Should Infants Always Sleep in a Separate Space Than Their Parents?
The tradition of co-sleeping has been around for as long as we can remember in time-honored non-western societies and yet for the modern western world this practice is not only frowned upon, but foolishly regarded as weird, harmful and even dangerous. The benefits of co-sleeping far outweigh the reasons
quoted that imply the habit as being the number one factor in making infants overly dependent. There is also no proof that co sleeping is in any way damaging to the baby or child as it grows older. Obviously a child should no longer be sharing a bed with mom forever, but certainly there is no harm while breastfeeding or still in infancy.
Co-sleeping with Your Baby
The benefits of co-sleeping include a splendidly adaptive system that promotes regulatory sleep patterns, warmth, reassurance and breast milk when and where the baby needs it. This benefits both the infant and the mother. Mom knows that she can easily get to her infant as soon as she is alerted by the child sleeping or waking in such close proximity. Believe it or not the extra nipple contact along with increased breast-feeding blocks ovulation assisting as a natural form of birth control as it causes changes in hormone levels.
Babies are helpless and rely upon the care of the mother or another adult to keep them warm, fed and comfortable. Such neurological immaturity coupled with a slow maturation level is one of the reasons that the mother-infant relationship is so important. Sleeping next to your baby can help this aspect.
Why did western customs change regarding cosleeping arrangements if they worked and everyone was happy with it? The reason that it was changed was mainly due to the increase of infanticide which resulted in laws that forbade parents allowing infants to sleep next to them. Many of the babies that died during this time died from asphyxia due to smoke and poor ventilation in overcrowded rooms and from being dosed with alcohol or opiates to help them sleep.
Likewise, in today's modern society and with the epidemic of SIDS the correlation that sleep contact between the infant and the mother increases the likelihood of sudden death have fueled the argument regarding co-sleeping. It appears that co-sleeping with your baby is only a danger in households of extreme poverty (a detrimental variable anyways) and if the mother smokes. In Japan the practice of co-sleeping is the custom, and remarkably this country has one of the lowest incidences of SIDS worldwide. Sleep studies have shown that bed-sharing with babies rather than sleeping in separate rooms resulted in babies that cried much less and slept more. The findings also indicated that those babies that were regularly breastfed upon waking were less prone to die from cot death.
There is much conflict and debate regarding at what ages is co-sleeping okay? But in reality, this question has nothing to with the natural mother-infant bonding of co-sleeping with infants but rather is about the expectations of our modern society and the necessity to conform to what is currently or culturally acceptable. Funny enough, the western way of life differs from the rest of the world as co-sleeping is the cultural norm for approximately 90% of the world's population. Is co sleeping healthy for the kids? Evidence to date appears to support the practice as being just fine, particularly in the case of an infant that is being breastfed.
