July | 2014 | Mummascribbles

There’s a heck of a lot of talk in the press, on television and radio shows and on twitter today following the release of new advice by ‘NICE’ in which it warns of the increased risks of SIDS when co-sleeping.

I am not an expert. I am not going to use references, facts, figures and quotes regarding what has been published. I’m also not disregarding today’s advice or going all pro co-sleeping. It is an individual decision and I am simply going to tell you my story.

I never intended on co-sleeping.

We bought the moses basket.

We bought the cot.

We ended up co-sleeping.

From the moment Zach was born, he disliked sleeping on his own. For hours he would sleep in our arms but lay him on his back in that plastic hospital crib he would immediately wake up, cry his eyes out and get himself into a complete state.

Content on Mummy!

Less content on his own!

The nurses warned me that we’d be in trouble if we didn’t put him down but you know what, he was my new baby. I’d just grown him for 9 months. I didn’t want to put him down. I wanted to cuddle him and breathe him all in. I wasn’t going to sit there watching this tiny being cry his eyes out when only 24 hours beforehand he’d been yanked out of my stomach by the doctors.

After spending the first night in hospital watching him in the plastic crib (he slept constantly for the first 24 hours because of the drugs during the csection), the next night was so unbelievably different. He wouldn’t settle on his own and it was the nurse on duty that suggested I try having him in bed with me (yep you read that correctly, the nurse set up a little patch in the bed next to me!).

He slept.

I didn’t but he was happy so that’s all that mattered.

After I was released and we got home, I was hoping that it was just the uncomfortable plastic crib in the hospital that he didn’t like and that he would sleep in his beautiful, comfy moses basket.

I was wrong. He hated it.

He would be completely asleep in my arms and I’d think, oh I need a wee, or a cup of tea so I’d very carefully transfer him to the basket and he would immediately wake up, demanding to be back in Mummy’s (or Daddy’s) arms.

In the first two weeks after he was born, Dean and I took it in shifts to stay up. I was breastfeeding so I would give Zach a feed at about 10pm and then toddle off to bed about 11. Dean would sit up with our sleeping little man and then when Zach would wake up for a feed at about 3-4am (this was before the every 2 hour feeds started!) I would take over while Dean slept.

Of course, this couldn’t continue. Dean had to go back to work. He couldn’t stay up half the night when he had to get up in the morning.

Thus began our time of co-sleeping.

We decided to give it a go because really, there was nothing else we could do.

Of course, Zach slept like an angel. We put him next to me, not in between us. We put the moses basket next to us in case he decided to roll at an early age or wriggle off. And it worked. He slept, we slept and we were far more functional as parents than we were in those first two weeks.

We co-slept for a couple of months and at different times it was done differently. There was a period of time when Zach would literally only fall asleep laying on my chest.

Some morning Daddy snuggles!

I breastfed him until he was 5 months and yes, I confess there were times I fell asleep with him on the boob and literally woke up when it was time for his next feed. I was exhausted and feeding takes a long time; of course I was going to fall asleep no matter where I was!

When Zach was admitted to hospital when he was about 2 months old with bronchiolitis he slept in the hospital bed perfectly fine. It was at this point that we decided maybe it was time to try him in his cot again. In the hospital they made what was almost like a makeshift cocoon out of rolled towels so that the babies felt like they were snug and secure.

The little cocoon in hospital

Once we were back home and he was completely better again, we did the cocoon in his cot.

He slept.

Photo is post cocoon time!

We slept.

And from that day forwards he has slept in his cot.

Well, I say from that day on, we still have him in bed with us if he wakes up in the night and refuses to go back to sleep in his cot. We both work. We have to get our sleep! But mostly he loves his cot.

I didn’t co-sleep because I wanted to be within arms reach of my little boy (although this was lovely).

I didn’t co-sleep because of the potential better bonding (this was also an added bonus).

I didn’t co-sleep to make breastfeeding easier (though it did!).

I co-slept because I absolutely had to.

If I didn’t co-sleep, I wouldn’t have slept at all and without sleep, I was probably just as dangerous as the reports today say that co-sleeping is.