bed sharing????

[Tess04]

I have just had a new baby, there's quite a gap between my other children and this one, with the others i had them in bed with me for the first few weeks and this was encouraged, i have also had this baby in bed with me since leaving hospital but the midwife told me today that this was dangerous and a factor in cot death, putting her in her crib even though by the side of my bed seems so far away but i don't want to put her at risk either, i don't know what to think i feel torn, what advice have others had?

bump for you tess, youve read my message on other thread

Personally I feel that if you take precautionary measures like

not allowing any adults into the bed who smoke
not allowing any adults into the bed who have drunk too much/taken drugs/taken medication
not allowing any older siblings into the bed
making sure your duvet and pillows are well away from the baby
preferably having baby sleep in sleeping bag which must be thin so that baby will not overheat

bedsharing is a fantastic thing for mother and baby and you should go for it.
But that's just my opinion.

I remember talking about this soon after DS was born, with one of the cummunity midwives who had an interest in the subject - 3 years ago now, so may be a little out of date.
She had looked at the customs and statistics in a number of cultures and felt that providing you followed the safety rules emkana lists, then the research was ambivalent to say the least. Especially if the room was well ventilated and the mattress firm.
There is some evidence that co-sleeping helps babies to regulate their temperatures as the mothers compensate to some degree - it the baby got too hot, the mother actually cooled down.
There was also some evidence that babies were less likely to have interruptions to breathing (perfectly normal when first born) and that they were likely to resume breathing more quickly.
I think I got some of my info from the excellend NCT book on sleeping.

Hope this helps

i can only tell you my experience which is that i co-slept with both my children- my eldest until was 3 and we were fine and they were ok.
i used to sleep with them to the side of me with my arm round them so they couldn't fall out and i couldn't roll on them.once they were bigger they went in the middle.

just reading this and felt that I had to add that I have slept with all my babies to the extent of kicking dh onto the couch if he has had a drink or over tired. Breast feeding small babies is so much easier. Do what you feel comfiest with I think that your sleep patterns adjust when you hav a new baby and you have a sixth kind of sense when they are in bed with you iykwim.
Congratultions on your new arrival!

I know just how your feel Tess, as I've been a bit the same. I always put dd in her crib to bed, but as she's still not sleeping thru the night I always put her in bed with me to breastfeed, then we both fall asleep. Agree if you follow emkana's advice you should be fine. Are you breastfeeding? I'm sure I read somewhere that if your're breastfeeding, you have a sort of built in radar to protect your baby. Congratulations on your baby girl by the way.

I used to put ds in the moses basket, on the bed next to me, and I intend to do that with this baby too. Then I had no worries about squashing him, but he was right next to me.

I have heard some where that the advice on bedsharing has changed this year. Personally, I think every body should do what suits the family better but, I would add to Emkana's list two points:

-Not allowing an over exhausted adult in bed with a small baby

-And don't allow a very mobile baby in bed with adults.

Our bad sharing experience ended on the day DS went under the duvet for the 232dadada time (he was a very mobile baby even for a 3 weeks old), and over exhausted mummy didn't realise he had gone there so... I only realised of what happened when I found him under one of my legs in the morning, it took me a while to wake him up and during that time I thought I had asfixiated him. Fortunately, nothing bad happened but that made us realise that DS was not a good candidate for bed sharing due to early mobility and our exhaustion. We allowed him to sleep on his own in his bedside cot, although we kept the side halfway up as he kept sliding between the cot and the bed!

I must preview before posting, excuse the multiple errors particularly that were it says bad sharing... bed sharing!