The Disaster Called Co-Sleeping

Posted on 06 10, 2006 under Predad by Noodad |

This article should serve as either a warning, a hard slap-in-the-face wake up call, or reassurance that you are doing the right thing. Co-sleeping is a plague that is sweeping the world, ready to take out every desperate couple in their path. For those who need to know, co-sleeping is the term given to children who sleep in the same bed as their parents. It is a dangerous situation physically, and socially. The only way to prevent it, is to never start it. The only way to stop it is to grow a pair, deal with your child"s weaning process, and quit it cold turkey.

 

Listen, if you are stuck in the rut, don"t be down on yourself. It is very easy to do. Your kid screams in the crib all night every night for 6 days straight and you don"t care about anything except to steal some zzzz"s. But allowing a child to sleep with you overnight is like inviting Satan into your bed. He might be ok the first night, but every night after that, he will make your time a living hell. There are many people like you and yes, it is easier to just continue the routine. But the next thing you know, they will be hogging your bed and spooning with you. That ain"t right noodads.

Co-sleeping is dangerous. If your kid is a baby, they can easily suffocate in your deep blankets or lose oxygen when you accidently roll over them. Your kid won"t be able to push you off of them. Also, you will jeopardize your marriage by co-sleeping. Kind of hard to work out some bedtime magic, when your kid is sleeping between you. And if you think you can pull it off with a kid in bed, you need to seek counseling.

For those who haven"t started yet, it is very simple. Don"t do it. Not even for one night. Every night you do it, will take you a week to get them to stop. Consider this a warning.

So to summarize, if you want to have the opportunity to have relations with your wife, don"t start co-sleeping. It can"t get any easier than that.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by your friend, Noodad.

 

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Viewing 30 Comments

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    My nephew cosleeps with his parents and grandparetns.... he is 3 years old and has \"maybe\" sleep 2-3 nights by himself. I have seen this turn into a disaster first hand so I can vouch about this story!
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    I actually disagree with this pretty strongly. Neither of our kids co-slept with us but I have a few friends who I truly respect who did co-sleep.

    I\'m pretty sure all research indicates that the rolling over your baby while they are asleep thing is a complete myth. If anything, co-sleeping advocates would say it is safer than leaving a baby in a crib.

    Also, the few times we did it when one of our babies was sick were actually wonderful nights for the family, there is truly nothing like sleeping together with a baby.

    I think this falls into the each-to-his-own category.

    Dr. Sears has a great piece on co-sleeping here, http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp
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    I\'m not sure what kind of ship you\'re running over there Captain, but \"pretty sure\" is not good enough for my crew when it comes to \"potentially smashing your kid.\"

    How could sleeping in a bed with 1 or 2 grown adults be safer than being in a crib without blankets and large, possibly mobile objects? I fail to see your logic or reasoning here and would argue that you are just being contradictory for the sake of doing so.

    This article CLEARLY is not about the magical, Disney-(or-Neverland-)esque moment your family shared when your kid was sick. This is a warning about kids sleeping in bed with the parents ALL THE TIME.

    This Dr. Sears article is pure RUBBISH written by some parents who are weak with discipline. They\'re probably the same ones who bribe their kids with a candy bar at the store when they\'re crying. Who is running the household? The parents or the kids?

    Look at this dog vomit from the article:
    \"As I watched the sleeping pair, I was intrigued by the harmony in their breathing. When Martha took a deep breath, baby took a deep breath. When I draped our tiny babies skin-to-skin over my chest, (a touch I dubbed \"the warm fuzzy\") , I noticed their breathing would synchronize with the rise and fall of my chest. \"

    There is a name for this. It is co-dependency. It is not healthy. The parents are enabling the children and in this case, the parents are actually convinced that this is good for the family. They\'ve even come up with cute little crunchy stories to make it seem all warm and fuzzy. RUBBISH!!! HOGWASH!!!! HU SHUO!!!
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    Well, one person\'s co-dependency is another person love which is why, like with most things parenting I think its best not to judge. And the dog vomit you cite could actually be the reason by co-sleeping deaths are far less common than crib related deaths.

    And that is written by Dr. Sears himself, an incredibly respected pediatrician who has eight children of his own, who he has brought up with his wife, also Dr. Sears.

    Worldwide statistics indicate that co-sleeping is far safer than the crib industry would like you to believe, http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFac...

