NHS now say you can cosleep safely.

[Emmamoo89]

The never sleep with your baby has now been removed and updated to be safe if you share your bed with your baby.

Isn't that awesome 👏 😊

I'm not sure if you've done a lot of research but co sleeping has been said to be safer than not co sleeping for many year now. One caveat is most people wouldn't actually do it in a safe way which raises their risks individually. It was easier/safer to just say it wasn't advised rather than ensure everyone follows all the safe co sleeping steps. Glad it's being changed and hope people take heed of how to do it safely

Sorry, but I'm going back to this because I'm really quite angry now.

I suffered PPP after my first two pregnancies. I was prescribed antipsychotic meds that absolutely knocked me out. I couldn't wake up for love nor money, night feeds were entirely on Dad.

Apparently, putting my babies in a cot damaged them and made them feel abandoned. This is a really nasty thing to imply, when there are mothers like me who COULDN'T co-sleep due to the inherent danger of me accidentally smothering my babies and being physically unable to respond to their cues.

If you want to co-sleep, go for it. But don't take it for granted that everyone can, and don't use language like "damage" and "abandonment" when a mentally unwell mother is already wracked with guilt and fear.

The smugness here is absolutely unreal. None of my children were abandoned or damaged because we didn't share a bed. Their safety came first.

I'm sorry you went through that. X

@Emmamoo89

Thank you so much that’s all so super helpful. That’s my plan- if I can, keep him on the boob a week or two then pump and breast. Or just breast, but pump and freeze extra for when I’m just exhausted at midnight on my own. Hence getting the pump so it’s ready while I had the funds at the time. As well as bags for freezer and heater for ease too and all the nipple cream stuff. They told me to pump a couple of weeks before for the colostrum to save that? I wish their advice was consistent. Also re the sleeping that’s helpful too thank you. I would like to try it as I feel it would help the bond (I’m really scared of breast feeding due to sexual assault and worried I’ll feel .. I don’t know. Weird.) and also help the night feeds again being alone I would rather he be there I can put my tit in his mouth (well lift him to it) and feed then lay back down to sleep. I won’t sleep if I’m up and down and up and down picking him up to feed. And he will feel my stress and it’ll end up a vicious cycle I think. But again if it doesn’t work out or I don’t like it or he doesn’t I won’t co sleep. I really appreciate all this advice I really can’t google cos anxiety and I know it’ll just come up with BREAST IS BEST and articles on MOTHER SMOTHERS BABY. I googled in the beginning and nearly went half mad with it all. Equally if I ask health professionals I get conflicting advice/ told it’s dangerous or don’t do this or you must do that. My aim here is to make my life as easy as possible so that he and I are less stressed because happy mum happy baby. He’s had enough stress in the womb I already feel anxious and mum guilt over. He doesn’t need more stress from me and I don’t need to be constantly beating myself up either. To feed him as best I can whether that’s breast. Pump. Both. Or formula. And bond well. The rest is information overload I don’t need. Thank you again 🙏

Yes, and babies have died from being accidentally suffocated since the dawn of time. Like many things, it can be made safer, but it will never be risk free.

Dogs and many other animals co sleep. It’s natural, but it’s not unusual for a puppy to be unintentionally smothered.

There are pros and cons to cots and bed sharing. People should be empowered to make the best decision for both them, but pretending cots are bad and insinuating that co sleeping is the only ‘right’ choice is just as bad as demonising co sleeping.

@Emmamoo89

Also super helpful re waiting to pump I didn’t know that and health visitor lady told me I can pump a couple of weeks before he’s born for the colostrum (but then told me I don’t need a pump yet 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️)

I’m so sorry you went through that. Please don’t listen to people preaching on the internet. You did not damage your baby by putting them to sleep in a cot.

I used a syringe. Just do that instead of syringe. Its easier 😊

It's no problem and please don't beat yourself up. Do the best for you and baba. You are going to be a fantastic mam 😊❤️

It's not safe to co-sleep. There is no such thing as safe co-sleeping.
Of course many people will be quoting Japan and McKenna but it's total crap.
So much survivor's bias it's unreal.
Not much point arguing about it because people will do what they want. I am just glad that both my kids were put to sleep on their backs in empty cots with no blankets, away from windows and furniture.

I never co slept! I was too scared! But we had a next to me crib and that seemed like the best of both worlds. Each to their own I guess

Well as a midwife I’ve being giving th8s advice for ages/years and it’s evidence based. We even have leaflets on the ward. Possibly from unicef. Says cosleeping is ok as long as you haven’t been drinking, doing drags, aren’t excessively tired, in a bed, not on a sofa, make sure baby doesn’t overheat/go under duvet, etc

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/07/Co-sleeping-and-SIDS-A-Guide-for-Health-Professionals.pdf

here, so even though not cosleeping is considered safest it isn’t safe just to tell people not to cosleep as people will do it anyway. So it’s about supporting people to make informed decisions and making sure if they do cosleep they do it as safely as possible.

Its good that you did that 😌

Yep always do what's best for you.

And baba*

Yes agree with this. You'll always get parents (mainly mums to be fair) saying x, y or z is better and usually some hyperbole about how anything else is bad but it's invariably not the case. You absolutely made the right choice for you and your babies and they won't be affected by it.

It does seem sad that this might feel another stick for ‘failed breastfeeders’ to beat themselves with. Breastfeed? It’s perfectly safe! Natural, beautiful, what a bond. Formula feed? Dangerous, risky, not advised. I can’t see how bf makes it safer? I bf one of mine and ff the other and co- slept sporadically with both.

It can be safe. And my son has a blanket. He can push it away.

It's because breastfed babies naturally stay close to the boob

@Emmamoo89 newborns can barely move independently though and regardless of bf surely stay near the mother?
If there’s evidence for it fair enough but as someone who had severe PND triggered by an inability to breastfeed being then not allowed to do another ‘amazing bonding’ thing would have been a dagger to the heart.

Yes. Even when exhausted after the birth and I didn’t immediately wake for a feed I woke as he wriggled in seeking the breast.

In hospital I’ve always found midwives supportive of cosleeping, and hilariously random with safe sleep: tucking DS into bed with me on top of a pillow and tying him in place with a sheet, or doing tricks with rolled up towels to keep us all in place. I’m in hospital right now with him and they’ve set us up a bed to cosleep in, along with the towel bumpers in a cot if that’s preferred.

Coslept with DD out of sheer necessity and she sleeps in her own bed fine most nights; comes into ours if she has a nightmare, which is fine. Being small and alone and frightened is awful when you’ve got the option to not be alone, with your parents right next door. She’s welcome in our bed as long as she needs us.

Thank you @Boringcookingquestion

If I'd read this thread as a new mother who was desperately unwell, yet trying to do the right thing by my baby, I'd have been inconsolable. I would've felt like even more of a failure.

Everyone has different approaches to parenting, but as I said, the smugness on this thread is awful.

It is not always safe. That's a ridiculous thing to say.
Nothing is always safe.
Co sleeping babies have died before and will again.
As have car drivers, aeroplane passengers etc etc.
it doesn't happen often, but when it dies, it's devastating