What do you guys know (not think, not opine ) about the true risks of co-sleeping.
I co-slept with all of mine, and Dr. Sears (whom I greatly admire) recommends it, but I never hear anything but bad things about it. When my infant daughter was hospitalized the nurses didn't want me to sleep with her on my cot. I hear nurses warning new mothers against it. What confuses me is that in the anti-SIDS recommendations they advise against co-sleeping, though my understanding is that SIDS is, by definition, *not* suffocation.
Is co-sleeping dangerous because we westerners don't tend to sleep on mats on the floor? Can its dangers be mitigated in some way? Or is the danger a bit of hype.
I have seen it happen several times, maybe cause I worked OB only for so long. It surprised me when I first became a nurse and was working on PP, but it happened again and again. The first time it happened, I heard a baby crying when I was sitting at the nursing station and it went on for about 5-10 minutes. I finally decided to check on the mom because I thought she must be having trouble with something. Nope. She and her husband were both sound asleep, snoring and drooling. I got the baby changed, fed him in a rocking chair in the room, burped him and put him back to bed without them even moving. And ask anyone who knows me, I am not known for my quiet grace. I am constantly bumping into things, tripping or making a racket somehow. If parents can sleep through me, they can sleep through anything. And, yes, this was one of those "light sleeper" couples.:chuckle They were horrified when they woke up about 5 am and thought the baby hadn't eaten in 8 hours and very relieved when I told them I fed the baby about 1:30. Honestly, people can't possibly know what they will always do when they are sleeping. That's why the only way I would personally recommend co-sleeping is with serious safety measures involved. The benefits of co-sleeping can be great but not if one single baby dies because of it, so safety first is my motto. There are a lot of bedding inventions out there to help with this.
I agree with you . . . people don't really know what they do when they are asleep. My dh swears he does not snore.
I still don't think that means they will roll over on a child though. My dh and I cannot sleep touching . . . . it drives us crazy. My husband says that when I'm asleep and he is not, if he touches my feet, I pull my feet away.
I guess we need to differentiate between newborns, who are small and older babies . ... who would be next to impossible to roll on. Like rolling on your dog or something. Lots of people sleep with their dogs. :chuckle
I have seen it happen several times, maybe cause I worked OB only for so long. It surprised me when I first became a nurse and was working on PP, but it happened again and again. The first time it happened, I heard a baby crying when I was sitting at the nursing station and it went on for about 5-10 minutes. I finally decided to check on the mom because I thought she must be having trouble with something. Nope. She and her husband were both sound asleep, snoring and drooling. I got the baby changed, fed him in a rocking chair in the room, burped him and put him back to bed without them even moving. And ask anyone who knows me, I am not known for my quiet grace. I am constantly bumping into things, tripping or making a racket somehow. If parents can sleep through me, they can sleep through anything. And, yes, this was one of those "light sleeper" couples.:chuckle They were horrified when they woke up about 5 am and thought the baby hadn't eaten in 8 hours and very relieved when I told them I fed the baby about 1:30. Honestly, people can't possibly know what they will always do when they are sleeping. That's why the only way I would personally recommend co-sleeping is with serious safety measures involved. The benefits of co-sleeping can be great but not if one single baby dies because of it, so safety first is my motto. There are a lot of bedding inventions out there to help with this.
I can totally see people who are usually light sleepers completely zonking out in post partum. They've probably been up for at least 24 hours and once all the excitement wanes, it's understandable that they totally crash like that. Between the unsafe, twin sized hospital bed and the exhaustion, I agree that co-sleeping while still recovering in the hospital is probably not a good idea!
I can totally see people who are usually light sleepers completely zonking out in post partum. They've probably been up for at least 24 hours and once all the excitement wanes, it's understandable that they totally crash like that. Between the unsafe, twin sized hospital bed and the exhaustion, I agree that co-sleeping while still recovering in the hospital is probably not a good idea!
I've never worked in a hospital that allowed co-sleeping in post partum for that reason, though it wasn't just the people who had been awake for long labors who would zonk like that. In my experience it was often those who were breastfeeding at all hours of the day and night and having trouble with it. It would eventually catch up with them. That one couple was two or three days after a scheduled c-section, so it wasn't about labor or drugs or anything. They were just beat from baby care. Unfortunately exhaustion doesn't end after they leave the hospital.:chuckle My mom says she's still waiting for it to end and I'm in my late 20s and was adopted.:chuckle
I agree with you . . . people don't really know what they do when they are asleep. My dh swears he does not snore.
I still don't think that means they will roll over on a child though. steph
I don't think it necessarily means they will, I just find it very hard to believe people who say they are 100% sure they could never do it. Every couple who co-sleeps probably thinks that, but some of them do smother their babies, so it is obviously possible. Even if you would pull away from your husband 99.999% of the time, that isn't 100%. That's why the safety measures you took before going to sleep were so important.
