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?

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…?

I co-slept with both of my babies, although it was never really my intention to do so. I’ve always been the type of person who cherishes sleep, so when we brought our daughter home from the hospital I was quite shocked at my newborn’s apparent aversion to sleeping for more than an hour at a time. I’d never been around a newborn so this lack of sleeping was quite unexpected.

One day when my daughter was around two weeks old, with me in a fatigue-induced stupor, I lay down on the bed with my daughter. She nudged her head against me in an attempt to nurse, and instead of sitting up and assuming the familiar position I just nursed while laying down. I didn’t know this was possible, but it worked splendidly and both my daughter and I fell off to sleep for almost four hours straight.

Four hours of consistent sleep for a new mom? That’s a gift more valuable than gold.

From that day on my daughter slept right next to me at night until she was around four months old. I’m certainly not saying that co-sleeping was something I would encourage, because the sleep I got was broken at best since I was too terrified of rolling over onto her to move. I will admit to you, however, that once in a while I miss sleeping next to her. The sound of her contended sighs in the middle of the night were music to my ears. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m incredibly glad when I can get a full night’s sleep nowadays, and if I had to do it all over again I probably would have tried harder to get her into a crib from the get-go. Someone is going to have to let me in on the secret of how to do that.