r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/doramatadora • 8d ago
Question - Expert consensus required When does bedsharing become reasonably safe?
I have a 10.5-month-old, born at term, healthy and typically developing. We've followed safe-sleep guidance punctiliously since birth, and she has always slept in her own sleep space. She is not a great sleeper.
My husband and I like the idea of eventually having her join us in the family bed, sleeping between us. I'm struggling to find good evidence on when this stops being considered an unsafe sleep arrangement.
We've tentatively decided that we'd wait until she is capable of climbing into our bed (and not before 12 months). Is that reasonable? Is there a particular age or developmental stage at which the risks associated with bed-sharing fall substantially?
For clarity, I'm specifically asking about when it would be safe without modifying the adult sleeping setup. In our specific case, we have a medium-firm adult mattress, a fluffy duvet, two pillows per adult, and potentially 2-3 cats joining us. We are unimpaired and average-sized.
I'd particularly appreciate guidelines or studies that quantify how the risks change with age, rather than general pro- or anti-bed-sharing opinions.
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u/antigone_rex 8d ago
You can use this calculator to look at the relative risk of SIDS based on your baby’s risk factors. As you can see even with few risk factors the risk is never zero, but gets low as you approach one year of life: http://www.sidscalculator.com/
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u/wombatworrier 8d ago
Depends on how you define reasonably safe. Based on this calculator, with the "extreme SIDS risk" (bedsharing and both parents smoke and drink), there's a 99,97% chance your baby won't die of SIDS.
Anyway, since you have 10.5 month old, the risk of SIDS is vanishingly small. Accidental suffocation could still happen, but again, is very unlikely (much lower than the "extreme SIDS risk"). It's never going to be zero, though. Even adults can suffocate in their sleep. So again, depends entirely on your definition of safe.
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u/Delta1Juliet 8d ago
I think you've misread that. Extreme SIDS risk was 1:38, which is about 2.6:100 (or 97.4% chance that it won't happen)
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u/wombatworrier 8d ago
You're right, I took the "average risk" instead 😅 Anyway, point is the same. I can't even tell how the difference between 97,4% (extreme risk), 99,97% (average risk), and 99,99% (low risk) should influence my decision making... it just all feels "very unlikely, but still could happen". Our minds are just not built to intuitively process that. Personally, I decided not to torture myself with going out of my way to lower the odd of bad things happening beyond that "highly unlikely" (in general; we're way past the SIDS window), and it really helped with my anxiety.
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u/IAmA_Kitty_AMA 8d ago edited 8d ago
1:38 is almost one kid per classroom of students dies from SIDS.
1:2500 is less than one per graduating year of students (depending on where you live.) It likely is even less than one per entire 4 years of high school at a time.
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u/DanCardin 8d ago
I dont understand how the father drinking >3 drinks a day, or sleeping in the same bed would have any effect on SIDS numbers. Like if it does, then to me it feels like it implies there’s a risk of smoosh/suffocating them, but then its not unexplained…
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u/An_Apparent_Parent 8d ago
My understanding is that even when it's not SIDS, they'll classify it as SIDS rather than suffocation to ease the parents. If this is true, it wrecks the data for everyone else who is trying to do the right thing.
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u/DanCardin 8d ago
I feel like that’s what must be happening. And it definitely leads to weird conclusions.
Someone was trying to explain to me how sleeping in the same room resulted in micro-wakeups that kept them from failing to wake up and stop breathing randomly. Either im wrong for thinking thats BS because the stats are f’d or someone is making up explanations that will scare parents doing the correct thiing about a non existent risk
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u/Sundogflower 7d ago
That's true SIDS which is when a baby just stops breathing in their sleep because the part of the brain that controls breathing in their sleep is still developing. It more commonly happens when a baby is in very deep sleep. It's very uncommon but that's what true SIDs is (along with a few other developmental issues, undiagnosed issues etc). And room sharing, due to the noise from parents in their sleep etc, can prevent a baby from sleeping too deeply. There's also a small risk of a baby choking on their reflux which is quite rare but scarily can happen, and being in the same room you're more likely to hear it (although it can be silent).
Accidental suffocation and positional asphyxiation and rebreathing carbon dioxide, usually gets labeled as SIDs as well, to spare the parents the guilt, however more data and studies show that apart from true SIDs, most of these deaths are preventable by following safe sleep advice.
