Question for Those Who Co-Sleep

[Anonymous]

How do you do it? Technically speaking. If I have my 12 month old in bed with me I am concerned that I will roll over him or he will roll around (which he always does) and fall off the bed. Even if he is between me and my husband he climbs all over the place - including right over us.

The reason I ask is because my 12 month old is teething and developed a high fever yesterday. We have never co-slept (he slept in his own crib from week one), but I wanted to bring him to bed with us last night so that I could check up on him throughout the night/provide comfort, etc. I ended up just putting him to sleep in his room because I could not figure out the logisitics of having him sleep in our bed. How do others do it? I don't want to co-sleep regularly - just when he is sick and needs us throughout the night.

[Anonymous]

I put our 12 month old between us. He does sometimes turn sideways. I also worry about him climbing over DH and falling off, but he seems to be slow to start moving once he wakes so we always wake up well before starts moving around. We also have one side of the bed against the wall with a long pillow wedged in the crack so only one side to worry about.

[Anonymous]

We have a bed rail on my side and my DS sleeps either between me and my husband or the bed rail. Once he is asleep he doesn't crawl over me and when he wakes up he sits up and tries to pull up my shirt to nurse. He's never tried to crawl off the bed in the middle of the night.

[Anonymous]

Co-sleeping is not recommended for parents who are unusually heavy sleepers. If a 25-pound person crawling over you doesn't wake you up, then it's probably not the right arrangement.

We put our daughter between us. She does sometimes try to crawl over us, but if I roll towards her a little, it sort of tips her back where she belongs. Sometimes she'll sleep half draped over my belly, and that's fine. She also likes to scootch up and put her cheek on her dad's head.

We don't co-sleep all night every night. Just those precious few hours between her first waking and normal getting up time. But we've been going 15 months now, and no catastrophes. The big risk for us is waking up with a stiff neck or sore shoulder, from the strange positions we take to accomodate the kid.

[Anonymous]

We don't co-sleep regularly...although with 3 young kids it is not unusual to have someone in bed with us at some point during the night. I am a pretty light sleeper so I wake up if there is any movement from DC. I can't imagine having someone crawl over me without waking up. I guess they could crawl down to the bottom of the bed but that has not happened as yet. (We put kids in-between DH and I).

[Anonymous]

i only co-sleep with my 16 m.o. son if he's not feeling well (i.e. teething). my husband canNOT sleep with the baby in our bed, so i take him to a guestroom and sleep with him tucked in my arms (and one side of the bed against the wall). i'm a very light sleeper so i don't worry that he'll fall off the bed. he does head butt me and my shoulder usually aches after....small price to pay to comfort my child.

good luck.

[Anonymous]

We cosleep w/kids are sick and they do climb all over us. we'll put one between us and basically do not get any sleep all night luckily we are between colds now so I am saving up on sleep for the next bout.

[Anonymous]

We co-sleep with our 12-month old. He sleeps between DH and I and moves around quite a bit. I have to say I am very in tune with his movements and have become a very light sleeper. I regularly adjust him throughout the night when moves sideways or starts hogging my side of the bed. He only climbs over me when he wakes up in the morning, so I don't worry too much about him falling out of the bed during the night. I think our family has gotten into the groove of sleeping together over time, so maybe it is harder in your situation to do it on isolated occasions.

[latkendall]

We did co sleeping from 6months to about 20 months with our daughter. Several suggestions - put your child in the middle, but sleep on top of your main blanket/comforter and use individual blankets for the adults, baby will probably not need one being in the middle of 2 adults. Once our daughter started to H between us, we moved her to a toddler bed right next to ours which could be a middle ground solution for you. We put the toddler bed next to the wall, and put our bed right next to it so she was still right next to me yet could not easily get free to roam during the night. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Maybe bring a pack and play into your room for a night or two. This way your DC doesn't have to be in the bed with you. It sounds like you're not comfortable with it. You could still be close to check up on him.

I think if you're not comfortable, then you won't sleep well at all. If your DS isn't feeling well, it won't help if you're exhausted too.

[Anonymous]

FYI

Seven babies die while sleeping with parents
4:00AM Wednesday Dec 10, 2008
By Leah Haines

New Zealand's cot death statistics continue to cause alarm.

The practice of parents sleeping with babies is expected to be held responsible for New Zealand slipping down the cot death rankings after a Wellington coroner's inquests into the deaths of seven young babies yesterday.

"This is not a witch-hunt," Garry Evans told each family yesterday as, one by one, young mothers and fathers took the witness stand to tell the story of their baby's tragic deaths.

"We don't blame you for your loved one's death."

