To Sleep or Not To Sleep

I have a few things that I stand on my soapbox about and I need to rant and rave about one of them. Co-sleeping has always been a hot topic for me--and recently in our wonderful community a couple has been charged with child-abuse homicide because their 24 day old baby died while sleeping in their bed. I don't know any extenuating circumstances in this particular case, and there certainly could have been something else involved like drugs, alcohol, or smoking, but come on! First of all, my heart goes out to this couple. They actually lost an older child in similar circumstances. I can't imagine the grief they must be dealing with. Their case has brought co-sleeping into the media and into conversations.

People have slept with their babies since the beginning of time, and just now we decide that it's not only dangerous, it can be murderous??? About 200 years ago people started to get the idea that parenting shouldn't be so cumbersome, that we need to get those babies independent as soon as possible. With methods from Ferber and Spock and BabyWise (which all go against the biologic and physiologic needs of infants) our society believes that babies should be able to self-soothe, stay on a rigid schedule, and sleep through the night. This goes against how our babies are designed and what they need to thrive. For nine months we carry them in utero, and then wham-o, they come out and they are supposed to be by themselves for any length of time? We need to build interdependence, so that yes, at some point they can function on their own, but infancy is not the time for independence.

The Consumer Protection Safety group and the American Academy of Pediatrics have both come out with statements against co-sleeping--these are two groups which I generally respect and try to follow guidelines from. On this issue though, they have missed the boat. The research they base their information on includes all form of co-sleeping--parents who sleep on waterbeds or fall asleep on a couch or chair with a baby and don't differentiate when smoking, drugs, or alcohol are factors. They also use numbers in a way that is baffling to me. In the article printed today in the Tribune "Sharing a bed with your baby?" someone from the Utah Department of Health says that it is dangerous to sleep with your baby because 33 out of 100 babies who died from SIDS were sleeping with a parent. That means that 67 out of 100 babies died from SIDS were sleeping ALONE. In what universe is 67 a smaller number than 33??? That says to me, that those babies who were sleeping alone were at a higher risk for dying from SIDS.

Another thought with this--would we ever charge a parent with child-abuse homicide if their child dies in a car accident? After all, we know that many people die in car accidents, so putting a child in a car is dangerous, right? No! We tell that parent, if you are going to ride in a car with your child, make sure you take the precautions to make it as safe as possible. We teach them about car seat safety (and make it mandatory) to protect the child as much as possible. The same goes for sleeping with a child, if you are going to do it, make sure that you do it as safely as possible:

• Always put the baby on his back to sleep.
• If you smoke, do not share a bed with your baby.
• Use a firm mattress.
• Do not co-sleep on a waterbed, couch, or chair (those all have places where a baby could become trapped).
• Do not use fluffy bedding.
• Don't let your baby overheat, really--they do not need 7 layers of clothing!
  
• Don't let other children sleep in the bed with you.
  
• If you are overly tired, don't sleep with your baby (which is a little humorous for a new mom--what new parent isn't over-tired?? But, if you think you are so tired you won't arouse, that's "overly tired").
• If you use drugs or alcohol, don't co-sleep.
• If you are obese, don't co-sleep.

If any of the above conditions make it so that sleeping in the same bed is not the safest option, sleep close to your baby in proximity--with a side bed attached to yours or in a bassinet or crib nearby, or even on a firm mattress on the floor next to your bed. There is also some evidence that if you don't exclusively breastfeed (another soapbox for another day) that sleeping in the same bed isn't the safest option.

There, I've gotten that off my chest. I will end my rant by stating that co-sleeping may not be what you choose to do, which is every parent's choice. I just hope that as with any important life decision, parents will research and interpret the facts correctly. Co-sleeping can be a wonderful thing that can help parents bond with their baby, and according to the numbers cited above, it can even be PROTECTIVE against SIDS (as has been substantiated by other research). They haven't found any one thing that causes SIDS--but co-sleeping in appropriate circumstances certainly should not be listed among the possible causes.