Cosleeping - our choice
Post written by: beagooddad
Did your parents’ group or extended family just calm down from arguing about breastfeeding and homeschooling? Do you need something to get everybody riled up again? One simple word. Cosleeping.
Cosleeping is another of the hot button parent polarizing topics that normally bring out some weird ideas in people.
I was using StumbleUpon to find some parenting articles. (If you haven’t used StumbleUpon before, you should check it out - great way for finding new stuff on the internet). My Stumble led me to this article on cosleeping.
I was reading through it and nodding my head a couple times. The arguments seem fine and typcial until this one:
Cribs, especially if located outside the parents’ room, are dangerous in other ways too. An isolated baby has no protection from secret physical or sexual abuse.
That is single handedly one of the strangest arguments I have ever heard supporting cosleeping. Especially since it is just thrown out there with no mention of a source or statistics or anything. If your baby is at risk of “secret physical or sexual abuse” that probably means that it is going to come from one of the parents or friends/relatives living in the house. If that problem really exists in the house, then having the child sleep in your bed is probably not going to eliminate that problem. It will just move the problem to another room and another time. The abuse problem should be dealt with entire independently from the issue of where your child sleeps and it should be dealt with immeditately.
She does use a statistic later when talking about how dangerous cribs are. She quotes the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission as reporting “40 to 50 crib deaths per year, and thousands of serious injuries.” I would be interested in seeing the same numbers associated with cosleeping and then converted to a percentage. I have no idea what the number would be, but I’m thinking anything that causes 40 to 50 deaths in all the millions of kids that are sleeping in cribs is something that is probably relatively safe in the grand scheme of things.
And of those thousands of serious injuries, I wonder how many of them happened because somebody tried to squeeze an extra couple months out of their crib. I can guarantee you that Geetle and Pookie would have had to work very hard to hurt themselves in their crib for most of the time they were sleeping in the crib. Once they were able to start thinking about climbing/jumping out of the crib, we moved them to beds.
Anyway, my kids obviously slept in cribs and they slept in a separate room they shared together. They started the day we brought them home and have never slept with us except for a couple naps. I never trusted myself to not squash them in the middle of the night or smother them beneath our giant blankets.
That was our choice. Which way did you choose?
Technorati Tags: cosleeping, parenting
September 8th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Our son slept in our bed off-and-on for the first few weeks, simply because it was easier on my wife to breastfeed. Other than that, we always used a crib.
This was more for our sakes than his. I couldn’t sleep soundly with him in our bed. I was all too aware of him–there was never a danger of me crushing him–and any sound or movement would wake me.
And the kid never stopped moving.
He’s as snuggly as I could wish, and we have a wonderful relationship. If there’s a benefit to co-sleeping, I haven’t noticed its lack.
September 8th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
That is a strange argument indeed. Lil’ Duck slept with us at first because it IS so much easier when they are breastfeeding around the clock. He still sleeps with us off and on - now it is mostly just to go down for the night, then he moves to his own bed or our comforter on the floor beside our bed (more because he’s become a bed hog than anything).
I’ve heard some of the oddest reasons for co-sleeping, and definitely don’t believe most of those things. He’s never slept well anywhere, but sleeps somewhat better with us, so it’s pure survival more than any other reason ;).
September 8th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Mamaduck, That’s interesting. Our kids sleep so much better in their own bed then anywhere else. Granted they have never tried in our room. But, they don’t do as well on the road. They are lights out in their own beds from 7:30pm until 6:30am with barely even a toss.
It is interesting to hear how different parents accomplish the same goals. I like the concept of sleeping with them from time to time, but don’t really want to have to sneak in and out of my bedroom all the time.
September 11th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Before having kids I though we’d never cosleep. I did a post about the other things I also thought I’d never do. http://stkappleto.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-thought-id-never.html
Like mama duck sleeping in our bed was survival with our first one. The first time I fell asleep in the rocking chair with him I decided it would be safer in our bed where I couldn’t drop him.
But every kids is different. We tried to cosleep with the second , thinking that was what worked b/c it did the first time. NO one got any sleep. She wanted to be put down and let go to sleep.no rocking. no cuddling.
The other two have been kinda between those two extremes. I think you just have do some research and go with what you feel comfortable with and what works best for your family.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:24 am
It was a matter of sleep and survival for us. 7 kids and the first 5 all slept happily in their cribs. Number 6 came along and wouldn’t sleep by himself even while still in the hospital. For my sanity and nursing, it was just easier to have him tucked next to us in bed. Number 7 was a carbon copy of number 6. They both slept with us until they were about 2 and now share bunk beds although invariably, most mornings they wake in the same bunk. They just like the security of another warm body in their beds at night. That’s understandable….so do I.
You can still have a very satisfactory married life while cosleeping. You just have to get a little inventive at times. We would sometimes sneak them off to sleep with an older sibling for a few hours or the abandoned crib which we kept set up in hope.
It did occur to me while we went through the cosleeping years that babyhood and childhood are the only times in a average human’s life when they sleep alone. But possibly one of the few periods of their lives when they need the constant physical comfort of their parents. That notion helped us cope with the wriggling bodies and occasional kicks in the crotch they handed out to us.
October 16th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
We cosleep at different times for different reasons.
1. Newborns and needing sleep. - need I say more?
2. illness - yes we have vomit to worry about but ahh well
3. naps for fun - everyone pile in
4. night terrors - they are scary for everyone
5. just 5 more minutes mom - who doesn’t agree some mornings
We have never squashed smothered or otherwise subjected our children to who knows what and they both slept the night on and off after 8 weeks. It works for us and we also have fond memories of waking up with a snoozing warm infant on our chest. P.S. My T-man sleeps in his own bed and my Baby Belaina sleeps in her bassinet now too. You CAN have your cake and eat it to.
Again P.S. As to the “secret abuse” WHERE DOES THIS WOMAN LIVE!?!?!?!?!? Yikes, remind me not to spend the night at her house
November 17th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Hey everyone,
I work at http://www.mayasmom.com and a member just posted a question about cosleeping and in looking for answers for her, I came across this site. If anyone could help this member, I’m sure she’d really appreciate it. You can answer as logged out guest or create an account.
Thanks!
Yael
July 18th, 2008 at 5:10 am
My wife is Indian and she claims that in India the kids sleep with their parents until 6 or 7 years of age. So, my daughter (5 1/2 now)has slept with us. Howewever, her doctor and some of my wife’s family have told her enough is enough. I agree. While it is a special feeling to have your child roll over in the middle of the night and place their small hand on you r face, sigh contently and dream on, it is not so special when that same child rolls over, knees you in the groin and you awaken in pain.
Young and beast feeding, okay. Older and a mover, not so okay. But harder to get them in there own bed at this stage.