Co-Sleeping – Sorting the Truths from the Myths and the Downright Lies.
This morning I was fortunate enough to be put through to speak on air on Channel 5′s “The Wright Stuff” concerning Nils Bergman’s recent Co-Sleeping research. As is usual for the mainstream media the research had been twisted into something far from the truth and distorted to provide titilation and entertainment.
The panel on The Wright Stuff included (as well as Matthew Wright) Sarah Beeny and Anne Diamond (whose son, Sebastian, tragically died from SIDs in 1991 when asleep in his cot in his own room, aged 4mths), you can imagine then the stance taken by the TV show – which was 1) ridiculing bedsharing, 2) focussing on flawed research that says co-sleeping is dangerous and 3) ignoring the research that says otherwise. I called in to point out the flaws in the research and had hoped to be given enough airtime to point out no.3 and call them on their naivety concerning point number 1, but sadly was cut off before I had the chance to do so. I hope my, all too brief, minute of airtime helped in some small way to correct the grossly incorrect information they were otherwise providing (and am grateful to Sarah Beeny for continuing my point after they pulled the phone line), however I have decided to blog about what I wasn’t given a chance to say in the hopes that this post will be shared far and wide!
My personal viewpoint is that all parents should be supported in their choices, and that those choices should be informed. If a parent wishes to bedshare health professionals and wider society have a duty to help them to do this safely. Indeed research suggests that around 60% of all new parents share a bed with their baby, most do this (much like Sarah Beeny admitted this morning) in secret, feeling guilty for doing so and confessing in whispers that they do it. It would be naive to adopt a standpoint like FSIDs and issue a blanket statement saying “The safest place for your baby to sleep is in a cot in your bedroom for the first six months” because 1) that is simply not true in all cases and 2) it ignores the fact that 60% of parents WILL sleep with their baby – surely it makes more sense to help those parents to understand how to minimise risk as much as possible? those 60% of parents are STILL SLEEPING WITH THEIR BABIES DESPITE FSIDS advice – why then do they not realise their blanket statement is failing and support the choices of those parents to sleep safely?
I must confess here I have a vested interest in this subject as I firmly believe co-sleeping saved my daughter’s life. One night, when my daughter was around 2 months old I awoke to find her still – and blue – in the crook of my arm. She had stopped breathing. Instinctively I shook her and blew in her face and to my great relief she breathed, I have no idea how long she had stopped breathing for (her father suffers from sleep apnoea so it appears she has inherited his genes there) or what would have happened if I had not stimulated her to breathe - it doesn’t bear thinking about. All I know is that if she had been anywhere but in my arms then I doubt I would have been jolted awake with a feeling that something was not OK. Did cosleeping save her life? I don’t know, but I thank God we coslept that night.
Co-Sleeping Myths
1) Co-Sleeping is Dangerous
Yes, it can be – so can taking paracetamol be, deadly in fact. Sleeping with a baby on a sofa, sharing a bed with a baby if you formula feed, sharing a bed with your baby if you smoke, sharing a bed with your baby if you have drunk alcohol, sharing a bed with your baby if you have taken prescription medication – yes all of these things are dangerous and MUST be avoided….but, sharing a bed with your baby following some simple rules (which can be seen HERE) is NOT dangerous – in fact there have been NO STUDIES that show the dangers of cosleeping when following the rules set out in the above link). NONE.
2) Two Thirds of all SIDs Cases Occur When the Baby Was Sleeping With a Parent.
The old chestnut wheeled out on the Wright Stuff today. The only thing is this research is Soooooooooo deeply flawed. So full of confounding variables (Confounding Variable = “A confounding variable is a variable which has an unintentional effect on the dependent variable. When carrying out experiments we attempt to control extraneous variables” however there is always the possibility that one of these variables is not controlled and if this affects the dependent variable in a systematic way, we call this a confounding variable.” taken from PsychExchange) that the research is not worth the paper it is printed on, let alone the £££££s invested into the study in the first place..You absolutely cannot say “cosleeping is dangerous” if in your study you have NOT accounted for confounding variables or other risk factors, e.g: 1) was the mother breastfeeding, 2) was the mother (or father) a smoker? 3) had the parent drunk alcohol? 4) had they taken recreational drugs? (many studies say cosleeping is unsafe despite the fact a large amount of their sample contains drug abusers!), 5) had they taken prescription medication? 6) were they sleeping on a firm mattress in a bed or elsewhere – like a sofa? 7) what cover did they use over themselves and the baby? 8) how was the baby sleeping? (in the recommended position or on a pillow?), 9) did the baby have any pre-existing medical conditions? (it’s amazing how many do!), 10) anything else that may have had an effect? (e.g: many died just after a vaccination in lots of studies). It is naive at best and deceiving at worse to use these studies to tell parents not to sleep with their babies.
