Cosleeping with poorly baby hospital?

[Teandcake321]

My baby is currently really poorly with an ear infection and might need to be admitted to the children’s hospital but we’ve coslept since birth (now 4.5 months). I don’t think he’d sleep without contact. Any cosleeper a have any advice of how to handle/do cosleeping whilst in hospital with babe?

You'll need to ask the hospital if that's something they can support. It's unlikely though, as their beds etc aren't conducive to safe cosleeping. A friend had this issue when their baby had meningitis and they weren't able to co-sleep as you can't safely co-sleep in a single bed with sides and that's all the hospital had.

@MolliciousIntent oh no! 😭 what did your friend end up doing?

my baby will just scream 😢

My youngest was hospitalised at 8months and I was allowed to cosleep. They got us and adult bed the sides had to be up. It wasn't comfortable for me as was on side against rail entire night so baby had enough space. Speak to hospital about whT they can do for you

Tbh I think their baby was so sick she was sedated most of the time. I know she slept alone fine once they got out of the hospital because she was used to it, though?

I coslept with a new born and with a toddler in hospital (separate occasions). Just talk to the nurse about it.

I've coslept at some point during all 4 admissions with my babies.
Sometimes they give us a whole hospital bed to share and I had to sign something.
Another time a hospital bed but they asked I change to cot as baby got more poorly and needed lots of treatments. Actually baby was so unwell they slept OK without me initially. Once they were on the mend they were back in bed with me though as wouldnt sleep.

More recently they left a cot in the room and said I could do what I liked with the cot and adult campbed, although they don't "endorse" cosleeping.

I was allowed to do it, albeit with a 15 month old so older. Like pp said it was in an adult bed with the sides up.

It was that or he kept the whole ward awake crying so they were quite keen to find solutions tbh

I co slept in the pull down bed in my daughters room in hospital when she was in with viral meningitis at 8 weeks old. Hope yours makes a speedy recovery!

I've done it a few times over the years. Just ask for an bed for your child instead of a cot. They sometimes don't allow it though but would say my baby could spend alot of the night in with me "feeding" 😉

I co-slept with one of my newborns in the post natal ward beds. Sides up. Cabinet against side of bed, and daughter under my arm in the crook of my elbow. Worked fine

You should get a bed so use that. If they're reluctant ask if you can sign something to say you're aware of what they recommend and the risks etc - personally having a baby attached to an oxygen monitor with constant obs made me pretty reassured!

I just took my 4 month out of the hospital bed and had her on me, I ensured all her lines were still in and monitor working correctly. No one said anything to me, but it had got to 4 am with no chance of her sleeping on the noisy ward otherwise.

When my 14 month old was ill (3 years ago now) I just climbed into bed with him each night - I didn't say anything and neither did they. However, I did wonder if it was because he was over 1 as I think the safe sleep guidelines apply to under 1s.

Just been in hospital. Was asked to sign a disclaimer saying they wouldn't be responsible if anything happened. I did cosleep a bit and no-one commented. However DS cannot roll yet so we were okay on the hospital bed, it would have been much harder with a more mobile baby.

When my daughter was 10 months old she was in for a few nights, we normally didn’t co sleep but she would not sleep on her own I. Hospital and cried every time I put her down. All they had was a cot for her and a recliner chair for me, I held her all night sitting in the chair. It was dire but thankfully only for a few nights.

@MotherOfDragon20 that must’ve been awful for you! Bless you.

I coslept with my 15month old a few years ago. We just used the pull out armchair bed thing that was supposed to be for me as I just couldn't get him to settle in his cot. We never normally coslept at home. I was also pregnant at the time. It was horrible but I had to let him get some sleep. On the last day they said we could have had an adult bed but it was too late by then!

Ask the staff but in my hospital it is not allowed after a child who already had a head injury co slept with parents and fell out of the bed and fractured their skull.

My ward manager will go in and wake up parents who are co sleeping and ask them repeatedly not to. Seems pointless to me tbh but just ask

I'm a paediatric nurse. We really really don't like co sleeping with very young babies. It's not safe, and we need easy access to baby during the night. You can insist on a bed, if you are adamant that's what you want to do, and we'll probably put a monitor on.

We aren't even supposed make nests out of blankets anymore as they are against safe sleeping guidelines.

@sleighedd mine will do the same. But we've recephad major issues with a family who took over half a bay as they had a cot and patient bed and we could not evict, no matter how hard we tried. Even our lovely manger failed!

I coslept when my poorly baby was in hospital, she slept on my chest, everytime the nurses came round to do obs (every 2 hours I think?) they’d move her back to the crib and tell me off. I just picked her back up again. We did have a large room to ourselves though and she was very very poorly so we were there for 2 weeks.

My baby was admitted twice.

First time at 1 week, second time at 4 weeks. I had a parent bed the first time so I coslept with her in there and the second time, I actually used a child's bed, the staff just put a cot next to me which I never used.

Nurses told me only once not to cosleep but I ignored them. They were still able to do obs without waking either of us.

They were even able to do DD's antibiotics IV whilst we were both asleep. I didn't even notice until I woke up.

Ask for an adult bed if they're concerned about safety and monitoring as there is no reason an adult bed with you in it will impede monitoring from what you have said here.

I co-slept with my not very mobile (gross motor delay so couldn't even roll) 8 month old when she was admitted with bronchiolitis. We shared a very narrow fold-out parent bed. It was quite low to the ground. They offered to move us so we could share a bigger bed but she was settled so we stayed like that.