Attached and Loving It - Part One: Where Should My Baby Sleep?

Look at your tiny, lovely, totally dependent baby and ask yourself:  "If I were this baby, what would I want?  What would I need?"  Pause and think for a moment.  What does your gut feeling tell you?  

There are various options for where your baby can sleep and it's important to note that sharing sleep with your baby can be achieved safely.  What is important is that your baby's cries can be easily heard and immediately responded to.  Now, try to imagine that everyone you know co-sleeps with their kids.  What if it were the norm here in NZ?  Talk about the family bed with some Pacific Island, Asian, of Maori families who share a bed with their babies and children.  

Babies have different sleep patterns to adults.  Did you know that it is in fact normal for babies and young children NOT to sleep through the night. Sometimes the "risks" of co-sleeping can be used to mask parents' desires to sleep without being woken.  But parenting is an around the clock job. We consider it our duty as responsible parents to be available at any time of need for our kids, so having them close by at night makes this very important responsibility much easier.  If we don't lose some sleep over our kids when they are babies, we will certainly lose sleep over them when they are teens and older.

"Co-sleeping" doesn't have to mean having your baby in bed with you.  There are several possibilities that are safe and that work.

Option 1:                In a cot in your bedroom;

Option 2:                In a side bed (e.g. cot with one side taken off, and the cot mattress pushed up next to your bed);

Option 3:                In your bed with you*.

* WARNING:  Be aware - sleeping with your baby can be dangerous if you are under the influence of drugs or   alcohol, you smoke, or if you are obese.

Option 1: A cot in your bedroom.  You can hear your baby and respond quickly without baby getting too upset.  It's easier to settle a baby who doesn't get too distressed too.  Having the cot in your bedroom also means that you don't have far to go to reach your baby - no walks down the cold hallway in the dark.

Options 2 and 3:  In a side bed. Your baby is within arms' reach - a real advantage since you don't have to get up.  Becoming vertical sends a message to the brain that it's time to wake up; remaining horizontal means less disruption of your sleep state.  (Thus, feeding your baby while you are both lying down is preferable too.)

Option 3:  In bed with you. Sleeping right next to you, your baby receives your body warmth (a definite advantage in our damp, cold homes); s/he can hear your heartbeat and breathing and feels most secure with the familiar sounds s/he lived with for so long in the womb.  Mothers have special a special ability to be aware of their baby even while they are asleep.  If you are breastfeeding your baby, you may fall together into a similar sleep pattern and you will find yourself waking up just before your baby stirs and needs a feed. 

If you are not in the risk category listed in the warning and option 3 appeals to you but you are afraid you or your partner might roll on your baby, try making an elevated sleeping space for your baby by folding up a soft blanket on which s/he can sleep, and roll up a bath towel and lay it around the edge of the blanket as a soft "bumper".  You can safely sleep with your arm tucked around your baby to avoid baby rolling.  If your partner has to get a good night's sleep for the next day at work, there's nothing wrong with sleeping in a different room.  This won't last forever but may be a temporary measure to help you all until your baby achieves longer periods of sleep.  And don't forget that as your baby gets older they are more able to sleep safely at night (SIDS rates drop considerably after six months of age).

Some people worry, "But I don't want to start a bad habit.  How will I eventually get my child to sleep alone?  My baby has to learn to be independent - right from the start!"  There are many ways to gently ease your child from your bed to her/his bed when the time comes (and some great books to help you gently encourage that process).  It may take some time, but many people have said in retrospect "Why rush?"  You will someday look back fondly on those nights you and your little one spent cuddling and being close.  And the time when they are little and cuddly and dependent on you passes so very quickly.  You also set them up to feel connected and secure in themselves as they grow older by selfless giving them the nurturing they needed when they needed it.

Consider the following:

路          The special bonding that happens between co-sleeping parents and their babies at night helps set the tone for the following day; and days turn into months, and months to years.  This can make for much easier disciplining of your children, as you know them so well (having shared day and night with them).

路          You spend a third of your life in bed.  That's a wonderful, precious time you could be using to bond with your baby.

路          Your baby spends on average well over half her/his life sleeping.  That's a significant amount of time to expect a baby to be all alone.

路          Human babies are born more "immature" and thus more dependent than the babies of many other mammals.  They need to be in continuous close contact the mothers for at least 9 months after birth.

路          Our instincts tell us we need to keep our babies near us.  (Talk with someone who has tried out the conventional advice to put in some earplugs and let their baby cry it out in a different room in order to get some sleep. Likely they will admit it was "the most difficult thing I've ever done.")  Ignoring your motherly instincts doesn't make for easier mothering and makes for distressed and disturbed (and according to the latest research - developmentally challenged) children (see Sue Gerhardt's book listed below).

路          You and your baby will likely sleep better together than apart, and knowing this may make it more attractive for working mothers to sleep with their babies - also catching up on that precious time you have been apart during the day.  You can work out which sleeping option works best for you both/all.

路          With today's "conveniences", such as baby monitors, parents may feel their baby is safe in their own room, but there is no way for a baby to understand this.  S/he only knows it feels wrong to be left alone.  In a short while, s/he feels abandoned.  In need of constant love and warmth and the smell of mother, but all alone, the baby is overcome with a feeling of hopelessness and despair.  These feelings evolve into a lack of trust of the goodness of the world, and you are by far the biggest part a baby's world.

路          Likewise, we adults are programmed to monitor our baby's safety while we are fast asleep, so we need him/her close to us.  Baby is much safer near to us where we can listen out for distress, and contentment!

路          It has only been for the past 150 years or so since Western societies decided to give their babies a separate room to sleep in.

路          It's more common around the world, even in some industrialised countries such as Japan and Korea, for mothers to sleep with their babies and children.  In these countries, cot death rates are extremely low!

路          In places where it's the norm for children to sleep with one or both parents, it is considered absurd, shocking, unthinkable, even neglectful and cruel to leave a baby to sleep isolated in a different room.  Some parents in developing countries are astonished at Western parents putting their babies in 'cages' to sleep!

路          Sex does not need to be confined to your bedroom.  Leave your sleeping babe in your room and sneak out for a while.  Alternatively, you would be amazed what a sleeping baby can sleep through!

路          You'll save a lot of money simply taking your baby to bed with you.  You won't even need a cot, nor bedding for the cot, monitors, a  heater going all night in the baby's room Sleeping with your baby is a lovely experience that just feels right.

路          And the latest research shows that who we are is inscribed into our brains during the first two years of life - in direct response to how we are loved and cared for in that time! (See Sue Gerhardt's book below.)

Perhaps most important of all, by sleeping with your baby you are instilling in them a deep sense of wellbeing that carries on through adulthood. Your babies' needs have been met in a timely manner - your precious child has no doubt that s/he matters.

Tamara Parnay and the Attachment Parenting team, Wellington

apiwellington@paradise.net.nz

Books to consider reading:

The Baby Book by Dr William Sears                                                                               

Nighttime Parenting by Dr Williams Sears

The No-cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley                                           

Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt

The Family Bed by Tine Thenevin                                                                   

Crying Baby, Sleepless Nights by Sandy Jones