Co Sleeping Or Sleep Alone

[etali]

I don't have children, but I'm still interested in the Co sleeping debate that came up on the Feminism thread.

Is this something that is becoming more popular? Several forums that I frequent have ended up seeing it come up, and it is always fiercly debated, with some people saying it is more natural and produces happy, secure children, and others saying that it is something the mother does out of a selfish desire to keep her child close to her, and creates phobias in children.

I have no idea which side is right, and I'm not presenting any side as my own opinion, just parroting what I've read in other debates.

Rather than continue to drag the feminism thread off topic, I thought I'd start a new one and say that I'm really interested to hear more from Britjojo, and anyone else who has experience either way.

[EMMY]

OK..I have no children, but I have a story: My girlfriend has two boys....Her first born slept with here until he was like SEVEN!!!! Funny..he is a whiny crybaby...His brother slept w/ his father for maybe a year...and he is a typical hell-raising boy's boy.....Noone could prove that this was the reason..but doesn't it make you wonder? Needless to say...The husband & wife weren't sleeping in the same bed for seven years either...IMO not healthy for a marriage...I have my own opinions on this but I hate to voice them b/c I don't want to get massacred b/c I don't have children of my own...

[bagcrazy]

For me personally, I don't believe in co-sleeping. I wanted to teach my daugher to self-sooth and know how to fall asleep on her own. If she is scared, or has a nightmare, etc., she will come in with me, which is fine. I just didn't want it to be every single night. I have found that we both sleep better and are more rested in the morning when we sleep in our seperate beds. Everyone is different and has to do what is best for themsleves and their child. I can't and don't want to make that decision for someone else, as well as I don't want someone making the decision for me.

[elaine130]

Originally Posted by bagcrazy

For me personally, I don't believe in co-sleeping. I wanted to teach my daugher to self-sooth and know how to fall asleep on her own. If she is scared, or has a nightmare, etc., she will come in with me, which is fine. I just didn't want it to be every single night. I have found that we both sleep better and are more rested in the morning when we sleep in our seperate beds. Everyone is different and has to do what is best for themsleves and their child. I can't and don't want to make that decision for someone else, as well as I don't want someone making the decision for me.

Britjojo, Emmy and Bagcrazy all make good points for and against co-sleeping. It's really up to the mother and/or father to decide what's best. Another perspective on the issue, though, is whether or not the parents decide to have a child-centered home or not. My dh and I want our children to know that altho they are an important member of the family, they do not dictate the family's activities, including mealtime, daily routines, fun stuff and even sleeping arrangements. They can express their point of view, but the final decision is made by the adults - me and dh. And they need to understand/respect that their mommy and daddy need to have their own time together - from having an uninterrupted conversation to sleeping. For me, a happy marriage is key to a happy family and happy children; this is best accomplished by establishing boundaries.

But as a special treat, my dh and I have agreed to let them both sleep with us on Weds. nights only. As crowded as the bed is, we actually enjoy having our kids sleep with us for one night only. Sometimes co-sleeping is as comforting to the parent(s) as it is to the child!

[etali]

Some interesting view points there.

Elaine - I think you have a good compromise there with sharing a bed only on specific nights - the nurturing, comfort, and encouraging independance, all in one go.

I guess it really depends on the family and the child what is best and will work for each one.

[elaine130]

Thanks, Etali! So far, it's working okay. We'll have to see what the next childrearing challenge is going to be!

[britjojo]

Ok I have to say that I never, ever bring this subject up on mainstream forums normally, so I am not sure what possessed me to do so here. I don't even recall doing so, but someone noticed

Anyway, let's get on with it. Before my daughter was born, I was COMPLETELY against co-sleeping. I thought it important to have the child near in the early months, in a bassinet at the side of my bed. But when she was born things changed.

For the first four months of her life she suffered badly from a severe moro reflex. It was so bad that within two or three minutes of falling asleep she would startle, and the reflex was so strong that it shook her awake. She'd been screaming and crying, and unable to get back to sleep.

So I learned very fast that snuggled was the only way she would stay asleep. This helped in other ways too. She was an exclusively breastfed infant, and would nurse hourly, night or day. For those of you who say you are against co-sleeping, I challenge any one of you to get up every hour through the night, spend 15 minutes out of that hour nursing a child, another ten putting them to sleep in their crib in another room, and then another twenty getting back to sleep yourself. I would get, if lucky, 15-20 minutes sleep before she woke again.

