At almost 9 months, I’ve discovered something new about my little one. He doesn’t like to sleep alone. We’ve always held K in our bed until he fell asleep and then put him in his crib, which is in a small room attached to our room (K’s crib is a few feet away from us), but recently, that is not enough. He wants to stay in bed with us. In the last few weeks, he’s woken up several times in the middle of the night and doesn’t fall back into a deep sleep until I lay him in bed next to me. His favorite spot is right in-between Mommy and Daddy. He wants to be in the middle of it all! Needless to say, the bags under my eyes now have bags.

Recently, co-sleeping received national attention and drew much controversy when the Milwaukee Health Department released an ad of a baby sleeping with a knife in response to its increasing infant mortality rate. The tagline reads, “Your baby sleeping next to you can be just as dangerous!” The ad resulted from an increasing number of babies dying allegedly from co-sleeping.

Now, I’m not against co-sleeping. My mother co-slept with my nephew and he’s just fine. However, personally, I don’t feel comfortable sleeping with K in our bed. I also don’t want K to get used to sleeping with us. I do want time to be with my husband—if you know what I mean. But, our little one is determined to stay in bed with us. My reasons for not co-sleeping are not that deep. First, my husband is a big guy and I’m afraid we may roll over on him. There’ve been several nights where I was so tired that I forgot my husband put K in the crib and I rolled over and woke up in a panic shouting and searching my bed hysterically, “Where’s the baby?” Second, I’m afraid K will fall out of the bed, and lastly, I just can’t sleep peacefully with the baby in our bed.

Poor K. To compensate for the lack of body warmth and closeness he desires when sleeping, he sleeps in the corner of the crib with his back against the rail. It’s so precious, but I feel a hint of Mommy guilt. I think I will buy him one of those bears with a heartbeat for Christmas.
What are your thoughts? Do you co-sleep?

2 Replies to “Co-Sleeping: The Unpardonable Sin?”

  1. My son Abraham is two years old and still sleeps next to me every night, LOL. All five of my children actually co-slept with me and before the age of three , they all had to learn to sleep in their own beds. LOL

    As a Breastfeeding mom, I found that co-sleeping made it so much easier to nurse my little ones;And also my children just slept better at night laying next to me.
    With this new baby ( Jacob) on the way who is due in March,I know I will definitely co-sleep with him also. Co-sleeping is just something that has always worked well for my family.

    Now there is pros and cons to co -sleeping as you have mention yourself. I would not suggest co-sleeping for everyone, especially if you are a deep sleeper, and you husband is not comfortable or yourself to share your space and personal time with a new born in the bed.

    Co-sleeping is a personal choice for families and has to be one that each parent feels comfortable with:)

  2. I do hear that co-sleeping does help make breastfeeding easier. If we had a california king size bed, then I'd be comfortable co-sleeping, but we only have a queen size. K has been sleeping with us this week because he's sick and it hasn't been too bad, but I can't wait until he's back in his own bed! 🙂

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