Baby Sleeps Co-Sleeping, Facts & Sleep Struggles
Tags: Co Sleeping, Baby, Baby Care, Baby Products, Baby Sleep

Co-Sleeping: Should Your Child Sleep In Your Bed?

Co-sleeping is the practice where the child sleeps in bed with his parents. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most hotly debated and controversial topics related to pediatric sleep. Let’s see why.

Some people argue that co-sleeping is the right and natural way to raise a child because the practice fosters a stronger bond and a more secure attachment.

Conversely, others will tell you that co-sleeping is risky, ridiculous, or even dangerous and they don’t want it for their family.

So, which approach holds the truth?

First, it’s important to understand that co-sleeping is not magic. Although some proponents of the family bed would disagree, numerous couples have reported that their babies did not necessarily sleep deeper or longer because their parents were close by. In fact, some parents found that their child slept longer and woke less frequently when they stopped co-sleeping and moved him into his own crib.

However, whether families choose to co-sleep or have their children sleep independently is a personal decision, and if both parents and child are safe, rested, and fulfilled, then co-sleeping is nothing to worry about.

If you decide do co-sleep, this commitment requires some very careful thinking about what you and your spouse feel is right for you as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.

Ask yourselves the following questions:

• Is it nice to think about enjoying the coziness of sleeping in close proximity, or does one or more of us tend to stay active during sleeping — potentially disrupting the others?

• Does everyone in our family want to co-sleep, or are we leaning toward it because one of us feels strongly?

• Are we willing to commit to being quiet after our child falls asleep, or do we like to watch TV or talk in bed?

• Will we enjoy being able to feed our baby more often throughout the night, or will having him next to us make it tougher to wean nighttime feeds?

• Are we agreeable to getting into bed when our child does, to ensure his safety?

• For working parents, does sleeping next to our child allow us to feel more connected to him?

As expected, co-sleeping has both advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s take a closer look at them.

Advantages:

• Constant closeness whenever the child is awake. Many children and parents enjoy this feeling.

• Immediate action and support for any sleep-related problem

• The ability to nurse and respond to other nighttime wakings without getting up

• More time to spend with the child

• Possibly better sleep for both the child and the parents, if the child was sleeping poorly to begin with

Disadvantages:

• Parents may sleep poorly if their children are restless sleepers

• Parents may end up sleeping in separate rooms, and they may become angry at their child or with each other

• Children’s and adults’ sleep cycles do not coincide

• Parents may have to go to bed at a very early hour with their children and be left with little time for their own evening activities

• Parents have little privacy

• There may be a slight increase in the risk to the infant from SIDS and related causes.

The decision to co-sleep should be yours, made by the parent — or parents — and based on your own personal philosophies, not on pressure from your child or anyone else. Another family’s good or bad experience with co-sleeping should not influence your decision: your child is unique and your family is not the same.

4 Fascintating Facts About How Babies Sleep

When people use the phrase “sleeping like a baby”, they’re probably not being literal, and that’s because new parents are usually tired and exhausted trying to find the best strategies for getting their little ones to sleep.

While we can’t erase the exhaustion that comes with taking care of a baby, we can help you worry a little less, and take some comfort in the fact that some of your baby’s sleep habits are not a cause for alarm, but are actually markers of good health. These are:

Baby Sleep Patterns Are Different from Adult Sleep Patterns

We adults depend on circadian rhythms to regulate our sleep patterns — that is, the timing and duration of sleeping hours — but babies aren’t born with a built-in biological clock already ticking.

The rhythm takes time to develop, which is why newborn sleep schedules are so erratic and unpredictable. A normal infant won’t have a regular sleep pattern until they’re about 3 to 6 months old.

Moreover, even after sleep patterns are established, babies will still sleep differently, because they don’t go through the stages of sleep the same way adults do. We go through one sleep cycle — from light sleep to REM sleep — every 90 minutes or so.

For babies, it only takes about 50 minutes, and they don’t catch up to the adult standard until they reach their toddler years. Babies Are Light Sleepers

You probably know this already, but have you asked yourself why?

For one, it has to do with those shorter sleep cycles. Infants, particularly newborns, may actually wake up between full cycles, so it’s not so much light sleeping as it is actually learning how to sleep properly.

On top of this, babies spend about the same amount of time in both non-REM (quiet) and REM (active) sleep; compared to adults that spend only about 20% of their slumber in REM sleep.

Deep sleep actually occurs right before REM sleep, and is the last of the three stages of NREM — the other two being part of light sleep.

What does this all mean?

Not only is the infant sleep cycle shorter, but it also includes a lower percentage of deep sleep.