Now I am sure someone will pipe in here that I should have let her cry it out. I believe that practise to be absolutely barbaric-and studies in Australia have shown that it has a detrimental effect on infants who are put through it. It is not 'teaching children to fall asleep alone'. It is teaching them that from 7pm to 7am they are suddenly no longer worth your attention and they cannot depend on you for that 12 hours-they are on their own.

Thinking about how the child would feel when put through this was enough to make me know it wasn't for me.

So the co-sleeping came by accident, but made things so much better for my daughter and I. This way we are far better rested, and she knows she can depend on me.

Let me add that my husband and I slept in separate beds from when I was 6 months pregnant-it had nothing to do with co-sleeping. He is a VERY large man, and had sleep apnea. The snoring was of a volume, that even sleeping in another room, with earplugs in, I struggled to sleep through.

Eventually we got him a machine that stopped the snoring, and we tried to come back to the same bed. But the machine blew air up his nose and out his mouth and I got blasted in the face all night with foul breath whilst he bubbled at the mouth. And frequently the mask would fall off, and he'd be back to snoring again.

I left him because his violence escalated when dd was 6 months old. Co-sleeping at that point took on a new importance. For a start it meant that the limited room in my mother in law's house would be enough for us, as we needed only one bed. But the big thing was that she became terribly insecure when her father was suddenly not in her life-he never once has come to visit her and she's now 2 years old.

Co-sleeping gave her the security she needed because although dad had disappeared, mum was always there. For a long time she would scream if I was ever out of sight-my leaving her too, seemed to terrify her.

Yes there were times when I got kicked at night or she rolled over on me, but DH was WAY worse at it and at 330lb, he did way more damage-black eye even at one point because he rolled over and threw his arm over his head and punched me in the eye in doing so.

My daughter is extremely attached to me, but also to her nan, and her aunt. I think that co-sleeping helped her in developing those attachments because she is used to a close relationship.

I couldn't cope without it, simple as that. I would have gone crazy because of her poor sleep in the early months, as I have heard from many other co-sleeping mothers. If I ever have another child, I will co-sleep then too, and hence let the child know that they are important to me always, not just when is convenient to me.

She does not make the rules, nor the decisions. I decide what is for dinner and when, and I decide whether we are going out, staying in, whether we are visiting people, whatever. We are an attachment family, but not child centered.

[carebear]

I slept with my babies the first three months of their lives. It was much easier to prop them on a boob and sleep through a feeding than to get up and do it since they feed a lot during the first three months. Then I eased them into their basinette in my room and then into the crib. My 6 year old still crawls in bed with me at night. I don't mind as long as she starts out in her bed.

[britjojo]

We have just started looking at solutions that will work for us for getting my daughter into her own bed when she is a little older, given the limited space in our house. She will have to stay in my room, but we've seen some wonderful cabin beds that will give her a twin bed above my three quarters. Not imediately but we'll need our own space eventually.

[elaine130]

hi britjojo!

wow - just read your post about co-sleeping and it's really opened my eyes. thank you for that. i hope you know that i applaud your decision to co-sleep, really i do!

co-sleeping works for you and your daughter, not to mention for millions of other families throughout the ages, all over the world. in fact, many cultures still believe in carrying their babies with them all day long in papooses or slings, as well as comforting them throughout the night. so it's not just about co-sleeping, but it's about a child-rearing style sometimes referred to as "attachment parenting." a new name for a way of life that helped humans survive since the beginning of time. which makes me wonder why there's so much alienation going on with today's American kids/teens...is it partly because their parents believed in "de-tachment parenting"??? hmmm...

i liken the debate to the issue of breastfeeding - i nursed my first baby until 5 months (back to work) and then with my second until a full year. historically in the USA, breastfeeding became "out of vogue" sometime in the 50's or so when baby formula was introduced and soon in the 60's thru 70's nursing was downright frowned upon. in the past few decades breastfeeding (much like the trend of career-driven women choosing to become sahms) started to regain popularity with mothers. but there are still a lot of folks (surprisingly a lot of women!) out there who shudder at the sight of seeing a mother nurse her baby in public despite the fact that she's completely covered up! but i digress...

so anyway, i want you to know that i am glad that co-sleeping works for you and your daughter. you are sheltering her throughout this stormy period of both of your lives. but sweetheart, i just hope that you do get some good solid sleep on your own, too!

