My son is four years old and I personally think that it’s time that he should sleep in his room now. Well, in India, it is still very young age for the child to sleep alone. Anyhow that’s another article. I started with it, but then my husband and I checked on him many times and most of the times found ourselves sleeping with him. There is something soothing and completely therapeutic about having your child settle into a deep sleep next to you. Hearing their secure and steady breathing, watching them lose themselves to never-never land and maybe even pushing a strand of hair out of their eyes is oddly comforting. It somehow makes you forget all the stress of the day. The decision to sleep with your child in the same bed is highly individual and each person has a different reason or logic behind what they decide to do. You may decide to sleep with your child or not, it is your decision and keeps in mind that does not make you bad parents. Either way, it is important to understand the pros and cons of co-sleeping with your baby before you make your decision.

If you are sleeping with your baby, it is so much easier to keep your baby in bed with you for those demanding night-time feeds than keep getting up to get baby into bed with you. Especially for the breastfeeding mothers, it is very easy to sync their sleep cycles with their baby’s as sleeping together makes baby tuned to mother’s cycle. It also makes the baby feel secure and comfortable and helps them sleep longer and deeper and also enables them to get back to sleep
more easily when they wake at night. It also helps them to bond good with their child.

Many believe otherwise like research has indicated that sleeping in the same bed as your infant is not a good idea as it puts babies at the risk of suffocation and sometimes even strangulation. Suffocation caused by an adult rolling on to a baby by mistake can be one of the reasons.  Adults who drink are less aware of their baby’s presence. Adults who smoke are more dangerous to babies in bed because of the risk of SIDS.

SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is also called cot deaths. It is the sudden death of an infant under the age of one that could occur because of a number of environmental and behavioral influences ranging from mother’s health to suffocation. The connection between co sleeping and IDS is unclear and research is ongoing. Some co-sleeping researchers have suggested that it can reduce the risk of SIDS because co-sleeping parents and babies tend to wake up more often throughout the night.

Always put your baby on their back or side to sleep rather than stomach to reduce the risk of SIDS. Make sure all parts of your bed are safe with no openings for your baby to fall into or get trapped within. Keep pillows, blankets and other soft items to a minimum. Don’t drink or use medications or drugs that may keep you from waking. Good night to you and to your baby.