Co-sleeping with newborn baby - can I keep my duvet?

[Ernestina]

I'm 37 weeks pregnant with my first baby and finding the official co-sleeping "advice" confusing. Everyone seems to say no duvet, but surely I'm no more likely to suffocate/overheat my baby with a duvet than I am if I buy sheets and blankets instead?

Our house is pretty cold and we're pretty skint so I'm not keen to get rid of the duvet and fork out for blankets, although obviously I will if that's the safest thing to do.

BTW, we're planning to have the baby in a sidecar cot so he won't really be "in" our bed most of the time anyway.

Any advice appreciated...

The current advice is NOT to co-sleep, but I did it with both of mine and it was great. I had the duvet pulled away from the baby and they had their own covers. Also we never had dh in the bed at the same time - the greatest danger to baby is from sharing with 2 adults.

Pop the baby up by your head. That way the duvet won't cover the baby cos it should stop at your chin.

Co-sleeping is fine. Make sure that you're not drinking or smoking or doing drugs. Also you shouldn't co-sleep if the baby is formula fed.

Bedsharing is entirely safe as long as a few simple rules are adhered to.

a blanket recommendation in the UK and other parts of the Western world not to bedshare is given because of a cultural bias against it. Infant Sleep Research conducted in infant/parent sleep labs have shown that as long as a few guidelines are followed, it is safer than solitary cot sleeping.

Co-sleeping however is recommended. The difference here is definition. Roomsharing is a form of cosleeping and bedsharing is a form of cosleeping.

While you have the time, you may want to read 'Three in a Bed' by Deborah Jackson.

this is a good article to read and the links at the bottom are balanced, providing information from evidence based research

try this one instead

i have no idea why that link opened up a catholic school webpage. the only thing that seems different is the 'l' in html is missing.

Hi ernestina
If bub is in a sidecar cot thats absolutely fine, that IS co-sleeping. As kiskedee said, having bub in your room is actually co-sleeping. When DS1 was newborn he slept on a feather pillow between DH and me for the first week or so and then when he was poorly, pillow sat at the top of the bed and we moved down slightly so no risk of duvet going over him. He also slept in a grobag so didn'tneed to worry about sheets and blankets for him. The rest of the time he slept in a moses basket right by my side.
good luck with your new lo
phee

OO meant to ask, what exatly is the raionale behind the 'guideline' no bedsharing for formula-fed bubs??? can't figure that one out at all...

i co slept with ds.... and was so neurotic about it that got rid of duvet,pillows and (ex) dp out of the bed. I also always made sure i slept facing ds as well. He did sleep better for being in with me (not sure i did) but i had an awful struggle to get him in his own bed eventually.... oh and he fell out twice when he was learning to crawl. That said i would do it all again if there is ever a second tme!

the rationale are 2 things:
a. no studies have been done looking specifically at the safety or
risk factors of ff babies and parents.

b. from other observations, not looking directly at formula feeding co-sleeping infants and parents, the ff parents do not seem to have the same amount of awareness of the presence of the baby in the bed as bf parents do.

so it is not advised by way of lack of evidence not by specific findings.

research by Dr Helen Ball at Durham Uni suggests that a lot of ff babies bedshare even if part time so it is not a black and white issue by any means. It would be nice to see some sort of study in this phenomenon because it is prevalent if taboo.

I think taboo is a rather strong word to use in reference to cosleeping with a formula fed baby. Plus, until you have done both, how on earth do you know you become a less aware mother?

if breastfeeding fails, is baby evicted? This does seem pointlessly cruel!

PS I put the moses basket on the bed, right next to my head. The chances of the duvet getting in there, or of me rolling on him, were very slim.

I bedshared with my daughter right from the start, with duvet (but a very new synthetic one that didn't snuggle into corners) and without pillows and without anyone else in the huge double bed (which had a very firm mattress).

I always slept facing her, so that she could wake up at any time and help herself to a snack.

it is taboo in this culture to say that you cosleep whether or not you ff.

there have been video recordings of bedsharing parents made by infant sleep researchers and seem to show that ff parents have less awareness of their babies in their beds than bf parents do.

this is not something I am making up as I go along or implying any judgement of parents irregardless of how they choose to sleep with their babies. the articles on which these findings are based are out there on the net for all to read and digest.

Ok, fair enough. so really, what does happen when you stop breastfeeding? Do you lose awareness of the baby? (serious question, I FF so I don't have any experience)

I still think my way of doing it was safe though (well I would, wouldn't I)

I stopped bfing at 7 months and my DS still occasionally bed shares. I don't think I became less aware of him at all. He still wakes me up with every whimper

Thanks for all the advice and that useful link, kiskidee - I'm planning to breastfeed and me and dh not obese or into getting wasted at the mo so we do fit the criteria for co-sleeping.

I've read Deborah Jackson's book twice now (it didn't seem to go in the first time) but there's no specific info about duvets, which is why I thought I'd ask the experts on Mumsnet.

MarsyChristmas - I like the idea of having the baby up by my head so the duvet can't go over him, but won't that make it harder to breastfeed without waking up?

Anna8888 - you slept without pillows?! Maybe this is hard for me to imagine right now because of the heartburn, hip pain etc etc...

ernestina - I kept my duvet and my DS slept on top of it with his head on the sheet. I had a pillow too. TBH when he was really little, I couldn't get the hang of lying down breastfeeding at all - took me a while - so I had to sit up to feed. I would imagine that at first you'll be the same so don't worry about that aspect yet.

you could try using a baby sleeping bag and have baby on top of duvet.....

i slept with a summer duvet and pyjamas. put dd on top of the duvet in sleepsuit and grobag. I only prefer a thin pillow anyway and she was kept below that. it took a little while to learn to bf lying down and dozing off but it is a skill worth persevering with.

colditz, I don't know what you do if you stop bf. as i still bf a bedsharing 2.8yo at night. one thing the research out there does show is that bedsharing promotes breastfeeding and sleep so mothers are more likely to continue to breastfeed because they bedshare.

as i have said, there is no research out there, that i have come across anyway which looks specifically at bedsharing and ff infants.

i would suggest to someone else to learn as much about roomsharing and bedsharing as she can (not from a hv or like as a general rule) and apply them to her own personal circumstance. One of the last things I want to see is bureaucracy telling me what to do in my own bed.

you are right about skin to skin madamhurdicure. if mother and child were under the same amount of covering, the mother would help the child to regulate its body temp.

Inuit are known to sleep virtually naked as families under traditional skin blankets in igloos.

Not a safety tip, butI always had a folded cot sheet for the baby to lie on and a spare where it was easy to grab. That way I didn't have to change the whole bed if some milk came back up.