[britjojo]

Elaine, yes I am an attachment parent. From the time she was born she screamed if I wasn't holding her. She wouldn't let anyone else hold her either and her nan said that if her son had been like my daughter, she would have vowed to not have another. Her nan also said that there was no way in the world that SHE would have coped with my little precious.

I soon learned that a stroller wouldn't work because she screamed the place down. I couldn't do anything with her in arms, and so, I bought my first sling.

This is her the first time I put her in it, five weeks old;



Never in her life had she been so quiet, so content. She fell asleep almost straight away. From that day on the sling was almost never off my shoulder.

A few more sling pics;



Not in it, but at a wedding, still wearing it;


And lastly, one of my very favourite photos of her in it. She was about five months old here, and I was in the middle of vacuuming. My screaming, difficult baby was so content in the sling, that she even slept through the noisy old vacuum.



When she got bigger and too heavy for the sling, I got a mei tai from Little Leila Creations It was padded and fit over both shoulders and so distributed the weight better, hurt me less. It's still in use today and my two year old is now 33lb.

ETA; Just looking at and posting those photos here, I am crying! She was such a precious little thing, and so happy when she was in her sling-I hate to think how I would have coped and what child she would have turned into without it.

[elaine130]

britjojo - what a beautiful daughter you have! i especially love the second pic with you holding her darling face in your hand *sigh!* the way you look at her speaks volumes of how much you adore that little girl. she's lucky to have a wonderful mommy like you! thanks for sharing!

[carebear]

She looks so content next to momma.

[britjojo]

Thank you! Yes she is content when she is slung, even today it is the one sure fire way to calm her down when she is getting a little over wrought. Unfortunately her size now means that I cannot do this anymore, any where near as much as I would like to.

[dreamr802]

Hmmm, I don't have children, but I do not want to sleep with my children. The only time I will ever have my children sleep with my husband and I are if they are scared during thunderstorms or if they have a nightmare.

[medako]

before my son was born I fully intended on co-sleeping. I planned on exclusive breastfeeding and having him in bed with me/us just seemed like the convenient and easy thing to do. I gave birth to the most independent child ever. He didn't like to be cuddled much, he wasn't real keen on sleeping in my arms, and he tossed CONSTANTLY in his sleep.

After a few nights of trying to co-sleep and NO one getting rest, I decided to move him to the bassinet next to the bed. He was much more content, DH and I got better rest, and he was still within arms reach if he were to wake or need to eat.

At 4 months we transistioned to his own crib in his own room and at 6 months we sleep trained using a version of the cry it out method.

I love the idea of co-sleeping during the early months, but it just didn't work out that way for us. Maybe with our next...

[Gilipsie]

I had the misfortune to have my son get use to sleeping me when he was very young and it was hard to break him of it. Reading these posts makes me think maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

[r8rpwr]

This is one issue where I tend to think it depends on the situation.

I definitely intend to give it a go when I have children. There's a lot of evidence that it increases breastfeeding success. Plus, I imagine we will probably all get more sleep if I wasn't getting up several times a night, walking in the other room, turning on lights, etc.

[Lila42]

I have a sister-in-law who bought into the co-sleeping idea that really seems to be taking off. They now have a seven year old son whom they are still "trying" to get to stay in his bed all night. They have a four- year-old daughter who stays in her bed with no problems. They learned the hard way with the first child-bad idea. I didn't do it with mine. You love, nurture and care for your children all day. A little separation at night never hurt anyone. When they were tiny, a bassinette in the bedroom with me was fine. Obviously, if there are health issues with a baby, then things change. I found this article: co-sleeping (Here is an exerpt)


Co-sleeping (AKA "the family bed") refers to the practice of allowing children to sleep with their parents habitually. It is widely practiced in certain ethnic and racial groups in the US; the incidence is lowest in white upper- and middle-class families. Co-sleeping is promoted actively by many ardent advocates of breastfeeding, as well as by some physicians (notably William Sears, M.D., author with his wife of several parenting books), who advocate the "family bed." They claim a variety of unsubstantiated benefits for this practice.

The cultural roots of co-sleeping have more to do with economic necessity than anything else. The observation that most of the world's children sleep with their parents is simply a restatement of the fact that most of the world's children live in cramped quarters. The advantages claimed for co-sleeping are many but mainly center on purported significant emotional benefits to the child. These supposed benefits have not been actually documented. There is no evidence that cultures that practice co-sleeping produce adults who are any better adjusted (or worse) than those cultures who practice separation.