3) It’s Not Good for the Baby, They Need to Learn Independence
Yes they do, but before independence first comes dependence. When a baby is born they need us, they cannot survive without us, indeed they do not even realise they are a separate entity to us until they are 3mths old. So much research (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Harlow for starters) speaks about the importance of infant attachment, baby-carer bond, and how if an infant is allowed to be as attached to their parent as they need then we can help to create a confident toddler, child and adult – separating an infant from it’s parent before he or she is ready to separate does not make him autonomous or independent, it deprives him of a basic need. I have already written about my experience of this HERE.
4) Co-Sleeping Kills Marriages
Really? because I would have thought that stress & exhaustion with a non sleeping crying baby would affect a marriage far more than a small person in the bed. What about sex? is really the undercurrent here though, let me tell you something, as a new mum if there was one thing that put me off sex it was tiredness from sleepless nights – who gets more of those – bedsharers or non bedsharers? (have a read of James McKenna’s RESEARCH) Then there’s the small matter of the elephant in the room, or in this case – the small wee thing in a babygro in the bed. Use your imagination people! since when did sex only ever happen in a bed? are we really that much of a cliche in England?
Co-Sleeping Truths
1) Co-sleeping Can be Safe
What about those countries where co-sleeping is a cultural norm? During the 1990s, in Japan the SIDs rate was only one tenth of that of the West and in Hong Kong, it was only 3% – co-sleeping is normal in Japan and Hong Kong! maybe our high SIDs risk could even be LOWERED if we followed the East’s example of co-sleeping – that’s quite something isn’t it?! To quote William Sears, MD (and world renowned parenting expert):
“Until a legitimate survey is done to determine how many babies sleep with their parents, and this is factored into the rate of SIDS in a bed versus a crib, it is unwarranted to state that sleeping in a crib is safer than a bed. If the incidence of SIDS is dramatically higher in crib versus a parent’s bed, and because the cases of accidental smothering and entrapment are only 1.5% of the total SIDS cases, then sleeping with a baby in your bed would be far safer than putting baby in a crib. The answer is not to tell parents they shouldn’t sleep with their baby, but rather to educate them on how to sleep with their infants safely.”
October 2002′s “Mothering” Magazine reviewed current world wide research on the issue of infant sleep. Finding that not only is co-sleeping safe,“but it is actually much safer than having your baby sleep in a crib. Research shows that infants who sleep in a crib are twice as likely to suffer a sleep related fatality (including SIDS) than infants who sleep in bed with their parents.”
2) Co-Sleeping Can SAVE Lives
For oh so many reasons including the concept of limbic regulation, gaseous exchange, decreased levels of infant apnoea, and the increased arousability in breastfeeding mums (resulting in heightened awareness to their infants). To discuss just one of the points - Infant apnoea – as I mentioned above in my own anecdotal example. Research has found infant apnoea decreased by up to 60% in studies when babies are near to someone else breathing whilst sleeping! Again this research and so much more is summed up by the wonderful Dr. James McKenna from the University of Notre Dame HERE.
3) Co-Sleeping Means More Sleep For Everyone.
Before I co-slept I spent a good few weeks fighting my son, returning him to his moses basket where he would awaken and cry, yet he would snooze for hours in my arms. Yes he would awaken more regularly and feed more regularly during the night when in bed with me, however his feeds would be shorter and we would feed in a sleep induced haze, never really awakening, in fact when he was slightly older I didn’t even wake at all – he would just latch himself on! this is how nature intended babies to feed, little and often – not tanking them up to last through the night. Time and again research has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, co-sleeping mothers get MORE sleep than those with cot sleeping babies. You can read more on this HERE.
