviously smothered) and "outside the bed on the floor" (probably fractures, possible hypothermia) and these should not be included but are.

iloveberries - yes, click Hide at the top of the thread and it will disappear from all your lists.

It is also very excluding if you have an older DC. I had an 8yr old and I don't think that it would have been very nice to have the new sibling in bed with mum and dad while he was excluded.

@exoticfruits - well in that case I expect it would be confined to the bedroom! The question was how do co-sleepers manage it - I don't think many people are co-sleeping with their 8 and 14 year olds.

Yes Octavia, but some people have (say) an 8 year a 5 year old and a 2 year old. How do you a) ever get any sex or b) not make the 5 year old jealous (or if you continue co-sleeping with the 5 year old as well presumably the 8 year old would be jealous).