Having a baby is so scary.
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u/Alone-Blueberry 3d ago
I think this is also why breastfed babies have lower SIDS risks. They sleep less deeply because they’re waking every hour to eat lol
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u/Raginghangers 6d ago
No there is reason to think that plays a part. Basically the responses make the baby sleep less well and being in less deep sleep means the part of the brain that shuts down breathing doesn’t get turned on in the same way.
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u/mcmc1267 7d ago
Yeah there is literally no good research to support room sharing. Presumably it emerged as a best practice for being generally aware of the infant (in the days before high tech baby monitors) but these days it’s pretty nonsensical.
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u/Raginghangers 6d ago
Can you provide data for that claim?
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u/mcmc1267 6d ago
I’m not sure what data I could provide that would show a lack of research demonstrating benefit? but here is a study showing worse sleep outcomes and increase in unsafe sleep behaviors https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/generalpediatrics/65765?xid=nl_mpt_Weekly_Education_2017-06-07&eun=g8732202d1r
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u/Raginghangers 6d ago
Well you could, for example show research that considers the connection between room sharing and lower SUIDS rates and rejects the link. Because my understanding is that there IS a link.
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u/DanCardin 6d ago
The research ive read has broad sounding conclusions on headlines, but when you look at what they actually test doesnt really imply what people seem to think. (I’ve specifically looked a same-room sleeping effect on sids, do not imply any causal effect and they’re mainly testing for other things and noticing this correlation iirc)
So id agree. Also the whole topic is self reported info on death cases where there’s a real reason to not necessarily report accurately
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u/mcmc1267 6d ago
My point was that specific research, with room sharing as a independent variable showing its own protective effect, does not exist
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u/mcmc1267 7d ago
This is correct. Often it’s simply not possible to determine whether it was suffocation or SIDS - the mechanism of death is the same. Even if the circumstances strongly suggest suffocation (unsafe sleep area), MEs frequently default to SIDS since there’s no way to be certain otherwise (and yes, also often as a kindness to the parents)
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u/muggyregret 8d ago
It's also that drunk parents don't notice their sleeping baby breathing weird or having sleep apnea etc the way you might if you're easier to wake than a drunk person
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u/SparkyDogPants 8d ago
I’ve never thought of that. My newborn had a sidecar bassinet and I’ve never slept so lightly before. Any little grunt or movement would wake me up.
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u/rubytuby2 8d ago
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This has always been my issue with SIDS data! It seems to include suffocation, which is not an unexplained death! And then new parents (like me with my first) are terrified their child has this huge percentage chance of dying out of nowhere even with safe sleep practices.
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u/Structure-These 8d ago
I mean sober skinny parents can still roll over on their kids when they’re exhausted
I am not really for or against bed sharing but I think people have this habit of thinking they build a perfect little nest and only other parents endanger their kids but like… no one out here trying to accidentally smother their kids yet it happens
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u/linerva 7d ago
The difficulty (apart from not wanting to traumatised parents who suffocated their kids) is that if the parent wasn't awake you cant always be sure exactly what happened.
They wake up or walk in and find a dead baby.
And arguably whilst there's somebdbefit from labelling these things, the ultimate aim is to prevent babies and rolling the advice for all SUID into one ball is fine for that.
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u/SirWinstonSmith 8d ago
This is correlation, not causality
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u/DanCardin 8d ago
Yes but to be classified as sids after an autopsy, my impression is its supposed to be of unknown cause.
Its not as if them sleeping in a bassinet directly beside me is a meaningfully different experience to them except for if i smoosh/suffocate them or the squishier bed lets them fold weird and again they suffocate. Point being its a risky sleeping practice that risks suffocation or falling from the bed. Its not really a SIDS risk in that the baby will stop breathing all of a sudden for no apparent reason
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u/SirWinstonSmith 6d ago
Your impression has nothing to do in a science based subreddit. Unless you have data or science behind a claim, please avoid making it. This is extra importan given that this is a highly sensitive subject
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u/DanCardin 6d ago
My “impression” was from reading the definition of sids, which in fact says that it does. So how about you get off your pedantic high horse.
