Mom’s Pajama Top | Bottoms | Baby Pajamas | Bed | Bedding
For the fourth post in the Sleep Series I’ll highlight our experience with co-sleeping and bed-sharing with our now 17 month old son, Wyatt. Click on the following links for the other posts in the Sleep Series: 1: A Sleep Snapshot, 2: Wyatt’s Sleep Story, 3: Sleep Gear.
DISCLOSURE: I am not advocating for bed-sharing, encouraging others do it, or offering any advice on the safety of it, I’m merely sharing our story to let moms know there are other sleep options out there, and to encourage mamas to use their instincts about what will work for their family! ONE piece of advice I will offer is to research, research, research and do things as safely as possible.
What is Co-Sleeping and Bed-Sharing?
Co-sleeping refers to the baby sleeping close to the parents, either in the same room or bed. The American Academy of Pediatric’s latest recommendation states that parents should sleep in the same room (not bed) as their baby for the first 6 months and more ideally the first year (AAP Sleep Guidelines.)
Bed-sharing is a kind of co-sleeping that refers to the baby sleeping directly in the parents’ bed. This is not recommended by the AAP. According to a national survey, about 13% of parents practice bed-sharing regularly and over 50% of parents have done it from time to time, and in many cultures it is a routine practice. Even though it’s considered a no-no by many including the AAP, our family was one of those 13% that regularly practiced bed-sharing. I entered parenthood with no intention of having a “family bed,” as some call it, but after quickly realizing Wyatt actually slept when he was in our bed, our mindset changed.
Our Experience
The night we stayed in the hospital after Wyatt was born he wanted no part of the bassinet, I ended up snuggling him most of the night…it was my first night as a parent ever, I didn’t want to let him cry for even a second! After night 3 at home, with about zero sleep, we started researching co-sleeping because in someone’s arms was pretty much the only place Wyatt would sleep. We considered buying the DockaTot before we had Wyatt, but decided to wait to see what kind of a sleeper he would be, but by day 4 it was ordered. The Dock makes bed sharing safer by providing the baby with it’s own space in the bed. (See all of our sleep gear from the past year and a half HERE.)
Over the next 6 months we used a combination of sleep methods at night including bed-sharing with the Dockatot (if you do this with two parents in the bed, you really need a king), without the Dockatot, and putting the Dockatot in the crib. Wyatt never took to a bassinet and we never tried a Rock ‘n Play (but have heard good things).
For the first 6 months our nights would generally go like this: Wyatt goes to bed in the DockaTot in the crib until about 2 am, often he would wake up a few times during this chunk to nurse or just to cry, with each time getting closer to the last, and then by about 2 am give or take, I’d be exhausted from getting up every 45 minutes so Wyatt would come into the bed with us and sleep there and basically have an all-you-can-eat breastfeeding buffet until 7 am.
At 6 months, after a lot of travel and a cross country move, we finally put Wyatt into his own room. We would have done it sooner, even though the AAP recommends 6 months – 1 year, because we noticed that Wyatt definitely slept better when we were NOT in the room, and we liked not having to tip-toe into bed every night. As soon as we moved Wyatt to his own room, he actually started sleeping through the night (with the help of round 3 of sleep training). He couldn’t hear or smell us and knew that because we weren’t in the same room anymore we wouldn’t be soothing him if he woke up. We sleep trained for the final time at 6 months and this time it actually worked, we don’t know if it was because he was older and understood the process more, or if it was because he was finally in his own space. (I will be doing another post in the Sleep Series about Sleep Training.)
It felt like such a relief to finally have Wyatt out of our bed ALL night and actually sleeping through the night. I do, at times, miss co-sleeping, I loved snuggling with Wyatt and watching him sleep in my arms, it wasn’t the most restful sleep, but there was definitely a lot to love about bed-sharing. It got us through some tricky sleeping times during the first few months and I’m glad we decided to do it, but in the end, it was better for our whole family for Wyatt to be sleeping in his own bed and room when we was finally ready at 6 months. And as a family who had no intention of ever bed-sharing to begin with, I didn’t want any habits to start forming that ended up with us having a 3 year old only sleeping in our bed…a family bed just isn’t our style, but of course parents who choose that, more power to them!
