Co-sleeping With Baby - Is It Safe?

Pictured above: Baby Noelle Katherine, our 7th child, at 5 weeks Ask your doctor before making any changes to your baby's sleep health & wellness plan.

Benefits of Co-sleeping

Co-sleeping gives the infant easy access to the breast for nursing. Babies are wired to follow the scent of mom's milk during the night to stay close. Altogether this provides them with emotional comfort. Some babies simply will not fall asleep or stay asleep in a crib far away from mom.

Co-sleeping is how parents slept with babies for millennia. How bad could it be?

Nursing on demand through the night is important to keep up milk supply, and also creates natural child spacing.

Risks of Co-sleeping

Co-sleeping increases risk of suffocation for the infant. However, the majority of these suffocation cases have alcohol and smoking involved. If your clothes have the smell of second hand smoke, or you recently had a cigarette or alcohol, do not co-sleep with your infant. Suffocation deaths were .025% of infants - 25 in 100,000.

Studies show that co-sleeping moms don't sleep as well as the infant wakes them up through the night. Part of this may be due to worry about suffocating the baby, or the infant waking the mother up frequently.

When I asked my wife about her preference for co-sleeping she said, "I like having the baby nearby and it is clearly soothing to the baby to be close to me. I really like being able to easily monitor them throughout the night. But I don't like how it disturbs my sleep. I am more tired when I have a small baby, and I always have more dreams while co-sleeping, which suggests I am waking up multiple times throughout the night. But, regardless of this, co-sleeping is a great comfort to the baby and me when he or she is so little."

Does Co-sleeping Cause Loss of Intimacy Between Spouses

What about lack of intimacy between spouses? Being "massively" in love with my wife and appreciative of her intelligence, fortitude, and natural affection, loss of time with her would be a BIG sacrifice.

But does co-sleeping require a sacrifice? Fortunately not. There is no loss of intimacy (sexual or emotional). My wife simply moves the baby to the other room so we can talk for a half hour every night before bed, and bond. Easy right?

Co-sleeping Tips

In my family, we prioritize quality of sleep of mom and infant as we believe this will produce better long term health outcomes. Exhausted parents do not parent as well, and get into car accidents, and fights.

However in the first few weeks, it seems abnormal (maybe even traumatizing) to separate mom from baby. Are my instincts lying?

After the first few weeks, we notice mom and baby sleep better with a bit of distance.

Solution?

Buy a "co-sleeper" that attaches to the bed so 1) mom doesn't have to worry about suffocating baby 2) Mom doesn't get disturbed by baby, 3) Baby isn't far away (which increases SIDS - it was called crib death for a reason), 4) Mom can still nurse easily.

Long Term Bed-Sharing

After 9 months, we kick the kids out of the room entirely. In her words, "At that point, we find that no one is sleeping well anymore (mom, dad, or baby) and that the baby actually seems to sleep better in a separate room." Over 7 kids, I've woken up too many times with a kid's smelly diaper in my face from a crawler who naturally wants to be as close to me as possible.

Then, after the baby's get kicked out, nursing on demand is no longer possible. Milk supply drops and fertility rises. Hence the 18 month separation between my kids.

Many clients of mine have health problems that originate with kids and dogs sleeping in their bed long term (after 6 months).

All in all - consider what is best for you and your child.