4) Co-Sleeping Helps Breastfeeding & Milk Supply
Co-Sleeping and breastfeeding go hand in hand, indeed we know the research says it is only breastfeeding mothers who should co-sleep with their babies (due to their heightened states of arousal to their infant), we know that the close physical contact – oftentimes skin to skin – that comes with bedsharing can make the breastfeeding experience so much easier. We also know that breastfeeding alone can decrease SIDs risk – imagine what a powerful combination we have in terms of decreasing SIDs risks when we combine safe co-sleeping *and* breastfeeding! This is a great blog on the co-sleeping/breastfeeding synchronicity.
Now Mr. Wright – how about you tackle the topic again with a little more knowledge and a little less bias?
by:
Sarah (Mum to Four, Parenting Author and Founder of BabyCalm Ltd)
You can read more of Sarah’s articles HERE.
I co-slept with both of my daughters. My daughter co-slept with her baby until she was a year old and now she sleeps independently. I encouraged her to follow her heart on this matter. It meant that a 19 year old mum breastfed successfully for a full year and has bonded beautifully with her daughter and now is a fiercely proud mum.
Co-sleeping is the norm in most other cultures. Many co-sleep in our culture but keep it secret.
We need facts not propaganda.
Great article.
I was watching the Wright Stuff this morning and I feel the way that you have implied you were cut off is a little unfair. I felt you were given time to make your point and were then told that there were other callers on the line that they wanted to talk to. It is only fair for them to air both sides of the argument. I don’t come down strongly on one side of the argument or the other, I believe that each family should do what is best for their particular baby. Both of my children slept in their moses basket by the side of my bed and then in their cot in my room until they were six months old. That was what worked best for us and I have to say that I agree with the point which the Wright Show finished on that maybe people should be encouraged to have a bed side cot so that the babies are close to you but have thier own area to sleep.
There will always be two sides to a discussion and research to support both sides and, entitled as you are to hold your own beliefs, you should also be able to accept those of others
There may be two sides to every discussion to say one should also be able to accept those of others-I don’t believe that is always the case. Especially when they are spouting outright lies and using scare tactics to get their way. As is done with the discussion of co-sleeping/bed sharing. She was not allowed to state the facts to refute what was being stated.
As for the note that the discussion ended on- parents who bedshare already know they could use a cot next to their beds but choose not to because the act of sleeping with their child is important and they feel that is the best and SAFEST place for their child to be when sleeping. The show ended with pushing parents away from bedsharing. I’d say they took a side.
@zoe accepting beliefs and facts are different things- sarah wasn’t permitted the chance to state the true facts, which i think would have made sarah beeny feel better about “admitting” she slept with her babies. it’s not about accepting beliefs, it’s about reprsenting actual facts, not mishandled statistics so that all parents can make TRUELY informed choices.
Thank you for posting. This is a very difficult issue that invariably brings up a lot of controversy (in fact, my brother – a new dad, and I were just debating this very subject yesterday), made more difficult by the complications associated with conducting controlled studies. I agree that it is up to individual parents to make the decision as to what is best for them and their baby and up to practitioners to make sure that all parents know how to safely bed-share, even if the parents are not planning to bed-share as their primary sleep arrangement, since it is so prevalent. As a doula, it is my goal to provide my clients with as much solid information (from all significant perspectives) as possible so that they can make an informed decision that is right for them. This post (and the links contained therein) will become part of my resource-packet on infant sleep habits from now on. Thanks again.
labourdoula.wordpress.com
Hi. I have recently read Meredith F. Small’s ‘Our Babies, Ourselves’. In this book there is mention of a period in time when co-sleeping was the norm, during the Great Depression, when times were very tough and having little mouths to feed was very stressful. I am assuming that contraception wasn’t widely available either. There were in fact many deaths of co-sleeping babies through suffocation. So many so, that authorities started to get a little suspicious and were thinking that there may have been some infanticide occurring in poor families who could not feed yet another child. Apparently this is when the authorities started to suggest that co-sleeping was dangerous (as it was too tempting to get away with murder!) and started to push that babies be put in their own beds.
This was very interesting to read. Considering that more than half the worlds population still co-sleep I am guessing that what was occurring during the Great Depression in these Western countries was in fact infanticide. Unfortunately it is still biting us on the bum! These desperate families probably had no idea that they were causing this ‘great fear of death through co-sleeping’ when they knowingly suffocated their babies in order to be able to provide enough food for the rest of the family.
