Co-sleeping - The Big Debate

I remember when we did our NCT classes our teacher asked us if any of us were planning on co-sleeping. We all shook our heads with the naivety/over-confidence of couples with no experience with babies and muttered something along the lines of 'absolutely not, it's important for them to sleep alone and for us to have adult time once they're in bed'.

Then we had babies that we loved more than we could ever have imagined. We developed deep-rooted, maternal, animal instincts and we also went from averaging 10 hours sleep a night to 3...that was a biggie for me.

I never planned on co-sleeping, for the first month of Henry's life I put him in the Moses basket by our bed over and over again each night. Some nights he settled well but other nights he'd wake up as soon as we lay him flat...his reflux caused by the dairy intolerance definitely didn't help. Babies aren't programmed to sleep independently. They can be trained to do it, but it's not something that mammals do naturally. Sleeping with their parents, particularly their mother is something that will settle almost any baby or child and there's a reason for that. We are programmed to feel safest with our mother, particularly at such a young age.

I remember so clearly the first night that I fell asleep with Henry in bed with me. His reflux was terrible and he screamed every time we lay flat. The only way he would settle was upright, lying on my chest while I sat up, propped up by a million pillows in bed. I obviously fell asleep but woke up hours later with a baby that was perfectly content. After that Henry still went to sleep in his own bed, but if he was unsettled, I just put him in bed with us or went to sleep next door in the spare bed with him. It saved my sanity at 3am and enabled Mr B to function properly at work the next day. Before accepting co-sleeping I remember complaining to my mum that I couldn't nap during the day because I never knew how long Henry would settle for in his cot at nap time. She told me to take Henry back to bed with me and that's exactly what I did, and often continue to do so even now. There is nothing nicer than coming in from work and snuggling up with my little boy for the afternoon. He sleeps for at least 2 hours every afternoon and it's so nice knowing that I can too if I'm tired and need a nap.

Luckily we did NCT classes and despite naively thinking that we'd never do it, our teacher made sure we knew how to make co-sleeping safe. Planned, safe cosleeping is very different to falling asleep with a baby on the sofa at 3am. Yesterday a new study was released saying that co-sleeping is dangerous before the age of one because it increases the risk of SIDS 5 fold. The study had several major flaws, not taking many major factors like obesity, prescription drugs and pregnancy factors into account. They also failed to look at whether or not the cosleeping was planned or not and it really worries me that people will read the study and:

A) feel desperately worried and guilty about co-sleeping

B) lie to health visitors and midwives about co-sleeping and therefore not be given the best advice about doing it safely

C) Unnecessarily lose so much valuable sleep trying to settle an unhappy baby in a place that he or she just doesn't feel safe and content sleeping.

SIDS isn't something that we understand fully. There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding it and medical professionals can't explain many cases. For those parents desperately unfortunate to lose a child to SIDS, putting the blame onto them for cosleeping is horrendous...especially when there is no proven link between safe cosleeping and SIDS. 

Japan has one of the lowest rates of infant mortality and SIDS in the world, yet co-sleeping is widely practised and socially acceptable. In fact, many families sleep alongside their children until their teenage years. 

Ultimately studies like this aren't remotely helpful in preventing cot death. What would be more helpful would be proper, sensible, factual information being given to ALL parents about cosleeping from day one. Surveys have shown that around three quarters of new parents will cosleep at least once in the first few months. All the ideals you have about sleep pretty much go out of the window when you've had no decent sleep in weeks. People are going to resort to cosleeping when they're tired, surely educating them to do this safely is much more worthwhile than telling mammals not to do something which comes so naturally to them. 

And as for us, we will continue to co-sleep happily on the nights when Henry won't settle himself. I am making the most of my baby snuggles, I can't believe how quickly he's growing up and I know in a few years time I will look back at these co-sleeping days with such happy memories. In about 18 years time I'll be lying awake at night wondering where my grown up boy is and what time he'll be home and I'll wish more than anything that I could be back tucked up in bed with my tiny baby boy again.