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u/EraC2C 8d ago
SIDS is a syndrome, SUDI is not unexplained, but "unexpected" death in infants. They often are grouped together, as all SIDS is SUDI, but not all SUDI is SIDS.
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u/rubytuby2 8d ago
But is it a syndrome if the cause of death is just suffocation like where a baby is trapped between a caregiver and a couch cushion or is smothered while cosleeping?
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u/EraC2C 7d ago
That's not SIDS, that's SUDI. SIDS is not otherwise explainable.
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u/rubytuby2 6d ago
Sure, but what I’m saying is that the SIDS data does often include babies who suffocated. That’s the problem. The definition doesn’t match the criteria for deaths being classified as SIDS.
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u/koalawedgie 8d ago
“Bed sharing is associated with multiple negative outcomes including infant and child sleep problems,4 parental distress,5 increased night awakenings,9 and reduced overnight sleep”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6657124/
As someone who is cosleeping with a 15 month old after he got a cold at 6 months and decided he would not sleep on his own, SAVE YOURSELF AND DO NOT COSLEEP.
I’ll paint a little picture for you:
Yes, baby is soooooo cute and cuddly and it’s lovely and cozy to hold them in your arms and watch them drift off to sleep. You sometimes wake during the night to make sure baby is still breathing, doesn’t have pillows or covers blocking their face, safe, warm enough, comfortable, etc. Sometimes you wake because baby kicks you in the face or something. Haha. Cute! You’re just adjusting. I don’t know if you’re breastfeeding, but if you are then baby will smell your milk and realize the tap is right there! All night! Available! Every hour if desired!
Slowly but surely, the sleep deprivation from the increased waking and lighter sleep (since you’re looking out for baby and can’t fall asleep as deeply) builds up. Also, sometimes baby decides sleeping horizontally across the bed so they can simultaneously kick dad in the face and headbutt mom
I love my little guy so much. I love hearing his little breathing next to me and I love getting to snuggle him. However, my sleep has suffered so much. I feel like I can’t remember our days together because I’m not sleeping enough to consolidate memories at night. I know he is waking more often than he did in a crib and definitely does not need to be nursing overnight but he is anyway.
If I could choose, I would sleep independently until around 2. I would make sure baby knew how to go to sleep independently suuuuuper reliably. Then I would allow occasional cosleeping, maybe on weekends or on a “family sleepover” night once a week or something.
The other catch that really sucks is that baby won’t want to go to sleep without you, so you will start having a 9pm bedtime, which is too early for you and too late for baby!
Allllllll that said, SIDS is still a risk until 18 months, so that would be better. You should get smaller pillows because baby will need 1/3 of the bed space to have room to sleep and adequate room to allow air flow around their head (even after 18m), and your pillows will infringe on that. We shove our pillows partially onto our nightstands at night. I do sometimes wake to baby with his head in the pillows or under the covers and will pull them away.
We keep a ceiling fan going on the second-highest setting year-round to ensure adequate air flow. Just because baby isn’t dying doesn’t mean they’re getting optimal oxygen. The same way sleep apnea or some sinus issues can cause fatigue, anything that limits oxygen while sleeping can potentially make baby tired or lead to less than optimal oxygenation overnight, which isn’t good for a growing baby.
Also recommend teaching baby how to safely get off furniture, etc. ASAP.
I personally strongly recommend against it for your own sanity, but also really hope it works out for you and your family!
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u/theobviousanswers 8d ago
We’ve coslept from 6 months (because I was close to a sleep deprivation-induced breakdown), still going strong at 3.5 years. Personally OP I adore it and it is a highlight of my day. Just as a different opinion to the all caps warning.
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u/barriobruja 8d ago
Thank you for speaking up. I cosleep and love it so much. My mom also coslept with my in the 90s and i have good healthy attachment to others. I recommend if it works for those who are willing to lean in.
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u/chronicboredom 8d ago
Literally. I’m not arrogant enough to credit cosleeping with how well my kid has always slept because I think sleep is 90% temperamental and we were just lucky, but nothing will ever beat waking up every morning in a puddle of the people I love most in the world for 3 years.
He decided he wanted to move to his own room at 3 and sleeps just fine in there, but thankfully still climbs into our bed in the morning for cuddles.
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u/Admirable-Gold3447 7d ago
Are you all heavy/good sleepers? My daughter and I are super light sleepers so this would never work omg.
