Co-sleeping works

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Learning to co-sleep. I had accidentally fallen asleep while feeding Penny, in a bed that is NOT baby friendly. I felt absolutely horrible because when I woke up, Penny was trying to get the blankets off of her. I could have killed her. I don’t say this for shock-factor. It could have happened. And it does happen. My grandma knew a woman who’s baby died that way. I personally haven’t heard of it, and pray that I never will.

When I got up that morning, I went straight over to PhDinParenting.com to read up on Co-Sleeping Safety. We don’t co-sleep, but if I am going to fall asleep with Penny in bed, our bed needs to be a safe place for that to happen. We haven’t followed all of the principles outlined, but what I have started doing is completely pushing the blankets down while I feed her. I have always fed her in between Court and I – never on the outside edge of the bed. Court doesn’t roll over unless I push him around. Apparently I just snuggle up to Penny. It was mostly the big heavy blanket I was worried about.

Needless to say, I have fallen asleep twice since then with Penny in bed. And when it’s come time for her next feeding (no more than 2 or 3 hours right now), and I find her still in bed with me from last time, I am so grateful to have read about co-sleeping safely. I have made our bed safer (at least when it matters), and I don’t wake up in a cold sweat realizing Penny is still with me. Thanks Annie at PhDinParenting.com!

Learning to co-sleep

Co-sleeping is not my thing. There’s nothing wrong with it, I don’t criticize anyone else for doing it, but it’s not my thing. Penny sleeps in a bassinet right beside me and that’s close enough for me. I’m not looking forward to moving her to her crib, but have slowly started transitioning her there.

But last night I made a mistake. An almost deadly mistake. I almost became a statistic. According to the Pediatric Death Review Committee and Death Under Five Committee 2009 Report, 8.8 deaths out of 100,000 are caused by parents co-sleeping with their babies/infants.

It’s brutal to say, and I feel even more horrible about it, but Penny could have become one of those 8.8 last night. I went to bed at midnight. I woke up around 2 to feed her. I’ve taken to side-lying to feed her to give her freedom in how she feeds. I woke up at some point between 2 and 4 because I thought Penny was hungry. I automatically tried to latch her on. She wasn’t hungry. That was when I realized that she was still in bed from the last feeding. My heart stopped. Our bed IS NOT co-sleeping friendly. We have a huge king-sized comforter on our queen-sized bed. We have a top sheet. We have our fluffy pillows. We also have a fan going all the time, and last night it was cold in our room. Sometime after I feel back asleep while feeding her, I must have pulled the blanket up because I was cold. When Penny was “fussing” and I tried to feed her, she was actually trying to get the blanket off of her or even off of her face (I don’t know which). I am devastated by this. I didn’t intend to co-sleep and the fact that I ended up falling asleep with her in bed could have killed her.

This teaches me a valuable lesson, and thankfully not the hard way. Tonight, our bed becomes co-sleeping friendly JUST IN CASE.

Go to PhDinParenting.com >> Co-sleeping Safety to learn how to reduce the risks of co-sleeping.

I am not posting this to argue whether co-sleeping is the right thing to do, or if it is safe or unsafe. I am not looking for sympathy about falling asleep with Penny in bed. I am going to apply these safety principles to our bed, in case this happens again. And I hope other non-co-sleeping moms will read this and take what I’ve said to heart. Just because you don’t co-sleep doesn’t mean it can’t happen!

This perfectly illustrates PHDinParenting’s point that the government needs to teach parents how to make a co-sleeping friendly bed, rather than telling parents not to co-sleep. I thank her for all her information on co-sleeping. We will be putting that information to use TONIGHT!