In the last 10 weeks, four babies have died co-sleeping with their parents or grandparents in Milwaukee, and currently police are investigating a fifth death,  of a two-month-old baby boy who died in his mother’s bed on Sunday.

I started reading the news report wondering what could cause so many tragic deaths in such a short time. I’ve always thought that responsible co-sleeping is safe and various respected pediatricians (such as Dr. Sears) and child-care experts (such as Elizabeth Pantley) agree. So what could be happening in Milwaukee? Should other parents in Wisconsin be scared?

The mom of the latest baby to die admitted to police that she had been drinking at a wedding the night her baby died. The previous baby to die in Milwaukee was a six-week old boy. His mother also admitted to drinking before falling asleep with the baby in her bed. Then there was a three-month-old boy who died sleeping on the couch with his grandmother. His grandmother told police she had drunk eight beers that night. And before that, a six-day-old baby girl died sleeping on a couch with her mother. Her mom told police that she was drunk the night before. (Her daughter was SIX DAYS OLD.)

There was only one baby of the five whose caregiver wasn’t drinking on the night her baby died. I read to the end of the report and I want to cry for those babies and I just can’t imagine what their parents were thinking.

I still think co-sleeping is safe, but only if it’s done safely. Not being drunk has to be one of the top safety tips for co-sleeping. Sleeping on a couch with a baby also seems to put a baby at greater risk. 

Before I had my daughter, I never imagined I’d allow her to nurse as much as she wanted—sometimes using me as a pacifier. I was staunchly against co-sleeping, and couldn’t imagine holding her nearly every waking hour.

I’ll be honest; my perception of “attachment parenting” was that it’s a new age-y concept designed for SAHMs who would raise clingy, co-dependent children. I couldn’t have been more wrong on every level.

As I read more about attachment parenting, I learned that attachment parenting actually helps to raise more trusting, confident children who are secure in the fact that their needs will be met.

I also realized that attachment parenting is not as challenging as it may sound. After all, who wouldn’t want to keep this bundle of joy as close as possible?

I like Dr. Sears’ views on the matter. On his Web site, he states: “[AP is] actually the style that many parents use instinctively.” That is exactly what I discovered in the first few weeks of motherhood, too.

My daughter isn’t comfortable in a carrier, probably because I don’t feel secure holding her in it, so we’re not completely “attached.” But I often work with her sitting on my lap, carry her around during chores, and do anything requiring two hands while she naps. Even when she’s not in my arms, if she’s awake, I’m doing something with her: Reading, playing, or feeding her. As she grows I’m sure we’ll transition away from this arrangement or become comfortable with the carrier… obviously, I can’t carry her in my arms forever. But I’m fortunate to be able to schedule my day to spend as much time with her as possible.

And co-sleeping? After taking all the necessary safety precautions, it turns out co-sleeping in the early hours of the morning when the baby wakes up and needs to eat, is just easier. She starts the night in her bassinet, but joins us after her four o’clock feeding, when we both fall asleep. Another confession? I rather like having her cuddled up next to me.

Feeding on cue became easy once I learned her hunger signals, and it just so happens she still has a hearty appetite that needs food about every hour-and-a-half. This can be harrowing, but I get through it by reminding myself that she won’t be nursing forever, and when I start her on cereal in a short six weeks, her belly will stay full longer.

I’ve also discovered that feeding her while I eat (especially in restaurants) is a great way to keep her quiet and happy through mealtimes. It’s even kept us from having to leave restaurants mid-meal, as I will never (I don’t believe in absolutes, but there’s no room for compromise with this one) be an inconvenience to other customers by permitting a crying baby to disrupt the entire room.

I’ve often laughed that our approach to parenting would upset the “diehard” AP practitioners as well as those who believe in strict scheduling. When I’ve mentioned my refusal to let the baby “cry it out,” I’ve heard comments like, “Oh, you’re not one of those ‘attachment parent types’ are you?” And AP practitioners probably feel I’m not close enough because I sometimes supplement with formula and don’t use a sling-style carrier or keep the baby with me during her daytime naps.

But I try to avoid extremes and excesses in every area of my life… why should parenting be any different? Maybe I’ll write a book and start my own parenting philosophy. I’ll call it “Do what works for you and your baby.”

According to the renowned William Sears, M.D. and Martha Sears, R.N., there is a very good argument to support co-sleeping, or sleeping with your baby.

The pair prefer the term ?shared sleep? when it comes to parents and babies sharing beds and sleep-time. They claim that teaching or training the young baby to put herself to sleep is only a tradition in the U.S., and a recently developed one at that. In most other cultures, parents share sleep with their children. Doing so can be a very healthy and natural progression from womb to mother?s breast to beside mother during sleep.