Safe co-sleeping is in fact that ‘safe’! Whether you choose to do it or not is more to do with your philosophy or how much you are instilled with fear by the ‘baby experts’ out there. I was so impressed to be called upon to offer co-sleeping advice to our local ‘pregnancy help’ organisation who admitted that many of their clients co-slept regardless and they wanted to be able to provide them with informed advice on how to do it safely. Wahooo! Good on them. :)
Hello!
I was just wondering where you got ‘sharing a bed with a baby if you formula feed’ from? And how is that supposed to be dangerous?
Thanks.
Hi Siobhian, It is not recommended to share a bed with your baby if you are formula feeding. Breastfeeding ihnibits mums from entering into a deep sleep, thus keeping them more alert to their infants – as such a breastfeeding mum is more aware of her baby in bed next to her than a formula fed mum, hence the recommendations for safe bedsharing are for breastfeeding mums only (see the UNICEF handout I’ve linked to above). Hope that helps. Sarah.
Great post!! And fascinating info Anna!!
I am still co-sleeping with my 21 month old. I still have questions on safe co-sleeping with the older toddler – when can he have a pillow? He keeps trying to steal ours :) Also we put him to sleep in our bed a few hours before we go to bed – since he can get in and out of bed all on his own I assume that would be safe – and no different than him going to bed in his own bed?
It would be good if the media focused on promoting what safe co-sleeping safe practices actually are (and what isn’t), as there isn’t a lot of info widely out there… First time I co-slept with my little one he was 6 weeks old, and he had such awful reflux and allergies it was the only way to help his sleep for more then 10min…. but I was terrified – I had no idea how to do it safely and everything just said how dangerous it was… and I was sleep deprived so didn’t have lots of time to research it… so only started full time co-sleeping when he was 3 months old (and I purchased a $200 clip on breathing monitor just in case – I really was scared of all the reports on how dangerous it was even though I knew how much he needed it).
More practical guidelines on safe co-sleeping which are easily accessible and promoted would be great – esp if 60% of the population are doing it!!
I am so happy with our decision to co-sleep. It has meant that I have had countless hours more sleep, we are also still breastfeeding – esp since it buys me a few more minutes in bed of a morning :) and most importantly my little one is now at an age where he LOVES going to bed – it is a happy place with no fear – when it is bed time or nap time he races into our bed, pulls my pillow over to lie on and pulls the sheet up to tuck himself in and gives the BIGGEST grin – and this from a child who physically couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes for the first few months of life!!
Thankyou for such an enlightening post, I have co-slept with all of my children, currently my little boy , who is number six,is four months old and he has co-slept since day one.
My husband is a heavy sleeper, therefore it has always been me that gets up with all of the children, so anything that allows me to have enough sleep to function can only be a good thing, I have successfully breastfed all of our children until approx 14 months and I definitely attribute this to the co sleeping.
For mums that are wondering if it will mean their children continue to stay in their bed, I have found that once they are able to get in and out themselves, they soon enjoy their own beds!
Sometimes it’s co-sleeping or insanity and you have to do what is best for you all at that time. I didn’t co-sleep as safely as I should have. Once found baby right beneath duvet – very scary – but if I had a 3rd I would do it all the same……….
I totally agree with all you have said. I co sleep with my youngest (age 1) at the moment. We have three other children ages 9, 7 and 5. I have breastfed her up to now and will probably carry on until at least 18 months. In my experience it has been the easiest way to ensure a peaceful night for the other children (and to some extent my husband!!). Don’t get me wrong it’s not always been easy. There are times when it is demanding especially when she will only settle for me and she is still waking up in the night for a top up. It was good to read that it is normal for them to still wake and feed in the night as she still does.
Our eldest was a nightmare at bedtimes he would scream until he was sick and controlled crying was a no go. As a first time parent I worried that if he shared our bed he would be clingy and insecure and the ‘statistics’ all pointed to bed sharing being wrong so we endured a huge battle at bedtime. He now has problems getting to sleep. His younger brother who did bed share for over a year is now a brilliant sleeper!!