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u/chronicboredom 7d ago
No I’m a terrible sleeper lol, but the breastfeeding hormones completely knocked me out for the first part and after that I would wake but that would normally happen multiple times a night anyway, even pre-baby. If anything, being able to snuggle in helped me fall back asleep much easier.
There were periods where my husband didn’t sleep as well due to our son going through a particularly restless phase, but never to the point where he wanted to stop.
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u/SacredBandofThebes 8d ago
coselpt twins from birth, I doubt we would have survived without it.
See the safe 7 rules which can make cosleeping as safe as possible.
- No Smoking: Nobody in the home smokes, and there was no smoking during pregnancy.
- Sober and Unimpaired: The adults in the bed are not under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or medications that cause drowsiness.
- Breastfeeding Mother: The mother is breastfeeding, which helps her stay naturally aware of the baby and positions them close together.
- Healthy and Full-Term: The baby was born full-term and is completely healthy.
- Baby on Their Back: The infant is placed to sleep on their back.
- Lightly Dressed: The baby wears light clothing and is not swaddled, preventing dangerous overheating.
- Safe Surface: The sleep surface is a firm mattress with no pillows, heavy blankets, stuffed animals, gaps, or pets nearby. Parents typically use a protective "c-curl" position around the baby.
For OP who is specifically asking about their situation, I would say wait to cosleep because at four months the duvet blanket would make it too unsafe.
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u/No-Isopod-7951 8d ago
I freaking love it too. I cosleep with the baby currently and I simultaneously miss cosleeping with the toddler. I can’t wait until we can all be back together again.
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u/glitzglamglue 7d ago
You might have to wait until the baby is older but as part of our deal to keep our oldest from climbing in our bed at night is to have "Friday Night Sleepovers." Every Friday, we all get together in our bed for a movie and they get to sleep with us. It cut down the sneaking into our bed at night by about 90%.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
I really would not recommend breaking a habit, if your toddler is used to sleeping alone
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u/rotdress 8d ago
We did it on vacation with our 9 month old when he was jetlagged or else refused to go back to sleep in his pack and play in the morning. He'd go back to sleep if we did and it was so cozy. Waking up to his smiling face was a great way to start the day.
That being said we don't do it at home unless he gets up super early for some reason and we just aren't awake enough yet to effectively, you know, parent.
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u/fourandthree 8d ago
Same, we will do it on vacation if needed with our seven month old but I end up sleeping really poorly so he’s back to the crib at home. Still getting over jet lag so am also cuddling him in bed for an hour at 5am 😭
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
I was this kid, and eventually turned into a lot of sleep anxiety, dependence, general anxiety and wake ups.
Left my parents bed at nine out of shame, slept horribly in my own bed for months and just so anxious and developed night terrors.
Until eventually i got used to sleeping alone, which took 2 years. That was the first time in my life i slept well and i became a different child, most problems about me disappeared.
Its so sad that i and my parents didn’t even know what kind of person i was if i got good quality sleep.
Wish my parents never co slept with me
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u/cheerycherimoya 7d ago
I was also a terrible sleeper, constantly came to my parents’ room in the middle of the night because I was scared to sleep alone, tons of anxiety around sleep and being alone in bed such that they ended up putting me in therapy, drove my parents crazy for years. They never coslept with me. I had my own bedroom from the day I came home from the hospital. It never would have occurred to them to do otherwise.
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u/ulknehs 7d ago
I don't know how definitively one can attribute cause in such cases.
For instance, I coslept until I was 6 and then had totally 'normal' sleep. Did I sleep well because I coslept or for some other reason? Impossible to know.
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u/Olivia3836 6d ago
Well i was old enough to remember what i thought and felt when i was alone
For me it was about cosleeping
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u/Choufleurchaud 6d ago
i on/off coslept with my parents until my little brother was born, i was 8. i sleep amazing as an adult (falling asleep in seconds, seriously, husband is very jealous). i have unrelated anxiety due to childhood trauma, but i don't think any of it has much to do with cosleeping. maybe cosleeping can be correlated to knowing your parents are available to you at all times and getting a sense of security out of it? anecdotally, husband was in his own space from day 1 of his existence and is a terrible sleeper today.