    Again, we haven\'t done co-sleeping with our kids but I\'m not one to judge.
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    But so do a lot of things you shouldn\'t do. I don\'t view this subject as something that is even remotely 50/50. There is no good reason to consistently do this except that you were weak, gave in, and you can\'t get out of it.
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    Thanks to the noo and the foo for laying it out as it should be. I can understand the desperate fleeting moment of considering such a dangerous act such as cosleeping, but I cannot for the life of me actually comprehend doing it. Beyond the obvious and previously stated risk of the kid being squished to a hideous shade of blue, let\'s not forget the mobile kid has the ability, desire and technique to try to venture out of the bed on his/her own. Many kids have been injured from falls out of their bed during the daytime with a wide awake parent in the room. Now let\'s imagine that same awake adventurous kid laying betweeen two comatose parents around 2am. Can anyone truly guarantee that kid isn\'t going to try to escape the bed? Can anyone truly guarantee that they are definitively going to wake? And I don\'t care what statistics say, I\'m not ever taking the chance with my kid becoming a statistic.
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    If this is your line of reasoning, really, you shouldn\'t have kids at all.
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    I\'m with Noo and Foo. My Cousin is 9 years old and will not sleep unless he\'s in his moms bed. Sure that\'s an extreme but it\'s not something I want to risk. Don\'t get me wrong I would love to sleep with my baby boy between us, but I\'m a big guy (6\'1 190lbs) Very heavy sleeper and I roll around alot, Hell I\'ve even rolled over my DW. If she can\'t wake me up hows a baby 1/40th my size going to? Bad dreams? Damn right I\'ll be there, In his room. Not ours, My boy isn\'t gonna be a statistic.
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    Of course there are more SIDS deaths associated with cribs. More kids sleep in cribs than co sleep.
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    Mattdm, what comment are you referring to? or are you commenting on the article?
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    I had written a long reply, but your CMS wiped it out when I was trying to add a link. For now, I\'ll just answer \"the article\". More tomorrow.
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    If you believe you can have a kid and have everything be the same as before with no work and no sacrifice, well, obviously you\'re wrong. You have to adjust your previous life in ways which provide the best for your new child.

    There are basically three things the article is concerned about -- danger to the baby, impediments to sex, and the fear that it\'s impossible to stop.

    The first, the danger, is basically untrue. You\'re not going to squoosh the baby any more than you\'re going to roll out of the bed onto the floor in the middle of the night. There\'s really only a danger here if you\'re drinking or on some other substance. And of course you need a firm bed and no heavy blankets.

    The second is of course a concern to all men, but realistically, if your sex life doesn\'t take a hit after you have kids (particularly in the first three months), you are an aberration. (A very lucky aberration, but still.) And cosleeping just means you have to find some other time and place for the \"bedtime magic\" -- and if you can\'t do that, you\'re not trying very hard.

    And finally, the \"you\'ll never be able to stop\" idea. This is probably true for some people, but it wasn\'t for us. We coslept for about a year, until our daughter started getting more mobile. At that point, we transitioned her to her own crib in her own room, a process which took about a week (with two hard nights right at first). And that was with no \"crying it out\".

    That\'s the rebuttal to the \"warnings\" of the article. On the other side, there are significant benefits. Unlike, say, reptiles, newborn human babies are meant to be under the care of parents. Sleeping next to mom and dad helps regulate the baby\'s sleep and breathing. And obviously it makes breastfeeding easier for mom (don\'t discount the benefits of \"making things easier for mom\" on helping your relationship!). But beyond that, some studies have shown that babies who cosleep grow into happier and better adjusted and better disciplined children and adults. And, as a new parent, it\'s really nice to be able to glance over in the middle of the night and see that your little one is all right.
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    It\'s hard to do good scientific studies on SIDS because, as scary as it is, it\'s really pretty rare, especially now that we know to put babies to sleep on their backs and to cut out second-hand smoke. But take a look at the graph at the end of the [URL=http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFactSheet.htm;]link rupertz gave[/URL] -- that\'s based on percentages and makes some interesting general conclusions. But you can go look this up yourself. When you factor out suffocations due to drunkeness and drugs -- which often happen on a couch or somewhere, not while cosleeping at night -- there\'s no evidence at all of a risk here and may be some indication that it\'s actually safer because you\'re more aware of the baby\'s sleep.

    Then there\'s the cry of \"co-dependency\". There\'s nothing \"co\" about it -- tiny babies are COMPLETELY dependent on their parents. That\'s the way we are. (See earier comment about humans vs reptiles.) And to re-emphasize what rupertz says, Dr. Sears isn\'t some starry-eyed hippy parent with no actual knowledge. He\'s a doctor, and knows that little babies need to be taken care of.