I believe that if you are careful co sleeping is nowhere near as dangerous as people say and bravo to you for championing it!
We bed-share and it is the most natural thing for us to do. It would feel plain wrong to not have her with us. Why should we be allowed to sleep in the same bed, benefiting from each other’s warmth and cuddles but she’s banished to her own, cold, lonely room (which she hasn’t even got btw)?
Anyway…I thought this was ridiculous:
“…and Anne Diamond (whose son, Sebastian, tragically died from SIDs in 1991 when asleep in his cot in his own room, aged 4mths), you can imagine then the stance taken by the TV show – which was 1) ridiculing bedsharing, 2) focussing on flawed research that says co-sleeping is dangerous…”
Nev
I co sleep with my son and he is 2. We started when he was about 2 months old cuz i wasnt sleeping and neither was he! Honstley, i love it, i know he is there, i know he is ok, it was easy when i was breastfeeding, and i knew that he was safe in my arms. And its the greatest feeling to just cuddle all night, they arent that small forever! Where there is love there is room! And it did not kill my marraige, cuz for one i slept so i was happier and so was baby, you learn was to spice up your night life with your husband, just cuz babie is in the bed doesnt mean thats where you have to be! I think that SIDS happen more when babies are alone, and its a cold scary world for a baby, and if SIDS where to occur atleast i would have known that he was in my arms and not alone and scared!
We are very aware of our son in our bed we have our own sections and his new big boy bed is right there for him to get used to. I know when the time is right he well move and stay in his bed but till then i charish the mosmnets with him cuz before i know it he well be 20 and moving out!! And he is very independent and happy and smart, so do what you think is best in your heart, not all these smart dr people giving advice is very smart. next thing ya know breathing air and blinking your eyes well be bad for you. =)
Thank you for this, we too bed share and have done since 10 days old (now 13 months!). For me the sleep deprivation of trying to put a sleeping baby down was far more dangerous! We need to get back to what nature intended, pretty much every other animal on the planet sleeps with their young – it’s necessary for survival! Why as a society do we fear the natural norm?
I had a similar experience when F was a couple of months old – ‘something’ woke me to check on him (lying in bed next to me) he was still, I poked him, nothing. I shook him, nothing. I picked him up and shook again and he gasped. There is my evidence that bed sharing is safer, who knows if he would have gasped of his own accord at some point. I thank my lucky stars I was there to check on him, rather than lying helpless in a cot!
Whilst not for everyone, if you follow the rules I truly believe it is safe. I just wish more research could back me up! X
What a load of rubbish. A child will become dependant on sleeping in the bed with you as we have seen with friends children and it also does disrupt relationships as we have experienced ourselves
My biggest problem with cosleeping is they’re still doing it at 9 and 7, lol! We’e done it since day one and wouldn’t change it for anything. I love our cozy family time. Life is too short not to cuddle with your kids as much as you possibly can. It can be hard with all four of us together (we have a double and a queen bed crammed in our tiny bedroom and our kids are both very big/tall for their ages), but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. They’ve tried sleeping in their rooms and always come back but I love it.
Have you seen the horrific and misinformed ads being publicized by the city of Milwaukee, WI, in the USA? http://city.milwaukee.gov/SafeSleep
Yes, sadly I have last week. I understand why – they are not trying to stop “people like us” who know how to co-sleep safely, rather those who bedshare without knowing risks or following guidelines, so I do understand but don’t agree that it is better to scaremonger than educate.
I co-sleep with my 12 month old son and I have been since he was born. I co-slept with my daughters (they were formula fed so I kept them in a crib mounted on the side of my bed) I have a hard time not losing my mind when someone tries to tell me that I’m lucky my son hasn’t died of SIDS. Honestly I have a few friends who have lost their children to SIDS and in ALL but one of the cases they were in cribs in a separate room. The only one who was bed sharing with their son had been drinking the night before. I know so many moms who bed share and their kids are just fine. I would think if it were a legitimate concern for mothers to co-sleep with their children I would know a lot more moms who have lost their babies.
My grandfather told me early on that the best place for a new born was between it’s mother and father. All four of mine were there for the 1st 6 months of their lives. All are productive members of society now. I can not imagine taking a newborn that was inside mommy for 9 months and making it sleep without mommy immediately after birth. Yes it was safe in our full size bed.