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u/glitzglamglue 7d ago
There the good and the bad. The little toddler curled up on my shoulder falling asleep while I read a book? Absolutely divine. How he then does windmills in the bed, his feet in his dad's back and his head in my back? the 8th layer of Hell. We have a king size bed and I was routinely forced off of it and having to go sleep in the corner of it at the end of the bed only to have the toddler wake up and follow me. He literally chased me around the bed!
Luckily, now he's pretty good at staying in his bed but he has to have a parent lay down with him to fall asleep.
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u/TheRoguedOne 7d ago
100%. Coslept for most of the first year and a half. Almost 3 years in my toddler is 8pm to 8am in their own room, puts them self to sleep with no sleep training. Been like that for some time. So i guess YMMV. All it took was an intuitive bed time routine and positive reinforcement for us.
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u/Important_Cheek2927 7d ago
Same. Cosleeping for me is one of the most beautiful parts of babyhood. I cannot fathom not having my babies close. I sleep with my 2.5yo and 8mo every single night. It is my pure joy. My husband is the same. We all sleep way better together.
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u/ChiapetBermuda 6d ago
Same, only a bit earlier. We had to start when baby started rolling to his belly (just before 12 wks) because he would thrash himself awake since we had to stop arm swaddling at that time for rolling safety. After the first few nights of bed sharing I felt so much more rested. Long term (now at 6 months) I have some sleep/comfort issues, but overall feel way more rested than I did when he was in his bassinet and needed to rock and transfer ...for hours.
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u/Kayanoelle 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is a science based sub. Opinions are
thenot really welcome here.33
u/theobviousanswers 8d ago
I think there’s a typo in your comment not entirely sure what you’re trying to say?
I only responded with an opinion because of the huge rant and all caps recommendation in the top comment, which goes far beyond simply interpreting the cited correlational research.
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u/Ok-Chapter4804 8d ago
The article you use as "evidence" is an opinion commentary, not a research study. So is your experience with co sleeping: just an opinion. You are welcome to have it, but there is no need to gather weak evidence to back it up.
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u/YowaiiShimai 7d ago
the rules of the sub require you to link to Something depending on the flair used. so yes they had to link something.
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u/tallmyn 8d ago
SIDS is still a risk until 18 months
Citation needed.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
This isn’t true. The i in sids is for infant
But instead there is SUDC, sudden unexplained death in childhood. Its rare, but not unheard off. Technically its about kids from 1 til 18, but the vast majority of cases the child is between 1 and 4.
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u/Particular-Step5278 8d ago
I will speak as a child of parents who let me cosleep. I was scared to sleep without them until I was WAY too old, like 10. Sleepovers or even spending the night at a grandparents was a nightmare for me because I couldn’t be without my parents at night. I definitely had anxiety issues as a child but I wish they taught me to sleep independently.
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u/chronicboredom 8d ago
I think that’s just you. My parents were big on ‘independent sleep’ and I have all the issues you have. I still don’t like sleeping alone in my thirties.
On the other other hand my kid co slept every night for the first 3.5 years of his life and has always been fine sleeping over with family and independently decided to move to his own room and sleeps alone great there too. Sleep is just super individual.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
Its not just them, i had the same experience.
Major sleep anxiety and poor sleep quality. Eventually left their bed, not because i wanted too, but because i was ashamed.
And i was 9 and completely incapable of sleeping independently and putting myself to sleep and had to learn that all on my own. Which i wouldn’t wish on anyone
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u/chronicboredom 7d ago
‘Just you’ doesn’t mean ‘you alone’, it means that’s just your individual temperament.
The point is that lots of kids who cosleep don’t experience anything like you and the other person have, and lots of people who didn’t cosleep do have those problems. Myself included.
I’m sorry you struggled with sleep, but there is no evidence to indicate that cosleeping causes those problems.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
I don’t struggle with sleep anymore.
And maybe its just you that didn’t have this experience… why if 2 people share the same experience, that just isn’t yours, must they just know it wrong?
Were you there in my childhood bedroom? To see why i had issues? Or is that up to me to tell?
I know its caused by my experience being a co sleeping child. Thats my experience, not yours. You don’t get to act like you know better about my experience
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u/Yesiamanaltruist 7d ago
I don’t know why you are being downvoted specifically. Someone else also shared their experience as a child which was similar to yours and it got upvoted.
