Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Laura. I’ll do her the honour of not changing her name for her own protection, because she reads Rise, so she would soon identify herself, and then I’d be in all kinds of trouble. Laura’s having a baby soon, and I have so much difficulty in not overloading her with all that advice that I was objecting to so strongly a year or so ago. Although, of course, my advice is much better…
Laura says she doesn’t quite get co-sleeping, and I have tried to explain but I think I went off on a tangent and my thoughts got all disorganised and I never made my point at all. Well, now I’ve made some notes. Also, I was awake quite a lot during the night, because I have difficulty getting to sleep sometimes, so I was planning this post in my head.
When I say co-sleeping, I mean either having the baby sleep in the bed with the parents, or using a bedside crib with an open side joined to the parents’ bed. I’m not declaring that everyone should co-sleep – it’s a decision for each family to make for themselves – but I’m just going to explain why we do it.
Lots of the sources I have read point out the historical precedent; only relatively recently in human history have small children been consigned to their own rooms, and been expected to be seen and not heard. But I think there is a more compelling contemporary argument: adults sleep together. And if we can share the bed for comfort and warmth and company, then why would we exclude the member of the family who needs those things the most? If you’re about to point out to me that adults sleep together so they can have sex, then you obviously don’t have a small baby. Even if he slept down the corridor with the baby monitor turned down low, you still have abject tiredness and post-childbirth disinclination for that sort of thing, to factor in. Or, alternatively, who said we were only allowed to do that in bed?!
More practically, with Bernard sleeping right next to me in the co-sleeper crib, night feeding is much easier. In the early days, I would actually get up when he woke, and take him downstairs to feed in the sitting room, with the TV on. That was in the first few weeks when a night feed could take two hours, though, and I simply didn’t know any better. Now it’s a fifteen-minute feed, lying down in the bed, and we usually both fall asleep by the end of it. Sometimes I’m awake enough to move him back to his own bed; sometimes moving him wakes him up, and I wish I had left him where he was. We do have an enormous bed, after all. During August, when his early growth spurts coincided with the heatwaves, we did spend a couple of nights sleeping in the spare bedroom so as not to disturb Pete. At least, I slept; I think Bernard fed all night.
It also made a big difference when I eventually learned that not all night-noises need to be attended to; or at least, he didn’t always need to be picked up and fed the moment he stirred. If he is in the crib, I can often settle him by stroking or patting, or giving him my hand to hold or fingers to bite. I can administer a teething powder without him waking completely. And if all else fails [which it often does, such is the nature of babies], I can hoik him over to the bed and feed him. I do think that his sleep is less disturbed when he’s next to me, because he wakes, is reassured, and goes straight back to sleep. Even a foot away in the crib, his wakings are more disruptive than they are when he’s in the bed.
I agree, if he was in his own room, I wouldn’t even notice these stirrings, and he would grizzle himself back to sleep after a while – but I want to be able to comfort him when he wakes in the night. I mentioned above that I have difficulty getting to sleep, and I don’t think my level of insomnia is particularly unusual, except that these days I’m functioning on about half the sleep[1] I’m used to, so you would expect me to have no difficulty in falling asleep given any chance at all. I think that what you learn about sleeping as a baby affects the way you get to sleep, stay asleep, and get back to sleep after night wakings, as an adult. I think that if Bernard learns that sleep is a terrible scary thing, if he wakes up in the night and the people he’s supposed to trust aren’t there to reassure him, if he’s left to cry until he gives up hope of rescue, then he is likely to have the same sorts of problems as me. Yes, I will get a bit more sleep now, but that, to me, is less important than the long-term goal of giving him better quality sleep later.
In Three in a Bed, by Deborah Jackson
The argument that most people give against co-sleeping is safety, and obviously there are some circumstances, like if one or both parents have been drinking heavily, when it really isn’t safe to do it. But the SIDS statistics suggest that it is actually safer to have the baby in with you than in his own cot; there seems to be some suggestion that the mother’s breathing stimulates the baby’s breathing, and her body regulates his temperature. Both parents become highly aware of the child, such that there are films showing all three sleepers rolling over at the same time, so if the baby does become stressed or ill, you know straight away. When Bernard is unwell he always sleeps in with me, that way I don’t have to lie awake worrying about him – yes, that one’s just for me.
So it’s easier, nicer, and safer. Why wouldn’t you co-sleep?
Sources: Dr Sears on safe co-sleeping Kellymom iVillage Attachment Parenting forum
- even when he sleeps for decent portions of the night, he still usually wakes and demands attention around 5.30 or 6am [↩]