I began this post's title with "should." I use this word even though I hate it because it's a word that we parents always hear. The truth is, with babies, "should" is a stupid word. There's too much variation with children. With parenting, you need to explore the world of could not should.
So, bed-sharing. Did we get there? Oh, yes, we did. And I know that many parents do this but don't admit it, so I'm going to announce it loud and proud..."World, my baby sleeps in my bed!!!" Did I want to get here? No, not really. I like my space. Don't get me wrong, there is something about your child rubbing your arm in the middle of the night to make sure you are there that might be one of the most special feelings in the world. At the same time, waking you up isn't necessarily fun. At the end of the day, it came down to something very simple: I see no other options.
Here we are back to: what does he need? In the early months, swaddling kept my son happy at night. Yes, he woke up multiple times a night, but he went back to sleep outside our bed...usually in his bouncer. But, then it was time to graduate. The swaddle was now waking him up. So we removed it. And all hell broke loose. We tried letting him sleep in his bouncer without the swaddle. No go. We tried the bassinet that rocks. No go. We tried a pack and play. No go. Every time he woke up (sometimes after twenty minutes when it took me forty minutes of rocking just to place him down), I was finding myself angry. Grumbling obscenities to myself. Throwing tantrums and waking my husband up with "what the hell am I supposed to do!!!!" Finally, I did what the Sears family (of Dr. and and RN Sears) ended up doing. Just bringing baby into bed. And he slept.
Ok, so he doesn't sleep through the night, nowhere close. But when he wakes, five minutes of a breast-feed tops and he's back out, and so am I. I put him down in our bed and he'll sometimes sleep a few hours before it's time for me to go to bed and join him. The reality is, he needs to know I'm there. He's tiny and the very idea of being alone in the world is too much for him. He needs it, so we're going with it.
When you make a decision like this, one that goes completely against what everyone else does (or will admit to doing), it can be rough going. Especially, if it wasn't in your "plan" (I will condemn the idea of plans in another post). I think most people don't admit to it because they don't want to defend it, and they certainly don't want to feel like they are doing something wrong or are taking the easy way out. And even more so, you really hate to feel like you could be doing something detrimental to your child. But at the end of the day, I am completely against sleep-training. In my opinion, it's the same thing as telling your baby to "buck up" because you will be abandoning him all night long. I just can't do it. This solution (when letting him sleep on his own in our room and going to him when he woke didn't work) feels much better to me.
And then, there's all the other stuff. SIDS, rolling over on baby, pediatrician recommendations, studies, etc. So, here are a few thoughts on that.
SIDS: This is a very scary thing. But, my question is, how on earth are you supposed to know if baby is breathing when he's in a different room? Even in the same room, I was not nearly as aware of what my son's breathing patterns were when he was in the bassinet. Now, I know every move he makes, and I think I would certainly know if he stopped making them. Truth is, as a mother, I now feel safer with him next to me than I ever did with him away from me.
Rolling Over: This one is also very scary, and often the experts reason for not bed-sharing. I have no idea how I would ever roll over on my son. I hardly move when he's next to me because I am so aware of him. My husband was very worried about this as well, but we are finding that he is just as aware of him. Granted, if you are taking sleeping pills, drinking a lot, doing drugs, or anything else that might make you an unaware sleeper, then this is probably something you should worry about. It probably means that your life style needs another solution. Or you need to go to bed sober.
Pediatricians: Some are ok with bed-sharing, some are against. There's a lot of liability that goes on when they make their decisions as well. I find that doctors often make recommendations based on worse case scenario. You can't recommend bed-sharing and then have one mother take a sleeping pill or get wasted and roll over on her child. Some parents just ruin everything for the rest of us.
Studies: NIH has a study that shows that bed-sharing is on the rise, so more people are doing it (perhaps than are admitting it). It is very popular world-wide, just not so much in this country. Currently, there is no real evidence of a link between SIDS and bed-sharing. Studies have found that there are no negative developmental outcomes due to bed-sharing (behaviorally or academically).
So, in my opinion, there is no should not to bed-sharing. As for should, that's always a matter of needs for your family and your child. Could it be an option for you? Yes, of course. Whether or not you choose to take it will be a decision you make in the best interest of your family. In our case, it's working. Mommy isn't having temper tantrums in the middle of the night and baby is sleeping. That's success in my book.
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