A recent study of co-sleeping by breast feeding infants showed that the co-sleeping infants nursed more frequently at night (surprise) and had more night wakings even when they slept apart from the mother. This reinforces my observations and my conclusion that habitually allowing babies to sleep with the parents is not a good long-term plan for average middle-class families in western industrial societies, as it leads to a host of sleep-related behavior problems later on in infancy and the toddler years. I have found it true in counselling mothers using my video that co-sleeping can lead to what is perceived by the parents as very dependent and demanding behavior from the child at night.

[ricci]

where can I read more about this issue?

[Aunt Bea]

I slept in my brothers bed with them until I was 15. but thats because we were poor and only had one bed room.

[ricci]

Originally Posted by Aunt Bea

I slept in my brothers bed with them until I was 15. but thats because we were poor and only had one bed room.

geez aunt bea, this could be the nature of some of your issues

[Aunt Bea]

you really think so Ricci???

why??

I would like to learn more about this stuff!

[ricci]

I dont know what the scientific med term is bea, but I think we are approaching discussion of incest and possible abuse. You may be blocking some old issues. Have you thought of this?

[Aunt Bea]

Really? you think so? I have no idea.


see its hard for me to remember. when the horse kicked me in the head and took my ear off, it came with some brain damage too, and I lost alot of my memory, so I have no idea if I was abused or not.

[anne022196]

Originally Posted by Aunt Bea

Really? you think so? I have no idea.


see its hard for me to remember. when the horse kicked me in the head and took my ear off, it came with some brain damage too, and I lost alot of my memory, so I have no idea if I was abused or not.

not a single moment?
hmmm thats a big problem aunt bea

[Bad Kitty]

I don't co-sleep after a month or so. I breast feed for a month or so, but that is all. After that, my kids are in their own bed. After a few months they are in their own room. This is actually MAINLY because, I am very serious about schedules and sleep for babies and children, and when they are in my room, we tend to disturb them too much. The truth is, I LOVE having them in the bassinet next to me at night, but once I get them sleeping all night, they get their own room since I put my kids to bed all at 7:30 every night without fail.

If family bed works for you, do it. If it doesn't don't! Pretty simple. Don't complain to me about not getting any sleep because you still have your child in bed at age 2, though. You chose for yourself and if you didn't see that one coming, you truly deserve the bags under your eyes and lost love life.

[luvbunnies42]

I have an almost 15 month old and I've had discussions with various friends on this topic and my opinion won't change.I only belive in co-sleeping if it's done in a safe manner. Meaning they have bassinets that can be placed aside the bed, co-sleepers that are made for in beds, and other available equipment/sleepers out there to make this work without doing possible harm to the child. To many factors can occur to cause possible damage. I know I personally wouldn't want to be responsible for rolling over on my child or having her suffocate in a pillow or blanket.

I rarely had my daughter in our bed sleeping with us.It was a rare occasion when she was little. It happened when I was utterly exhausted and feel asleep feeding her. Otherwise she's been in her own crib in our room since she came home from the hospital. It's much easier to check on her and safe compared to allowing her to sleep in our bed. I also feel the longer you co-sleep with a child the harder it will be for them to adapt on their own in their own crib or bed.

[rusty2rusty]

I have three kids. All three had co slept with me when they were little. I believe in co sleeping. As I believe it helps form a bond between mother and child. If I had to do it all over again. I would do the same. My children knew I was there for them and none of them have nightmares or wakes up at night in fear.

[PrettyinPink]

I wasn't sure what this was until I went to ParentsConnect to look it up- they have the answers to everything. It seems like it could be very comforting for young children, but that it would definitely need to be cut off at some point when the child got a little older.

[aehbamfan]

I have a six month old daughter, and she never slept in the same bed as us. Up until she was four months old she slept in a bassinet next to the bed. I could still hear her breathe at night, but I wasn't worried about rolling over on her or having her suffocate on blankets. Although I got very little sleep the first few months (I breastfed), it was the best thing for our family.

At four months we moved her into her own room. She does very well there. We have a monitor, so as soon as she wakes up at night I can go in the room to feed her.

We let her get in the bed with us on Saturday mornings because it buys us a little extra rest time, but that is the only time she's allowed in our bed. This works out great for our family!

[KJ]

In my opinion I think it's weird to sleep with your children...at least after their age 2. You need to teach kids how to fall asleep on their own or they will continue to be totally attatched to you for way too long