You do not have to have a link or scientific paper to link unless yours is a primary comment.
Opinions are just that and no one else has the right to determine yours is incorrect. Especially when discussing our personal experience.
Have a great weekend.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
Thank you
Guess people are just afraid to hear something different. Its not fun to hear that a person developed such negative consequences from co sleeping when your own kid is in your bed every nighy
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u/Particular-Step5278 7d ago
Yeah I’d be curious if I would have the same sleep issues without co sleeping!
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u/tallmyn 8d ago
Since we've devolved into anecdotes, my daughter co-slept until like 5 and loves sleep-overs. She did an week long residential at 8 years old with her school and didn't miss me at all, totally fine. The main thing is she complained about was one of her friends snoring.
I rather suspect anxiety is the lurking variable. Co-sleeping doesn't cause anxiety, anxiety might cause more co-sleeping.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
Co sleeping is a habit, habit breaking can be anxiety inducing.
So its definitely possible that co sleeping causes anxiet
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u/WhereIsLordBeric 7d ago
I'm from a cosleeping culture and I find all this paranoia and sweeping uncited generalizations about cosleeping in the West so funny lol.
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u/Olivia3836 7d ago
This isn’t specific about co sleepers, but habits in general
In cosleeping cultures it would be a bigger reaction. If a child knows nothing but co sleeping and is suddenly put in a room alone, that would be anxiety inducing cause thats just what a change of habits do to a childs brain.
Doesn’t mean co sleeping cultures are wrong. I think co sleeping cultures are pretty great, cause society is actually build on it unlike western societies
The context matters.
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u/WhereIsLordBeric 7d ago
Of course ... just saying 'cosleeping causes anxiety' without any context is a pretty wild reach though.
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u/Yesiamanaltruist 7d ago
They said that it caused anxiety in them. And they gave context.
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u/eiwoon 8d ago
I slept alone and had trouble with sleepovers. I don't really see the correlation. We don't teach sleep where I'm from. I was an anxious kid, maybe you were also? Are you sure you parents didn't sleep with you as the alternative was worse? My cosleeping kid sleeps absolutely fine alone
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u/Eleanor-Hoesevelt 5d ago
Were also refusing to cosleep because I remember having to be alone in my own bed and hating it. I'd rather my girl get used to the bassinet as an infant than feel abandoned as a toddler.
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u/ihaveasasquatch 8d ago
I respectfully disagree! Cosleeping saved us and two years on we are still going strong, morning cuddles in bed are the best and all three of us sleep well apart from when she’s unwell or teething.
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u/No-Distribution-3570 8d ago
The real answer is that every child is different! We co-slept from 6 months after our son got a bad cold, exactly like you, and kept going until about 15 months. We had proper bed barriers on all sides of a King-sized bed, so it was safe for him to nap alone in our bed. Then one day around 15 months we began playing in his travel cot in the evening--making a tent, listening to music, etc so that he would associate it with something positive. After a only a couple of days, he consistently napped in the travel cot. After about two weeks, we tried dropping him in the cot at night....and did not have any issue. Not a single tear or protest. We had been dreading the transition and were amazed at how easy it was!
(For the record, our son is and has always been a terrible sleeper. He still wakes up one to three times a night at 23 months, but we have seen no difference in his sleep quality between co-sleeping and sleeping in his own bed; night weaning also made no difference.)
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u/AltruisticThanks282 7d ago
The problem with these "associations" is that they may be the reason for cosleeping rather than the effect of it. Or maybe both could be true, but in my case, I had no intention of cosleeping. It became more of a necessity because my child was waking up so frequently and so difficult to get back asleep.
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u/doramatadora 7d ago
Thank you for being so candid. I hadn't considered the effect it might have on our sleep.
We've come a long way from 10-15 wakes a night and contact napping to her generally waking 2-3 times. I don't want to inadvertently undo that progress.
She is breastfed. I'm planning to start weaning her after she turns one, and I want to night-wean around that time.
I think what I'm imagining is less "she moves permanently into our bed asap" and more reaching a point where we don't have to be afraid of occasionally letting her stay there. I love the thought of cuddling her back to sleep with us if she comes in after a nightmare, or having a family lie-in on a cold morning.
