On Bed-Sharing

I jokingly mentioned in my last post about how "awful" bed-sharing is and thought I might elaborate a bit.

I don't actually think it is awful. In fact, Lincoln has slept in our bed quite a bit. I have read all the statistics, I know of all the dangers, and I actually fought the good fight against having him sleep with us, but in the beginning he did spend quite a bit of time with us.

Now, first and foremost, women have been sleeping with their babies since, well, ever, so I know that there is a primal urge for some of us to have our babies close. Secondly, Lincoln is breastfed; according to my research, babies who are bottle fed aren't supposed to bed-share because they are deeper sleepers (or something like that) and less likely to wake when in a precarious sleeping situation.

I am an incredibly light sleeper and if he so much as sighs in his sleep, I wake up. This holds true as he sleeps in his bassinet every night, too. It is actually problematic in terms of me getting consecutive rest, but I'm simply not interested in putting him in his nursery yet. We will be following the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation to keep him in our room till he is six months old.

For the majority of the time he slept in our bed, he was in a Nap Nanny. Now, I am sure if someone from their company stumbled upon this post they'd lose their $#!t because the Nap Nanny clearly states it should never be used in a bed. But! With the Nap Nanny between us, there was literally no way in hell it could've tipped over and spilled our most precious contents. It's supposed to be used on the floor but there is no way I'd put my baby on the floor.

Lastly, we never use linens that could smother him, etc. Our bed is a king and Lincoln and I are far sequestered from Rob so I feel it is safe. At this point, because of his reflux, Lincoln doesn't do well sleeping flat so he only comes to bed to nurse when I need a nap during the day. Frankly, I don't sleep well when he is in bed with us because I sleep in a position to shelter and accommodate him, so my back and arms hurt quite a bit. All this to say, we don't bed-share now because it isn't restful, not because I think it is truly awful. OK, there's my peace about that.