Shared sleep is much more than a shared bed; it is shared sleep cycles. Baby learns not to resent going to sleep and instead to associate it with his favorite, most comforting people in the world (and a big warm bed!).

Some important observations regarding sleep-sharing are discussed in Dr. Sears? The Baby Book. Dr. Sears quotes Dr. James McKenna, director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab at Notre Dame. Dr. McKenna studied sleep-sharing pairs for more than a decade. His conclusions show that sleep-sharing encourages synchronized sleep cycles between parent and child. Often, when one member of the pair coughs or stirs, so does the other, often without waking. Further, each member of the pair tends to often, but not always, be in the same sleep stage for longer periods when sharing sleep.

If baby is in a separate crib, he is more likely to be in a light sleep cycle when mother is in a deep cycle, and vice-versa. It is more exhausting for a mother to be woken from a deep sleep than from a light sleep. As babies wake during the light stage of sleep, it makes sense for her sleep cycle to be in sync with her mother?s.

Dr. Sears? and Dr. McKenna ?s studies show that mothers report feeling more rested after sleeping with their babies, vs. sleeping separately. I can attest to the fact that when my baby isn?t sleeping so well, it?s much more tiring to get myself out of bed than it is to only half-awaken and roll over to comfort or feed him.

Dr. Sears points out that all young children eventually outgrow wanting to sleep with their parents, and that our children are babies for such a short time. Why not be there for them during the long, dark nights to reassure them that they are safe?

With Dr Ferber, Weisbluth and all the doctors who have written books telling parents all about the importance of independent sleeping, your grandma, your mom, and the enormous variety of cribs and mobiles and crib bedding sets available in retails stores across the nation, you could be forgiven for thinking that every baby in the world goes in a crib and co-sleeping families are few and far between.

In fact, some studies claim that 70% of parents have co-slept with their child for some or all of the night.

For anyone who’s co-sleeping and thinks she’s the only one, try this experiment: if you are at a playdate with other mom, admit you co-sleep. You might be surprised as to how many other moms do too. I can think of a lot of co-sleeping moms I know, and it’s not all the hippie granola stereotype moms – one is the ex-vice-president of a multinational company, another one is a dentist.

When my son was an infant, he woke up every hour to nurse. He started the night sleeping in a bassinet beside the bed, and by 4 a.m. he was in bed with me so I could get some sleep.

By 12 months, he was sleeping through the night. It was somewhat of a relief to have him sleep all night in his crib, although I did miss having the little wiggly fidgety thing in bed with me.

Then around the time he turned two, major changes happened in our family – a cross country move and his dad leaving the home. He refused to sleep in his crib. So he’s back in bed with me. It’s nice to have him back, although now things are settling down around here I’m planning to get a toddler bed and gently try to have him sleep in there.

So basically, I’ve been flexible about where my son sleeps, and adapted, depending on the circumstances.

So how do you decide what to do? There’s pros and cons of co-sleeping, and the correct place to put your baby to sleep is only something that you can decide. You, your partner, and your baby are the people who should decide where baby should sleep. Partly because it’s you being woken up at night, and partly because you are the one who knows you and your family best, and what is working or not working for you.

If you do decide to co-sleep, here’s a must-read list of safe sleeping practices for co-sleeping families.

Co-sleeping. Some parents of babies (and in a few cases, toddlers) swear by it, and others swear to never do it. Whichever side of the fence you sit, it can become a heated topic. Here are some thoughts for and against co-sleeping:
For

• babies tend to sleep more soundly when cuddled with a parent
• breastfeeding is much more convenient
• additional opportunities for family bonding

Against

• some believe co-sleeping results in children who cannot self-soothe
• parents lose privacy and intimacy
• parents sleep lees soundly because of the fear of rolling over on their child
• some children are active sleepers, making it difficult for the parents to get a good night’s sleep
• 75% of all SIDS related deaths are caused by babies sleeping face down on a soft surface (which many adult beds are, especially with the recent trend towards “pillow top” mattresses)

Personally, with our daughter, we started out with her sleeping in a cradle. Eventually she and my wife co-slept while I took refuge in the guest room, mainly due to my wife’s condition post-c-section. Once my wife was able to get herself out of bed and retrieve the baby herself, we transitioned her to her own crib. Now, it is something that happens at 5am when she wakes up and our choices are co-sleep or get up for the day.

Source: ‘Family bed’ has pluses, minuses via IndyStar.com.