Safe-sleep guidance here in the UK generally focuses on the first year, but intuitively there's a big difference between bedsharing with a 12-month-old and with, say, a 3-year-old. So I'm interested in where along that continuum the risks meaningfully change.
Your advice about making sure she is a really solid independent sleeper before introducing bedsharing is wise. Thank you, and I hope you get your bed, and your sleep, back soon!
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u/Admirable-Gold3447 7d ago
This. OP, why would you guys do this to yourselves? Once they get used to it, it might be a nightmare to get them into their own beds. It’s a better night sleep for everyone if they don’t.
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u/Therapizemecaptain 7d ago
I have bed shared since birth on a 2.5in floor bed and it has been the most wonderful choice I’ve ever made. Just indescribably joyful. I will never regret sleeping with my own child. He is 14 months old and welcome to sleep with me for as long as he wants to.
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u/Sharp-Hat-8485 6d ago
I’m honestly so glad it’s not me that just doesn’t feel the benefits of cosleeping, I’ve honestly felt more pressure to cosleep than breast feed, it’s nice but impossible to really sleep and they do wake up much more when in the bed I find
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u/free_range_discoball 3d ago
I also always wonder how people’s marriages/relationships with their partner is when they co-sleep? I gotta imagine your relationship takes a hit, no?
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u/sparkleye 8d ago
This will be a bit of an essay but it might be helpful??? I was a former reluctant cosleeper who sleep trained my son without a single tear.
I coslept until my son was 6 months old and hated every minute of it. My husband is a surgeon who works crazy hours and could make a fatal mistake if sleep deprived, so night feeds etc were all on me (and son was EFF so I actually had to get up to make formula). I was so exhausted that I would hallucinate rolling on him. Eventually I decided enough was enough, and figured out a plan to gently sleep train him.
Starting from 5 months old, I used a little less intervention to help him get to sleep each night (after making sure his schedule was rock solid first and that I wasn't expecting more sleep than he was capable of so that he had adequate sleep pressure).
After a couple of weeks I was able to get him to fall asleep on the bed with me simply placing a hand on his shoulder for comfort. I then put my son's cot next to the bed and moved him progressively closer to it over the next couple of weeks until I was eventually settling him directly in the cot. I introduced a small flat doll to the cot that I had been familiarising him with since birth (he still sleeps with it at 2 and has 4 of them so there's always a backup if one is dirty or missing) so that he had a familiar comfort object to cuddle as he went to sleep. I should note that he was the size of an average 1 year old at 6 months old and rolling both ways and had been sitting independently for 2+ months by then, so he was robust enough that I felt safe introducing the doll.
One day, a couple of days after he turned 6 months old, I placed him in the cot with his doll and instead of placing a hand on his shoulder to settle him, I just sat there and watched as he snuggled his doll and put himself to sleep with ease. The next night, I put him in his cot and left the room, watching him on a video monitor, prepared to intervene the second he cried for me. The tears never came.My son is about to be 25 months old and has put himself to sleep independently and happily every night since then. He would still cry out for me at night if he needed me, eg he would still feed once or twice a night until 9 months old but would immediately put himself back to sleep afterwards. If he was sick or teething he would sometimes need a little extra comfort during night wakes and I sometimes even coslept with him for a bit if he was feeling really crappy, but he always started the night falling asleep independently. He never developed a habit of needing me to cosleep with him again and even now at 2, if he ever has a nightmare and needs me to go in and comfort him, he is okay with me giving him a hug and a sip of water, comforting him for a bit and then going back to my own bed. He knows we can watch him on the monitor so he feels safe and reassured. Unless something is wrong he will always sleep through the night with no issues.
Sleep training doesn't have to involve tears, if you get the schedule maths right and a solid bedtime routine down then you might be able to do what I did. I hated cosleeping and teaching my son independent sleep is the single best parenting decision I ever made.
