Co Sleeping

I want to share something that I’m really not proud of with you. Up until recently, I didn’t understand why anyone would bed share with a newborn or infant, and I was pretty judgmental about it. Why would you put your child in an unsafe situation when you know what the outcome could be?

Well I changed my mind. After really learning all of the sleep things and working one on one with many clients who bed share, I’ve realized that it’s impossible to judge when you don’t know the whole story (this is true of literally everything in life, not just bed sharing) and without information or support, judgment is extremely harmful.

Yes, bed sharing with an infant is unsafe. But so is sleep deprivation. Sometimes, bed sharing is the only way for a parent to get even just a tiny bit of sleep. I formula fed my babies. My husband took on almost all of the night feeds for all three kids. I was not sleep deprived. I did not need to be close to my kids for them to be fed overnight. I did not bed share. I DID fall asleep holding baby Joey while feeding her in a bed covered in blankets and pillows with a huge gap between the mattress and headboard. That night haunts me to this day, and Joey was 100% fine.

Let that sink in. I was NOT sleep deprived because my husband was feeding overnight while I was sleeping most of the time. When he needed a break, I took ONE NIGHT of night feeds and fell asleep. How easy would it be to fall asleep if I were doing this every night?

In this post I’ll discuss the difference between co-sleeping and bed sharing, the risks and/or benefits of each, how to make each safer, and what to do if you want to stop. 

Co - sleeping vs. Bed sharing

Co sleeping is an overarching term that includes bed sharing but also includes room sharing. Room sharing is recommended by the AAP whereas bed sharing is not, which is where things can get a bit confusing.

Risks of bedsharing: 

• Suffocation from pillows or loose bedding

• Suffocation from soft mattress (adult mattresses are too soft until age 2)

• Parent rolling onto baby

• Entrapment between the mattress and headboard

Risks of room sharing:

While this is talked about less because room sharing has been found to LOWER the risk of SIDS, some of the same risks of bed sharing exist if room sharing isn’t done properly. I’ll discuss more about this below.

Benefits of bed sharing:

• Makes middle of the night wake ups easier

• Makes breastfeeding easier

Benefits of room sharing:

• Lowers the risk of SIDS (**note: NOT room sharing does not raise the risk of SIDS)

• Makes middle of the night wake ups easier

• Makes breastfeeding easier

How to make bed sharing safer:

I want to reiterate that bed sharing is never considered safe. However, when it feels like the only option or it’s something that makes sense for your family culturally or really for any reason, there are ways to make it safer.

• Baby is over 4 months old

• Parents are not smoking

• Parents are not drinking

• No siblings in the bed

• Your baby should be a healthy, full term baby

• Exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months

• Baby should stay on his/her back

• Baby is not dressed too warmly

• Baby is not swaddled

• You sleep on a firm bed

• There are no pillows or blankets on the bed or near the baby

• There are no gaps between the mattress and the headboard (or, ideally, the mattress is on the floor)

• No loose fabric or cords

• Sleep is happening on a bed and NOT a couch

• Long hair is tied back

How to ensure safe room sharing:

Room sharing IS considered safe, but if it’s not done properly it can become unsafe.

• Crib or bassinet should be at least one foot from the bed to avoid any loose items falling in

• All 4 sides should be up to avoid baby rolling out

• All other safe sleep guidelines are followed

What if you want to stop bed sharing?

There are many sleep training methods that can help you do just that. The goal is to teach your child to fall asleep independently so that when they wake up at night they can go back to sleep without the assistance and closeness that was previously provided by bed sharing. It’s common that when bed sharing your baby is probably feeding to sleep which is why bed sharing became so convenient in the first place, so the first thing to do is eliminate the feed as a sleep crutch. Of course depending on age and development, your child may still need one or more night feeds, but it’s unlikely that they need to be fed every time they wake up, especially after the 4 month sleep “regression”!

You can do this gradually by replacing the feed with some other sleep crutch to help your baby to sleep while still in your bed or not, and then continue to gradually remove support, or you can do it quickly by moving your baby to their own crib or room right off the bat and determining how you’ll respond to wake ups. Either way, as always, if you want to make a change the most important thing is to set a boundary and consistently stick to it. 

And of course if you’re bed sharing and want to make a change but you’re not sure where to start, feel free to reach out!