Safe co-sleeping guidelines

[cciele]

Hi all,

I've been a lurker in this forum (mostly hang out in the Diapering forum!) but I've had this issue on my mind for awhile. We have a family bed that includes me, my DH, my 5-month old DD, and occasionally a cat or two. I've read several guidelines for making co-sleeping safe, but I don't follow a lot of them! For example, from the Attachment Parenting International site, Guidelines for Safe Co-Sleeping:


1. Always place baby to sleep on their back.
I start her out on her back, but she keeps rolling over on her tummy in her sleep. I just leave her like that.

2. Baby should sleep next to mother, rather than between mother and father.
DD sleeps in between me and DH.

3. Take precautions to prevent baby from rolling out of bed. Use a mesh guardrail and be sure the guardrail is flush against the mattress and fill in any crevice with a rolled-up baby blanket or towel.
We do this.

4. Use a large bed with a mattress that fits snugly against the rail or is flush up against a wall. Don't use fluffy bedding or cover baby with comforters, etc.
Yes, large bed. No, snug against rail or wall. We use comforters and pillows, and sometimes the baby is covered to her waist in the comforter.

5. Do not sleep with your baby if you are under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or sleep-inducing over-the-counter medications or if you are overly exhausted from sleep deprivation
Ok, we're ok here.

6. Do not allow baby-sitters or older siblings to sleep with baby.
No siblings (yet!), no babysitters (yet!).

7. Don't fall asleep with baby on a couch, bean bag chair or waterbed.
Maybe once or twice asleep on the couch...

8. Do not let baby sleep unattended on an adult bed.
Uh oh... we put her in the bed alone for some naps and also the first part of the night before we go to bed.

9. Don't overly bundle baby, because they get additional warmth from the mother's body. Overheating can be dangerous to infants.
If anything, I tend to underdress!

So, am I endangering my DD? Do you guys follow all these rules? Do I need to change my ways? :

Thanks for any advice or admonitions,

Cathy

[somemama]

If your dh is a heavy sleeper then yes, that could be a problem. (Having the baby between you two.)

[Rebekah]

We don't follow all of these. Ds sleeps between us, though close to me (we have a king size bed). The rails aren't recommended for babies, so it is kind of a catch-22.

we also share a comforter. it is up to his waste--i slide down in the bed so that i won't pull it over his face.

[becca29]

We follow most of them. DS sleeps in between us. I bought a guardrail, but it said don't use it until they are about a year old, so which do you do? We opted to keep DS in between us. He sleeps closer to me anyway, and I sleep with my arm out and above DS's head, so if DH did roll over he would roll on me first and I would wake up. We still have our pillows and comforter, but keep DS down from the pillows and I pull the comforter way down and tuck it under the mattress so there is no way it could be puller abov DS's head. We also let our cats in with us. I know that's not in the rules but it still bugs me a little sometimes.

I think the biggest problem always seems o be the guardrail vs. in between the parents dilemma.

[Delilah]

I would add...

do not co-sleep if you are formula feeding (obviously implied in #6), but I that's usually a given here. Still, I think it's worth mentioning.

[somemama]

Why not co-sleep and ff? I bf, but I'm just wondering.

[neveryoumindthere]

could it be b/c of the possibility that u might fall back asleep while ur baby has the bottle in its mouth? :

no clue, that's what i came up with

[Delilah]

More on no cosleeping FF...

I was thinking more along the lines of breastfeeding mothers being more "in tune" to their babies' physical needs and presence because of the timing of how mothers tend to arouse just before the baby does. I've read (can't remember which author) that they aren't so sure that FF moms have that same sense of awareness and being physically in synchrony with their infants, therefore, it may not be as safe. They are already one biological step further away. Does that make sense?

[Piglet68]

If you want my honest opinion, most of these guidelines are CYA (cover your ass) comments. But hey, if it makes people feel safe about cosleeping, and allows us to dismiss socalled "bad examples" (like babies being smothered by drunk parents, or falling off beds into buckets of water!) then I am happy to see them promoted.

In reality, I believe most mamas are much more in tune with their kids than they think (or that society lets them believe), that babies are more resilient than we think, and that cribs in general are just not safe for kids, thus all the back to sleep stuff that permeates our thinking (I'm willing to bet that back to sleep is not as significant a preventer of sids in true cosleeping babies).

So...being confident and a family of total snugglebunnies, we've broken most of the rules, lol.

DD slept on my chest in the hospital bed. And I sometimes put her next to DH on the tiny cot they gave him. I knew how he slept and knew I could trust him and bless his heart he held her in the crook of his arm without fail.

DD never slept on her back until she was alot older, and even now often prefers to be on her side. When you cosleep, you are so aware of them that I really think this is a nonissue and only relevent to crib=sleepers.

Obviously I was concerned that she not roll out of bed, but at first we had a king size and she never moved in her sleep so she slept on either side of me, no guard rail or wall. Then we moved to a full, then a queen, and she was more mobile, so she has always slept between DH and I from that point on.

The drugs, drinking, babysitters go without saying IMO. But I do agree with them!

We used blankets and pillows and I just kept them away from her, blankets at her chest level, adjusted ourselves accordingly. Believe me, those little critters will kick up a fuss if a blanky or pillow gets in their way. You'd have to be drunk to not notice!

The FF is interesting...I wonder if cosleeping from birth would override the "distance" from FF (and some moms make FF a very loving, close, physical thing too). I suspect it would be okay...

[Delilah]

Those are excellent points,

and I think we've raised some interesting issues. I wish I could remember if the BrF vs FF came from McKenna's work, but it was several years ago.

Yeah, I think there is some CYA that goes on. But I also know some neonatal nurses in our relatively small town that have had to retrieve their "don't co-sleep" discharge instructions to parents that "co-slept" and ended up with a dead baby. They had to retreive their notes for the lawyers who were threatening to sue, but there was still a dead baby, and we don't know if there was something going on neurologically with the baby or if it was an unsafe practice by the parents.

The problem with the statistics is that they don't tell us if one or both parents were smokers, or obese, or on drugs or alcohol, or if the mom was breastfeeding, whether there was another child in the bed, etc. This is partly how the "authorities" are using these deaths against co-sleeping families. My own experience includes a dh that wouldn't sleep next to either of our sons because he felt he wasn't aware enough to protect them. Personally, I'll not recommend co-sleeping without running through the litany of safe guidelines and where a family can read about it for themselves.