    Then there\'s the assertation by both foodad and noodad that cosleeping is \"weak\" and shows poor discipline. I suppose this is true if your ideal of fatherhood is the 1950s or Victorian-era father, with the whole \"I\'m the [I]breadwinner[/I]; taking care of the kids is women\'s work, call me when they\'re big enough to play baseball or if they need hitting with a belt\" thing. But real discipline is about more than being a hard-ass just for the sake of being The Discipline Guy. (If you want that, get a job as a drill instructor or a high-school vice principal.)

    I highly encourage you both to read Dr. Sear\'s [URL=http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/T060100.asp]suggestions on discipline[/URL], particularly the first two links there.
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    Thank you mattdm for bringing some semblance of reason to this discussion. And your link to Dr. Sear\'s is great. I\'ve found that site and his books to be an invaluable resource.

    I have nothing but respect for people who chose to co-sleep. Some parenting things are truly black and white, like, say putting a baby in a car with no car seat. Co-sleeping simply isn\'t one of those issues.
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    Mattdm, glad co-sleeping worked out for you. But what works for some does not work for others. For every Dr. Sears there will be someone who will come up with a study or research that says co-sleeping is bad.

    The bottom line of being a noodad is you and your wife will be forced with hard decisions like these. If you play the safe choice, you do not co-sleep.

    As for sacrifice, co-sleeping, IMHO, should not be one of them. I still stand by my opinion, that for the majority of co-sleeping families, it was started by an initial weakness by the parents.
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    For anybody considering co-sleeping, I\'d recommend the [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007R4J4Y/qid%3D1150340578/104-4205993-0179924]Snuggle Nest[/URL], a \"bed within a bed\" for baby.
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    I have not followed the issue, but Dr. Sears is the only authority I\'ve ever heard mentioned as an advocate for co-sleeping. Is he credible? (Having 8 kids does not make him so. Plenty of crappy parents have had 8 kids.) What is his background?
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    My wife and I let our dog(Min Pin) sleep with us and there is already issues. There is no way I\'m letting our son even start. She says safety and I say the bed is full. Even as a child they need to learn individuality and independence. We have a friend who let her son sleep with her until he was eight and it only stopped when she got married. He is thirteen now and is the biggest momma\'s boy I have ever met.
    So go ahead and deicide for yourselves but if you let your son sleep with you don\'t be surprised if he comes home beat up by the local kids every now and then. :cry
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    \"Dr. Sears, or Dr. Bill as his \"little patients\" call him, is the father of eight children as well as the author of over 30 books on childcare. Dr. Bill is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. Dr. Bill received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School\'s Children\'s Hospital in Boston and The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto -- the largest children’s hospital in the world, where he served as associate ward chief of the newborn nursery and associate professor of pediatrics. Dr. Sears is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and a fellow of the Royal College of Pediatricians (RCP). Dr. Bill is also a medical and parenting consultant for BabyTalk and Parenting magazines and the pediatrician on the website Parenting.com.\"

    And his books are great reading!
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    One thing I have learn through harsh real experiences is that doctors, like anyone else can be wrong.

    My wife and I take responsibility for our decisions. Yes, we consult the experts, but if we have learned the hard way that they are not always right.

    You can cite his credentials all you want. For every Dr. Sears I would bet there is another 2 to 3 experts that disagree with him.

    :grin
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    Our second daughter has co-slept with us since the night she was born -- at home. She\'s the most mellow baby one could hope for, and it\'s worked out awesome.

    Our first daughter has co-slept with us since she was out of the hospital with her mama. Now, at three, she goes to bed on her own (after stories from me and \"huggies and rubbies\" from mom), and we scoop her up into our communal bed when we go to sleep.

    It\'s been awesome so far, and we\'re happy to provide that confidence (that someone is always there for them) to our kids in their formative years.

    As for the sex life, that\'s necessarily hampered by children coming into our lives, but we boink like maniac animals in the living room while the kids sleep. What\'s the difference [i]where[/i] you do it?
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    \"if you want to have the opportunity to have relations with your wife, don\'t start co-sleeping. It can\'t get any easier than that.\"

    Really?

    Well, your sex life must be pretty sad confined to the bed.

    We have sex ALL OVER THE HOUSE with my 2 year old fast asleep in our bedroom.

    HEHE.
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