Really, the bigger risk IMO is the bedding itself. Many co-sleeping advocates correctly point out that most cultures have co-sleeping without worrying about a baby dying, but they sometimes ignore that a lot of those cultures involve people sleeping on harder surfaces without bulky comforters and duvets. They don't have headboards for the babies to get caught in or bed frames into which babies can become wedged. Those are really important details.
It isn't a security issue for a nurse to take a baby from a room.
Not generally, but in a round about way, in this instance, it is. I don't know about other hospitals, but at my facility parents are taught that the only people authorized to take the baby from the room have orange badges. If you waken to find your baby gone, you don't know the nurse took your baby. You can assume, but really, you have no idea who took your baby. That, IMO, is a security issue.
As a parent, to waken and not find my baby where I left him, would completely freak me out. :uhoh21:
Like rolling on your dog or something. Lots of people sleep with their dogs. :chuckle
steph
True. I have yet to hear of somebody rolling over on their dog. Even a chihuahua. :chuckle
You know, not only have I not rolled over on any of my 4 children who have slept with us, but I have yet to fall out bed. Somehow, even in my sleep, I know the edge of the bed is there.
This is a long thread and I haven't read through the whole thing, but I believe the AAP guidelines do not recommend co-sleeping but sleeping in close proximity. Either right next to the parents' bed in the room or with one of those attachable bassinet things. Babies do get smothered while co-sleeping.
Not generally, but in a round about way, in this instance, it is. I don't know about other hospitals, but at my facility parents are taught that the only people authorized to take the baby from the room have orange badges. If you waken to find your baby gone, you don't know the nurse took your baby. You can assume, but really, you have no idea who took your baby. That, IMO, is a security issue.
As a parent, to waken and not find my baby where I left him, would completely freak me out. :uhoh21:
I am sure it would freak you out, but that doesn't make it a security issue. The nurse probably had her badge and if the mom had been at all able to open her eyes, she would have seen it. The only way this is a security issue is if you consider exhausted mothers to be a security issue and I don't know how you can prevent that:chuckle
I am sure it would freak you out, but that doesn't make it a security issue. The nurse probably had her badge and if the mom had been at all able to open her eyes, she would have seen it. The only way this is a security issue is if you consider exhausted mothers to be a security issue and I don't know how you can prevent that:chuckle
It's not often that I disagree with fergus, but I do on this point.
It is not safe to have a baby in a hospital room with a mother (and/or father)who is/are too exhausted to be aroused by the baby's cries. But it is also not right for a nurse to remove the baby from the room without the parents' knowledge.
We teach parents that only staff members bearing OB name badges are to remove their babies from their rooms. To remove a baby without identifying oneself is not acceptable to me or most parents. To wake up and find one's baby missing would be frightening and completely unaceptable. We wouldn't remove a patient's suitcase from her room without her knowledge, why would we do so with her baby? I have woken many patients to let them know that their babies were in need of care and attention, and never had one complain about it.
It's not often that I disagree with fergus, but I do on this point.
It is not safe to have a baby in a hospital room with a mother (and/or father)who is/are too exhausted to be aroused by the baby's cries. But it is also not right for a nurse to remove the baby from the room without the parents' knowledge.
We teach parents that only staff members bearing OB name badges are to remove their babies from their rooms. To remove a baby without identifying oneself is not acceptable to me or most parents. To wake up and find one's baby missing would be frightening and completely unaceptable. We wouldn't remove a patient's suitcase from her room without her knowledge, why would we do so with her baby? I have woken many patients to let them know that their babies were in need of care and attention, and never had one complain about it.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be scary or the parents wouldn't rightfully be mad (that's why I fed the baby in the room when I had parents sleeping through their cries). That doesn't make it a "security" issue. It would be a security issue if some unknown person were able to get on the unit, past the nurses, into the room and took the baby. Security personel wouldn't stop a nurse from taking a baby out of a room because it isn't a security problem. It's a bad idea on the nurse's part.
) about the true risks of co-sleeping.
True. I have yet to hear of somebody rolling over on their dog. Even a chihuahua. :chuckle 
Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN
11,305 Posts
I agree with you . . . people don't really know what they do when they are asleep. My dh swears he does not snore.
I still don't think that means they will roll over on a child though. My dh and I cannot sleep touching . . . . it drives us crazy. My husband says that when I'm asleep and he is not, if he touches my feet, I pull my feet away.
I guess we need to differentiate between newborns, who are small and older babies . ... who would be next to impossible to roll on. Like rolling on your dog or something. Lots of people sleep with their dogs. :chuckle
steph