Safety & How We Did It
There are VERY REAL dangers to bed-sharing, like suffocation, over heating and other complications that could lead to SIDS. The American Academy of Pediatrics explicitly warns against bed-sharing and advises if you do fall asleep with your baby to move him to his own bed as soon as you wake up. We researched how to bed share as safely as possible, with and without the DockaTot, because Wyatt often was in our bed without the Dock (we had a queen and there just wasn’t space.) Here are 10 Tips that helped us practice safe bed sharing.
Wyatt would always sleep on his back, and would switch between being between us and being on the outside of me depending on what boob he was nursing on. Our biggest fear at the beginning was rolling on top of him, but most of the time I’d be in a nursing position where my arm would be around the side of him protecting him from either of us rolling on him or him falling off the bed. After the first night, I never once felt like I would roll onto him. We kept blankets and pillows away from him just as we did in a crib. If you’re considering bed-sharing RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, there are many risks.
My Sleep While Co-Sleeping
Sleep is different when bed-sharing for mom and dad, especially if mom is nursing. My sleep was definitely not a deep, restful sleep when Wyatt was in our bed. I felt at least partially alert or aware that Wyatt was in there, which is a good thing safety wise, but not great for my rest. Breastfeeding was super on-demand and I was laying right next to Wyatt so it was nice not having to get up, but it was also more frequent because he would be on and off of my boobs the whole time he was in the bed. It made for a less-restful sleep state for me, but didn’t keep my husband up, and as a SAHM I was able to actually sleep when the baby slept during the day, and he had work, so it was a tradeoff I was super comfortable making.
Some people believe there are a lot of benefits to bed-sharing, like a deeper connection with your baby, bonding time, confidence building for baby because they feel comforted and secure…but to be honest, I wasn’t doing it for any of those reasons (any bonus was great though right?!), it was more just so the whole family could sleep! I guess I’ll never really know what impact those first 6 months of bed-sharing had on my baby or my relationship with him, but I’d like to hope it was for the best.
Traveling
I always like to include a note about sleep while traveling because we did so much of it already in Wyatt’s 17 months of life, and I know sleeping on the road is a tricky thing for a lot of parents. When we travelled, we almost exclusively bed-shared for the whole first year. (As a reminder: we stopped bed-sharing at 6 months at home when we sleep-trained Wyatt for the final time and it worked.) Wyatt did not like sleeping in spaces he was not familiar with and bed-sharing seemed to fix that. We bed-shared on the road for the whole first year because I nursed for the whole first year. So as soon as I stopped nursing, we also stopped bed-sharing on the road, it was a natural progression that worked for our family and baby. And now Wyatt can sleep great through the night anywhere in any crib. Maturity and age obviously has a lot to do with his willingness to sleep in certain spaces, but weaning also seemed to have a lot to do with it as well.
Again, I’m not sharing this to encourage bed-sharing or offering any safety solutions, but after talking to countless other moms about sleep, (literally the hottest infant topic out there), I discovered that SO MANY parents end up bed-sharing out of desperation. It definitely feels like a taboo topic and many moms are ashamed to admit that they’ve done it, so if you do do it, I’m letting you know you’re not alone, and you don’t have to be ashamed, I ‘m right there with you mama! Safety is #1 so make sure if you do choose to share a bed with your baby, you are doing it in the most safe way possible. (Here are the AAP Sleep Guidelines for safe infant sleep.)
For the next post in the sleep series I’ll talk about how we Sleep Trained Wyatt, and the strategies we used to make it finally work. Click on the following links for the other posts in the Sleep Series: 1: A Sleep Snapshot, 2: Wyatt’s Sleep Story, 3: Sleep Gear.
– SHOP THE POST –
What do you think?