It can take up to 20 minutes of light sleep before your baby sleeps into a deep slumber, and even then, REM sleep ensues shortly after.

This is part of why they need to sleep so often. When It Comes to Daytime Naps, Every Baby Is Different

Let’s settle this, before doctors and other health professionals get into an uproar. Yes, there are ideal numbers: A good nap is generally considered to be at least about an hour and a half in length. There are also commonly prescribed amounts of naps per day, depending on age range — three to four naps from three to five months, two to three naps from six to nine months, and up to two thereafter and into the toddler ages. Newborns don’t nap, as much as they have short windows of waking moments, in between sleeping periods of two to four hours at a time throughout the entire day.

Your baby’s actual sleep habits may be close to this, or completely different — depending on factors such as temperament, environment, daily routine, and more.

If your baby’s naps are unusually short, but they nap more often or sleep through the night with relative ease — waking only to feed — that’s fine.

If your baby naps for more than an hour and a half but takes less naps overall, that’s fine, too.

What’s most important is the total number of hours spent sleeping in a day — about 11 to 18 hours, depending on the baby’s age.

The point is that your baby hasn’t read the baby books you have, and they don’t understand what their pediatrician says during checkups.

As long as they’re happy and healthy, deviating from standard daytime sleep habits isn’t such a big deal. Babies Process Information and Learn Even During Sleep

Contrary to what some may believe, babies get a lot of sleep.

This is good news, because sleep influences learning and memory; and if that’s true for adults that spend one third of their lives asleep, what more for babies that spend up to 75% of their time in slumber? From training themselves to recognize their parent’s voices, to figuring out working non-verbal cues to express feelings like hunger or pain — and much, much, more — babies learn and test the limits of their environment continuously when they’re awake.

What they learn is then consolidated and bolstered by periods of sleep in between their waking moments.

And even though there’s no conclusive proof that learning while sleeping works with adults — most studies on this actually refer to memory reactivation, which requires previous learning while awake — it can actually work with babies.

Sleep Struggles — Why Do Children Cry As They Learn How To Sleep

Seeing your baby cry is perhaps the most heartbreaking moment of all. You don’t want him to cry. You want him happy. And of course, you want him healthy. But for all that to happen, he needs to sleep properly.

It would be nice if your child could learn how to sleep without any crying or frustration whatsoever. Every parent would sign up for that. Unfortunately, the truth is that all children, regardless of the method you use to help them sleep, inevitably do shed some tears in the process. Let’s see why.

First and foremost, children cry when learning to sleep because they are protesting — they don’t like change. In fact, they hate change. Just think about it.

Do you remember what your favorite book was as a kid? Do you remember wanting to read that book over and over again, even though you knew every word of it?

We all resist change, children and adults alike. It’s normal to do so, and it’s normal for your child to express his resistance by crying. After all, crying comes before words — not the other way around.

Second, as children begin to learn how to sleep but haven’t yet figured out how to do so, they are understandably frustrated. They no longer have Mom and Dad on their side to help them get to sleep, and they don’t yet know what to do differently. They will eventually.

What’s really interesting about falling asleep is that although each of us is born with the inherent ability to do so, it is considered a learned behavior. And yet you can’t teach anyone else how to do it — you can’t simply say to your child to close his eyes and sleep. Instead, each of us has to learn for ourselves what to do to settle into sleep.

Of course, there are children who seem to learn how to sleep almost magically, with very little effort on the parent’s part. However, children are different. Everyone is unique.

Your child, along with many others, hasn’t learned this essential skill yet, which is why he needs you to take a step back, so he has the opportunity to achieve that on his own.

How will he do it? He might kick his legs around a bit, he might gently rock his head from side to side, or he might grab his lovey. Or maybe he’ll suck on his thumb. If he’s a bit older, maybe he’ll play with his hair.

The truth is, each of us has different things we do to soothe ourselves into sleep, and your child will surely find a way that’s perfect for him. But he won’t discover those things nearly as easily with you standing right next to him or picking him up — he won’t have the motivation to do so.

Simply put, if you “help” him, he will cry even harder because the touching feels like a tease that serves to reinforce the crying.

Baby Sleep Miracle, A Revolutionary Approach To Mothers’ Sleep Deprivation And Baby Sleep Problems

baby sleep in particular are incredibly beautiful things, but sometimes they can become confusing and overwhelming. The vast majority of moms don’t know how…or even where to begin”, stated Schuler.

“Leveraging psychological tricks for helping a baby sleep is a game changer and will create an immediate effect for parents that use it,“ she continued

Baby Sleep Miracle is not only designed to help mothers and their babies get a better night’s sleep, but for an overhaul into a healthier emotional environment.