He reserved his findings until the New Year but made no secret of his dissatisfaction that the practice of co-sleeping, and other "unsafe" sleeping practices, had not been discouraged enough.

Officials and media sobbed as grieving mothers took the witness stand to tell the story of their babies' last hours.

Some mothers wore vague, blank expressions and had obviously retreated into themselves to cope. Others, like Zantana Meihana, 19, were overwhelmed with emotion, her raw sobs causing all but the most stoic to weep with her.

All mothers were young. All were Maori. All either slept with their babies or had slept them on their tummies or on pillows where they had been found face down or partly covered in a blanket. Each had stories about how their babies had been lovingly wrapped, tucked into bed, fed and kissed before they'd woken to find them dead several hours later.

"Do you think," Mr Evans asked Ms Meihana, "that you could have rolled on to baby in the night?"

"I think I did!" she moaned before collapsing into her father Frank. More than a year after she had woken to find one-month-old Pro Junior lifeless next to her, Ms Meihana could barely shuffle to the witness stand under the weight of sadness.

Mr Meihana said the family had been profoundly affected by the death. They feared they'd be judged.

"At the time, the Kahui twins thing was going on," the large, dreadlocked man told the coroner, his voice breaking into his tears. "I did not want any of that coming on to my family."

The court also heard about the deaths of Yozahliyah Taipeti, Tristan Rapata-Warbrick, Nephi Tito-George, Reipai Harris, Indiah Hawkins and Yozahne Aki-Hosay.

Mr Evans told the families that although the inquests were taxing they deserved more than a diagnosis under the "veil" of sudden infant death syndrome.

"As if [Sids] was some monster gobbling up their little children," he said. Parents needed to know what had really gone wrong.

While parents were warned that co-sleeping could be dangerous, especially when the parent was drunk, drugged or overweight, in some cases yesterday none of those factors was present.

[Anonymous]

Children sadly die for no reason at all, in their cribs. In that case it is called "SIDS".

If a child dies in a bed with a parent, but there was no reason found for it and no evidence that the parent rolled over and smothered the baby with his/her body and failed to notice it because s/he was too drunk or drugged to notice, then I guess SIDS would be the reason too, wouldn't it?

[Anonymous]

Unless you have co slept with your baby you will not know how light you are going to sleep with that little one next to you. I never feared rolling on my baby, I did fear my husband would, but not me. I did not go to bed, drugged, drunk or fat. three things that can harm a baby if you choose to co sleep. Of course there are the few that did get rolled on and died, but the overwhelming majority do just fine co sleeping. As to the op original question, I think those that co sleep do so from the beginning and the babies are use to sleeping with the parents and not climbing over them. Neither one of mine ever tried to climb out of our bed, but maybe I was lucky. I can see a child that is not used to sleeping with you being a little confused as to where they are if they wake up in the night. They most likely climb around the crib too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you have co slept with your baby you will not know how light you are going to sleep with that little one next to you. I never feared rolling on my baby, I did fear my husband would, but not me. I did not go to bed, drugged, drunk or fat. three things that can harm a baby if you choose to co sleep. Of course there are the few that did get rolled on and died, but the overwhelming majority do just fine co sleeping. As to the op original question, I think those that co sleep do so from the beginning and the babies are use to sleeping with the parents and not climbing over them. Neither one of mine ever tried to climb out of our bed, but maybe I was lucky. I can see a child that is not used to sleeping with you being a little confused as to where they are if they wake up in the night. They most likely climb around the crib too.

I promise I'm not trying to stir things up, but I have a real question. I'm not in the cosleep camp, so I won't pretend I am. If you have any fear at all, in your case, your husband rolling over on your baby, why would you even take that risk? I understand your a light sleeper, but is that stress worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless you have co slept with your baby you will not know how light you are going to sleep with that little one next to you. I never feared rolling on my baby, I did fear my husband would, but not me. I did not go to bed, drugged, drunk or fat. three things that can harm a baby if you choose to co sleep. Of course there are the few that did get rolled on and died, but the overwhelming majority do just fine co sleeping. As to the op original question, I think those that co sleep do so from the beginning and the babies are use to sleeping with the parents and not climbing over them. Neither one of mine ever tried to climb out of our bed, but maybe I was lucky. I can see a child that is not used to sleeping with you being a little confused as to where they are if they wake up in the night. They most likely climb around the crib too.

I promise I'm not trying to stir things up, but I have a real question. I'm not in the cosleep camp, so I won't pretend I am. If you have any fear at all, in your case, your husband rolling over on your baby, why would you even take that risk? I understand your a light sleeper, but is that stress worth it?

Because those of us who co-sleep believe that there are many benefits for doing so. Incidentally, decreasing stress is but one benefit I've experienced.