What are your thoughts on co-sleeping? Did you co-sleep with your children? Did breastfeeding play a part in your decision?

I’ve had to revisit the issue of sleep training again, an issue I once thought of as solved. You see before we left for the greener pastures of California, to start my life as a new SAHM, Mina had her sleeping pattern down to a routine we both could live with. She was down by 8 pm, slept anywhere from 5-7 hours, woke up for a night feeding and then down again for another few hours until she was up for good at 7ish.

Now we’re week 1 into our life in California, and her crib has yet to make an appearance. She has had to sleep with me in bed, and some very bad patterns are emerging. She will not fall asleep unless I cradle her. I just can’t pull her blankie over her and lie down on my own space. She has to be cradled. If she wakes up and I’m not skin to skin with her, she starts crying. I’m sure this extra clinginess is also attributable to the fact that there’s just too many new things bombarding her, and she’s clinging to the most familiar: me.

I don’t know what battles will face me when I try to get her to independently sleep in her crib like she had been happy to do back in our old home. I pray to the sleeping gods it is short-lived or non-existent. Non-existent would probably be too good to be true.

Her crib arrives tomorrow. We shall see then.

There is one question I avoid, at all costs….

?Is Paige sleeping in her crib yet??

Depending on my mood, I either mumble ?Nosheissleepingwithmebutsometimesshenapsinhercrib…? Or I sigh and go on my tyrant about the joys of co-sleeping. How it’s easier for me, since Paige gets up two, or three times a night to just hand her a pacifier, or a nip off her bottle without completely waking up. How I love sharing a bed with her, how in the morning I can let her sit there gurgling while I get an extra thirty minutes of rest.

They don’t understand.

Before Paige was born I insisted we move out of our one bedroom apartment because ?the baby under NO circumstances would be sleeping in our room…? We needed to make love, have privacy, etc and by god my child was going to learn independence! One six hundred dollar crib later I decided for the first few weeks of life Paige could sleep in a bassinet in our bedroom…It’s just easier, I told everyone and they agreed. One baby later, I found myself obsessed with Paige. She was small, and needy…she slept in the changing station of her bassinet because it was small, and cozy and easier for me to check to see if she was breathing one or one thousand times per night. I read articles on SIDS, and I learned that it can peak at two, and four months. I told my husband we will have to keep Paige in our room, until she’s six months ?just to be careful…? I read a poor review about our bassinet and went out and purchased a better, safer model that vibrated and played soothing music….and took up half our bedroom.

Phil was establishing his own business and started working late into the night, often falling asleep on the couch. On those nights Paige would sleep next to me, nestled in her Boppy and those were the nights I got the best rest. I began to use the crib for the two, or three hours Paige slept before I went to bed…when she woke up, I would take her to the couch to snuggle for her feeding, more often than not falling asleep with her in my arms. At four months, while most babies slept five, or six hour stretches Paige got up three, or four times a night. I started toying with the idea of really co-sleeping, not camping out on the couch at night.

Paige starts off her nights in her playpen, sleeping soundly to the buzz of our evening routine- keyboards clicking, a movie, the pages of a book flipping. When it’s time to hit the sack I scoop her up, and carry her into our bed. Since forever I’ve been going to bed before midnight; my husband is the night owl; he’s at his most creative when the apartment is silent and so for the most part it’s just my daughter and I snuggling in our queen sized bed. She still gets up two or three times a night, but it’s only for a second. I like to think she wakes up and sees me curled up next to her, and is comforted enough to fall back asleep. When Phil joins us at night, she sleeps in between us, a kind of family sandwich.

Sometimes when I talk to other moms about co-sleeping they are horrified. One woman went on a rant about how I might just roll over on her while I am sleeping and smother her. After explaining to her that I really can’t see myself rolling onto a 17lb four month old unless I was heavily intoxicated (and if that was the case, I wouldn’t have her in bed with me), she told me to ?go tell that to all the other moms, who have smothered their babies during the night…? Some people think I’m going to create a clingy baby who will never go to sleep in her crib, and others just think I’m crazy because apparently the night time is the only time for sex and cuddling.

Paige is five months old now; she isn’t clingy…she can spend time playing in her playpen with her dinosaur that speaks French, or her zebra print mirror that giggles if she assaults it hard enough. My husband and I have a healthy sexy life and the other night fell asleep holding hands above our daughters head, I (most of the time) get a full nights sleep, and I have no plans to stop co-sleeping. My husband asks when we are moving Paige to her crib, insisting that he’s just wondering and has no problems with her sharing our sleep space, and I just smile a little and say, quite clearly ?When it’s a toddler bed…?