I c-sleep with my 12 month old son and i’m currently still breastfeeding him. I have done this since i brought him home at 5 1/2 weeks as he was 9 weeks early. To be honest it has done him the world of good. He has thrived. He caught up on weight and over took within his first months. It also gave him the confidence to explore and learn. By 8 mths he was crawling, 9 months climbing and 10 mths walking. The doctors have all been astonished by his progress because of how early he arrived but i feel that because i am co-sleeping with him its made all the difference. Although my hubby wasn’t around for the first 6 months, having my little boy in bed with us has not affected our sex life or our relationship. This has been done for thousands of years and there has neve been issues untill people decided that their two pence study should be made gospel/truth without taking all of the facts into play.
I watched that episode too and share your frustration! the main thing that I got out of the discussion was the ridiculous idea that the majority of SIDS occur when co-sleeping and yet that included falling asleep and suffocating your baby and the baby getting its head jammed somewhere – these are not the definition of SIDS! They’re explained (horrific) accidents, so they shouldn’t be included in the statistics, surely?! As most sensible research shows, co-sleeping according to sensible rules is safer and leads to a reduced risk of SIDS, but then that wouldn’t make for such ‘good’ TV… Well done on your blog, hope people do start to change their views, and, as you say, feel happy sharing a bed without having to hide the fact or feel guilty about it.
When I was 19, I had my first child. 13 years ago, it was tantamount to child abuse to co sleep, but after an incident where I fell asleep while breastfeeding for the umpteenth time in the rocking chair, I nearly dropped my baby. I decided then that we were safer in bed. I’ve had 2 other children since then, co sleeping with each one. I have never had incidents of rolling on to them. I’ve also been painfully aware that covers were too high. When we side car the cot to our bed, I still wake in a panic if the baby rolls towards the edge of my bed, despite knowing she will only end up in her cot. I know different things work for different families, but I can only imagine that breastfeeding would be so much more difficult without an element of co sleeping. Breastfeeding provides so many benefits, the reduction of SIDS alone, that anything that facilitates that should be examined and encouraged in an unbiased way. With my last child, (whom I still co sleep with at 7 months) I proudly declared to my health visitor, that I would be co sleeping, when she bombarded me with SIDS “facts”.. I gave her many examples from above. She wasn’t convinced, but I am hopeful she took the information on board as she was pregnant herself with her first and planned on breastfeeding. Cot death will continue to happen, until they discover the cause, but as the name suggests, cot deaths happen in cots too. It does no good to demonize parents for co sleeping when it could be just as likely that their child would have died in a cot too.
I co-slept with all of my children to some extent, my first son (19 years ago) because we only had a one-bedroom flat and money was extremely tight. My second son I slept with because I has a c-section and for the first few days it was much easier to just have him next to me (Daddy would get up and get the bottles) my third son I think was out of guilt. My mum was terminally ill and I spent so much time with her that I feel that I didn’t attend to him as well as I should have done. Bedtime was when I could make it up to him and have big cuddles. All of mine were formula fed and I don’t think that I slept any deeper because of that. My husband has informed on many occasions of the right hook he received in the night because he rolled over and got too close to the babies! I think it either works for you or it doesn’t, no-one should be made to feel guilty about their choices (raising children is fraught enough and steeped in guilt without anymore being piled on top).
On another note; my best friend’s daughter gave birth last year and the Father is Indian (and still lives there). When he came over during the pregnancy he could not understand what all the fuss was about cots! He really could not understand why on earth a baby would be put in a cot, he wouldn’t buy one!!!! He thought it was an alien concept and your baby should be with you!
I was co sleeping with my son when he died of SIDS if this was to blame Or not I don’t know but more research defiantly needs to be done !!!
I was just wondering why you shouldn’t co-sleep if you formula feed? Has there been some research into this?
Really enjoyed thus article. It is hard to explain the kind of “sixth sense” you experience as a breastfeeding, co-sleeping mother. Both my husband and I enjoy cuddling with and waking up next to our children. As they get older we have a musical beds situation but we all get plenty of sleep and I’m confident that our children’s needs are met day or night. As for the sex/intimacy issue, we just had our third child so no problems there! Just need to use your imagination a little – could argue it actually spices things up!