Sleeping arrangements

There are several controversial topics in the parenting sphere, including, but definitely not limited to, breastfeeding in public, strollers v. carriers, holding your baby too much, etc.  One of the most controversial is co-sleeping (also called bed-sharing, having a family bed, etc).  I almost (almost!) hesitate to post anything about our sleeping arrangement because I know that I'm probably going to invite a lot of criticism (constructive or otherwise) about what I do with Desmond.  So be it.  There are people out there who think that their way of raising a baby is right.  This is not that kind of post (or blog, for that matter).  I write only to share my experience with raising a child and to write what works best for me and our family.  I'm not going to say that what I do is "right," but that it feels good for me and that I believe it will be beneficial for Desmond.  If it didn't, believe me, I'd find other alternatives.

So here goes: we are a bed-sharing, co-sleeping family.  Kind of.  When I first got pregnant, Billy and I assumed that the crib would go in a nursery right next to our bedroom.  Close enough so that I could reach baby in time, but far enough away to keep my sanity.  Or so I thought.  When I started diving into EVERYTHING pregnancy and childrearing, I kept coming across the debate (mostly online) about whether or not sleeping in bed with your child was acceptable.  Some consider it dangerous and irresponsible, other consider it safe and normal, some do it in secret ("you sleep with your baby, too!  Oh god, it's so embarrasing"), some do it openly. 

As a child, one of my earliest memories was sleeping in a cot right by my parents' bed, even though I had my own princess room, replete with a canopy bed, ballerinas, and a pink blanket.  I felt safe in my parents' presence, as I'm sure many children do.  Because of that, I never viewed co-sleeping as something dangerous or weird.  I also got to know a couple of people (both online and off) who shared their beds with their children.  How easy it seemed, especially from the vantage point of someone who planned to breastfeed.  You have your child within arm's reach to pull him close to you at night and breastfeed lying down.  Both you and your child don't have to be completely roused when a feeding has to occur, versus getting up out of your warm bed; walking, half-dazed, towards the crib in another room; picking your baby up;' sitting down; and finally feeding him.   Some people are completely ok with  doing this.  If that's you, then my hat's off to you for doing so.  I'm way too addicted to sleeping more to be able to do that.

Now for the he said-she said.  The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advises that families don't sleep with their babies.  According to their book, American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Sleep, co-sleeping (at least in Western society) increases the risk of "smothering" the baby.  The relationship between SIDS and co-sleeping is less clear and research is still being done, although the "back-to-sleep" campaign has reduced the incidence of SIDS-related deaths by 50%.  Smothering Desmond was a huge concern for me when we had him, but it quickly went away when I realized how lightly I slept with him next to me.  Every little cry and most major movements were quickly attended to.  What I did worry about was Billy smothering Desmond.  Billy's a heavy sleeper and although he tends to stay in one position (lying on his right side) for most of the night, I didn't want to chance him rolling over Desmond at night.  From James McKenna, a scientist who researches mother-baby sleeping arrangements:

The fear of suffocating infants has a long and complex cultural history. Since before the middle ages "overlying" or suffocating infants deliberately was common, particularly among the poor in crowded cities. This form of infanticide led local church authorities to make laws forbidding parents to let infants sleep next to them. The practice of giving infants alcohol or opiates to get them to sleep also became common; under such conditions, babies often did not wake up, and it was presumed that the mothers must have overlaid them. Also, in smoke-filled, under-ventilated rooms, infants can easily succumb to asphyxia. Unfortunately, health officials in some Western countries promote the message that sleep contact between the mother and infant increases the chances of the infant dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). But the research on which this message is based only indicates that bed-sharing can be dangerous when it occurs in the context of extreme poverty or when the mother is a smoker. Some researchers have attempted to export this message to other cultures. However, in Japan, for example, where co-sleeping is the norm, SIDS rates are among the lowest in the world, which suggests that this arrangement may actually help to prevent SIDS.  (SOURCE)

I researched a little more and found so many resources for co-sleeping.  One great resource is askdrsears.com and the Sleep Lab run by Dr. James McKenna at UC Irvinea and Notre Dame.

In the sleep laboratory at the University of California's Irvine School of Medicine, my colleagues and I observed mother-infant pairs as they slept both apart and together over three consecutive nights. Using a polygraph, we recorded the mother's and infant's heart rates, brain waves (EEGs), breathing, body temperature, and episodes of nursing. Infrared video photography simultaneously monitored their behavior.

We found that bed-sharing infants face their mothers for most of the night, and that mother and infant are highly responsive to each other's movements, wake more frequently, and spend more time in lighter stages of sleep than they do while sleeping alone. Bed-sharing infants nurse almost twice as often, and three times as long per bout, as they do when sleeping alone. But they rarely cry. Mothers who routinely sleep with their infants get at least as much sleep as mothers who sleep without them.

In addition to providing more nighttime nourishment and greater protection, sleeping with the mother supplies the infant with a steady stream of sensations of the mother's presence, including touch, smell, movement, and warmth. These stimuli can perhaps even compensate for the human infant's extreme neurological immaturity at birth. (SOURCE)

OK, so I was convinced that, if done properly, co-sleeping and bed sharing was physically safe for Desmond and easier for me.  Now, how to go about co-sleeping.  I was nervous about having Desmond sleep in between Billy and felt nervous about having him on the other side of me, the side closest to the side of the bed.  When Des was little, I didn't have much cause to worry that he would fall off, but it's become more important now as he has been thrashing and rolling around for the past 2 months.  We looked into buying one of those co-sleepers:

Arm's Reach cosleeper bassinet.

However, we read that babies grow out of it fast, so we'd have to plan for something that would work after he grew out of it.  After much consulting and asking around, we decided to leave one of the sides of the crib off and push it against our bed.  Perfect!  That way, the baby would be sleeping next to me, but on his own crib, with no chance of falling off.  Furthermore, his crib would have a firmer mattress and no pillows or fluffy blankets to accidentally suffocate him.  I could reach over and bring him into bed with me to nurse him, and then stealthily put him back into his crib after the feeding.  This has worked beautifully for us: I don't worry about Billy rolling onto him, I have the same amount of room I had before, and Desmond's safe and sound right next to me.  

Desmond in his crib right next to our bed.

Another shot of the crib against the bed.  We make sure that there is no gap between the bed mattress and the crib, so that he won't get stuck.

A rolled up blanket stuffed between the crib mattress and the crib to push the mattress flush with the bed mattress.  

Desmond definitely wakes up more often each night to breastfeed than the average baby (last night, he woke up every 2.5 hours instead of every 1.5-2 hours!), but our total awake time per feeding is about 10 minutes, so it's really not that bad.  And even though I may complain about how hard it is to be a mother and to parent an infant, there are very few things in this world (like winning a prize or dancing on a stage) that are better than cuddling a warm little body and holding a tiny little hand in the still and darkness of night.