Bedsharing

I just want to start this post by stating that what is right for one Mom & her family is not the right choice for another family. I am not advising that everyone should bedshare. It can be the answer for one family and not safe for another, and that is okay. Let’s normalize parents following their intuition, making their own choices and receiving no judgement for it. I wish I had been one of those people, helping normalize and not judging before I had my daughter. 

Before I had Nora, I definitely had some thoughts about bedsharing. Mostly, I fell right into the narrative that society feeds us, which is that bedsharing is unsafe and should never be done. I didn’t have any education or knowledge to back this up, I just believed that narrative. In hindsight, I regret that. 

When Nora went through her 4 mo progression, I was DESPERATE for the answer. Searching blogs, google, asking questions in my certification course (we hadn’t yet gotten to the safe bedsharing section), asking friends, etc. I received a variety of feedback, a lot of suggestions to sleep train, some product recommendations and then a few suggestions of bedsharing. While I was less resistant to that by then, knowing what I had learned about baby sleep- I was still SCARED and uncertain and this is because of what society tells us. I had allowed society’s expectations to control my decisions regarding my daughter instead of my intuition.

After about a month of sleep deprivation, my husband and I had been handling the 4 mo progression in shifts. He would take her early in the night, and I had the later shift, around 2am. The person who was in charge slept in a different room where we had a queen size bed and her pack n play. I was holding her in bed, breastfeeding her, and we fell asleep. We did not wake up until the next morning at 8am. And I was like wait a minute…. My child who wakes 10 or more times a night just slept for like 5 hours straight?! And then it hit me… she. just. needed. me. There was nothing “wrong” with her. I didn’t need the expert opinions of others. She didn’t need to be sleep trained. She literally didn’t need anything but her caregiver. 

So, I looked forward in my course, read the book Safe Infant Sleep and researched how to safely bedshare. And then… we did. We always put her down in her own space to start, and then usually upon the first wake, I would bring her into my bed. Most of the time she slept on my chest. Yes, I do believe this can be done safely. I was extremely in tune with her movements and she NEVER ONCE rolled off me. I can’t fully express how natural this felt, for my baby and myself to be breathing in tune with one another, sleeping. She was meant to be there. And how wonderful it felt to know that I was literally her safest place. 

We slept this way until she turned 11 months. She had slowly over time lengthened the amount of time she spent in her own bed, from 45 min up to 6-8 hours, and then at 11 months she remained in her bed for 12 hours, and then did it repeatedly pretty much every night since then (she’s 20 months now). Of course she wakes and calls out when sick or in pain and we always respond. 

But, how beautiful is that? To know I provided my daughter all the closeness and connection she could ask for, I didn’t force separation before she was ready and then SHE, all on her own, knowing she could depend on her caregiver, decided she was ready to sleep alone and face separation, every night. 

My husband also bedshared with her, and slept chest to chest on occasion- when I was sick or when I had an overnight away. When she was 10 months old we started swapping every other night, who would sleep in the room with her and bedshare. He was perfectly comfortable with it.

We chose not to sleep in the same bed during this time. Some will say, how could you possibly sleep away from your partner? But the reality is- this was such a short blip of time, and she was only that little for so long. She slept with one of us from 5-11 months, and we have now been back in our own bed together from 11-20 months- longer than we were separated. We both felt more comfortable being the only adult in the bed with the baby. But, both parents absolutely can bedshare with the baby in a safe way.

I’ll end with this. Human beings are the only primates to be born with only 25% of their brain in tact. All other mammals are born with 60-90%. This means that human babies are born INCREDIBLY immature. The human species is actually considered to be “extero gestators”- meaning that they complete their gestational period on the OUTSIDE. Throughout the fourth trimester, your baby is developing at an INCREDIBLY high rate. In order to complete that gestational period, they need womb like conditions. This means they need sensory exchanges involving heat, touch, sound, movement, smell and access to food. When you think about this, is it no wonder your baby wants to be attached to you 24/7? 

If you’re interested in bedsharing, make sure you research it. There are safe and unsafe ways for it to be done and certain conditions that need to be met. Check out my instagram post today for more information.