Very often, first time parents face the challenge of co-sleeping with their baby.
Is bed sharing with your baby any good?
Co-sleeping is not encouraged in Western countries
In the United Kingdom, where I live and I suppose in most western countries, co-sleeping is not encouraged for various reasons.
The main one is that you might crush your baby while you sleep.
Another reason could be that baby can get too hot under a duvet plus the heat from two adult bodies. Just to name a few reasons…
I did bed sharing with my baby
Personally, I did co-sleeping with my son until he was five months. Then he moved to his cot for about two months and back to our bed at 7 months. You can read my previous post about it.
My little one couldn’t sleep in his moses basket any longer than an hour. I have to pick him up all the time to nurse him.
You can imagine, how tired and frustrated I was at that time!
So, the best solution was to do co-sleeping with my son.
I have been told by professionals or even ladies who were not mom yet to let my son cry because he will be more likely spoiled!
Good Lord, no!
There are always people who think they know better than you.
For me the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. A baby, especially a new-born, cannot talk and the only way he can communicate when there is a discomfort is via cry and scream. So, I am not interested in letting a baby crying because of the risk of being spoiled.
Of course, once he started being in our bed, he could sleep much longer and it was easier for me to breastfeed him anyway.
Regarding the risk of overheating, we had to adapt and go for the German way. Each of us has its own duvet and my son had a baby blanket.
And to prevent any accident, we used to place a pillow between my husband and my son.
However, when my son started growing, he could move more and sometimes, he had awkward positions that prevented us to sleep well. We did not mind it too much.
Co-sleeping is normal in some culture
And, by the way, in the Caribbean where I come from and grew up, it was totally normal for a mother to do co-sleeping with their baby. It was part of the culture. And I am pretty sure that there were a lot of countries that did the same.
Unfortunately, this practice tends to fade because of the influence of the modern society.
Of course, I do understand the concern about the safety of co-sleeping, but in that case, I had to trust my instinct and use common sense.
I didn’t necessarily think that I would have systematically gone for this way of parenting but it seemed that was the only way that everybody could sleep.
A healthy option
And, by the way, I was glad to read in the book, the baby book written by paediatricians, that sharing your bed with your baby was a healthy option for many families.
Finally, for us co-sleeping with our baby was good because it was the only way we could all sleep.
Depending on the need of your baby, you have to see for yourself and baby what good for all of you regardless of what people think.
And you, are you sharing your bed with your baby? Let me know your thought.
