Co-sleeping with a toddler and breaking the rules?

[DitaVonCheese]

DD is one on Sunday. We have been co-sleeping for ages now. We started off being very safe, eg no drinking, she would only sleep on my side, not next to DH etc. However, over the past month or so things have started to slide, eg I now have a (small) glass of wine or two before bed, and she often ends up sleeping between us eg so I can feed from the other boob. It all feels so much safer now that she's so big and chunky. It this okay or should we still be strict about drinking etc? I can't seem to find anything on the web about sleeping with an older baby.

Thanks

As far as I can tell from the stuff I've read on the web, the risk of harm decreases as your baby gets older. And babies under 3 months old are at the greatest risk. So I suppose it depends on your attitude to risk. Clearly following all the guidelines to the letter would be the safest thing, but you've got to balance that with the factors you mentioned. And the fact that you are much less likely to smother a toddler than a tiny baby.

This is all I can find on the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths about toddlers.

BTW, although DD (15 months) sleeps in a cot in her own room, we bring her into our bed if she wakes up in the night and won't settle, and she always sleeps inbetween us...

I don't cosleep any more but until my son was 6 months we did most nights and although we were safe and followed most FSIDs rules, I would sometimes have a glass of wine (never any more), my partner is a smoker ( I know but the baby would not sleep anywhere else...and neither would my partner) and occasionally we had the baby in the middle.

Most people I know who cosleep put the baby in the middle btw.

I doubt you'll find any guidelines that sanction this but the tiny risk on SIDS massively diminishes after 6-12 months - the other issues would be making sure she couldn't suffocate and there was no risk of you rolling in your sleep by drinking heavily or taking drugs, having a firm mattress, blankets, no pillows etc.

There was a great conversation here a few months ago with Dr. George Haycock, medical advisor to FSIDs - did you read it?

Thanks for the replies

Belle I started reading the conversation but got distracted early on - might try to find it for a re-read.