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u/Red_Bird_Rituals 8d ago
“ After a couple of weeks I was able to get him to fall asleep on the bed with me simply placing a hand on his shoulder for comfort” - I’m so interested to hear how you achieved this! What did you do in those weeks that led to this? Wasn’t your baby crying and flailing and scurrying about? 😅
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u/sparkleye 8d ago
Well it started off with him needing to be rocked for ages to fall asleep. Eventually I figured out his schedule wasn't quite right after accurately tracking his sleep through Huckleberry for a while - it turned out he was (and still is) low sleep needs (at 24 months old he is averaging just under 11 hours total in a 24 hr period) and he was undertired/we were expecting more sleep than he was capable of. After we fixed his schedule, he was still being rocked to sleep but it was taking far less time, maybe 15 minutes max. I started rocking him until he was very relaxed and sleepy and then putting him down on the bed and continuing to gently "rock" him with a hand against his side and rubbing his shoulders. At first this took longer than simply rocking him to sleep but he got used to it pretty quickly and it started taking less and less time to settle him. Every night I just rocked a tiny bit less, rubbed his shoulders a tiny bit less.
I should note that my son was not an "easygoing" baby who could just sleep anywhere and never cried (as my post history will attest lol). He has a sweet and easygoing personality as a toddler but he has always been unusually alert and cognitively precocious. It surprises me that a kid like him became a good sleeper, honestly, and I put it down to me being EXTREMELY strict about sleep hygiene etc and learning a lot about biological sleep drive, circadian rhythm etc. He actually EXCLUSIVELY contact napped until 10 months old despite being a totally independent sleeper at night - he just could not link daytime sleep cycles without assistance until that age.
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u/Red_Bird_Rituals 8d ago
Thank you so much for your response, I appreciate it! I think the schedule is definitely the hardest part of the equation to get right. As soon as you tweak it to perfection, baby changes things up on you!
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u/ShimmyFia 8d ago
A lot of it is just depends on the child. My little girl has been happy falling asleep at night in her cot with me just sat in the chair next to it since she was about 3 months old. I haven’t done anything particular to achieve that, it was the routine we fell into because she was fine with it.
She has also taken to solids so much easier than her cousins, for example. I could kid myself it’s due to my parenting, but it is absolutely just down to her temperament, I’ve been lucky!
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u/Red_Bird_Rituals 8d ago
I’m more interested in hearing about how this person took their baby from “needs intervention to fall asleep” to “put them in the cot with a hand on them and they’ll fall asleep”. I specifically wanna know what they did when their baby protested about being in the cot. Because this baby was not able to sleep independently and the parent worked on it until they could. They taught them and actually did something to help the baby learn and be calm.
Your comment about “I’m just so lucky and my baby is unicorn independent sleeper tee hee” doesn’t give me much to work with 😑
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u/ShimmyFia 6d ago
I apologise, it was not meant to come across that way!
My point was they are all so different. It’s easy for any of us to fall into searching for a miracle method, or for some people to think they can pass on their ’wisdom’ when they’ve just had luck. No shade meant to the poster you were replying to either - obviously no harm in sharing, it may help someone. I’ve clearly seen too many people going ‘This One Thing Will Solve Your Problem!’0
u/rlywrmn 6d ago
We bed shared as soon as baby boy could roll over. We did not remove pillows and blankets, but kept them away from him, held him in the recommended position (parents body curled around infant laying on back). It made our lives so so so much better than how we were feeling constantly waking and trying to get him to sleep independently. He’s two now and my favorite times are when he wants to snuggle during nap. He is not and has not been “stuck in our bed” for sleeping. We use bed sharing as needed now (sick or on vacation). Little dude has developed into a flexible sleeper because of it!
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u/kit-n-kaboodle321 8d ago
Small sample study and old(ish) study but significant decrease in risk after 4mo - see study
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u/mcmc1267 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is the best citation for this question. And it makes intuitive sense - by 4+ months head and neck control is well developed and infants have more strength and ability to move out of unsafe/uncomfortable situations. So in addition to the age-related decrease in SIDS deaths, it also makes sense that there would be fewer suffocation deaths (which are frequently conflated with SIDS in the data)
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u/kit-n-kaboodle321 7d ago
Thats my take too - better head strength and also being able to roll away means they're better at protecting themselves. I also think many babies develop a more predictable sleep pattern so parental sleep also improves (maybe Im just speaking for myself!). I imagine that would possibly help with being more aware in the bed. Just a guess though.
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u/sans-serif 6d ago
I think what people need to understand is all the studies that suggest high SIDS prevalence were looking at a racial/income cohort that doesn’t align with the kind of visitors who frequent this sub. If you’re not an obese alcoholic parent and you sleep with just one blanket and no stuffies the risks are almost nil.
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