Terminalcoffee discussion

The Milwaukee Health Department doesn't want you sleeping with your baby. In fact, it's like allowing your baby to sleep next to a butcher knife, they say, because of the risks of suffocation or strangulation.



What do you think? Did you sleep with your baby?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/o...

Yes, this has been WAY controversial around here. Apparently some Milwaukee zip codes have infant mortality rates lower than some third world countries. Co-sleeping isn't the one cause, of course, but every few weeks, it seems, another infant death attributed to co-sleeping is reported.

We did the co-sleeping thing quite often. It still happens, too, although the baby is now eight years old. He climbs into my bed at about 4:00 AM, when he knows I'm too tired to carry him back. Sneaky little dude.

Being single and childless, I feel I'm a super expert on this and my official opinion is that it's dumb.

My cousin has co-slept with both of her kids. It's ridiculous to hear her stories of how all four of them (cousin, her husband, her 4.5 year old and her 1 year old) are in their bed these days. We can't figure out how the 1 year old was even conceived.

But, let's talk in ___ years when I have kids of my own...

Hm. I've never thought about the issue. Leah sleeps in her crib.

We had my son's crib in the bedroom with us and that was as close to co-sleeping that we got.

There was a time when I would never have gotten any sleep if we had not done co-sleeping. But I personally don't think I would have felt comfortable with both my kids and husband in the same bed for a long period of time.
That said, I think it is something that might work for some people. I really wonder if the stories of someone rolling over on their baby are really what happened.

I knew someone who lost a child to SIDS. She was sleeping with the baby when he died. I never asked her about what happened -- but I know she struggled with the possibility.

I can’t imagine that! I have, on occasion, let my daughter sleep with me. When she’s been sick or had a bad dream but I generally didn’t allow that until she was over a year old. I had the same fear, that I’d smother her some how.

I have a friend that regularly sleeps with both her kids (3&6 years old), but that’s because she doesn’t want anymore kids, this is her birth control strategy. Her husband sleeps in the spare room.

The article suggested that in most of the Milwaukee infant deaths, there was an obese or drug-hampered parent involved. So, smothering was much more likely, and the inability to fully wake up and properly care for the baby was part of the problem.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest, LG. Those baby campaigns are nearly always for the fuck ups of our population. We have to keep the children safe from their irresponsible parents in a lot of cases. But it really contributes to the frantic worry of smart, responsible parents...because there's all this media assault about back to sleep and choking and SIDS ect. ect. It makes you feel like these things WILL happen unless you're hyper-vigilant and it's just not true. (IMO)

On the rare occasions that I slept in the bed with my babies I knew they were there the whole time. I slept lighter because I knew they were there and I didn't want to roll over on them. That's why I didn't do co-sleeping. I actually wanted to sleep! I still do!

smetchie wrote: "That's exactly what I was going to suggest, LG. Those baby campaigns are nearly always for the fuck ups of our population. We have to keep the children safe from their irresponsible parents in a lo..."

Exactly!

Sensible.

On a recent episode of L & O: SVU they had a case of a baby who died of SIDS and the implication was it happened because the mother was a smoker.

I don't have kids, but I know my mom slept with me in the bed as a baby, probably out of necessity more than anything. My dad left when I was really little, so I think it was partly security and partly the fact that where we lived was really cold and not all that safe. Other than stating that I am obviously still alive, I don't know how I feel about it.

We avoided co-sleeping with my daughter for the most part, but on occasion it was nice having that warm, squishy baby with us.

Co-sleeping with the dog probably doesn't count, does it?

Jammies wrote: "Co-sleeping with the dog probably doesn't count, does it?"

Unless you sleep with a 60 pound doofus who tries to suffocate you (with love) while you sleep. I've learned through experience that this is dangerous.

heh, heh. Doofus.

Amber, my 60 pound doofus only ever wanted to put his chin on my ankles when he slept with me, and the 80 pound doofus would lie next to my legs until I moved, at which point he would huff in exasperation and jump down off the bed. :)

I have a needy, needy doofus.

(He was abused as a pup, so I forgive his occasional accidental assassination attempts. He maims because he loves.)

Aw.

True story....one of my cats gave birth in my bed while I was sound asleep. I woke up and she was nursing one baby, and the other kitten was half underneath me, deceased. I have no way of knowing if I smothered it, or it was stillborn, but I have chosen to believe the latter.

Lobstergirl wrote: "True story....one of my cats gave birth in my bed while I was sound asleep. I woke up and she was nursing one baby, and the other kitten was half underneath me, deceased. I have no way of knowing..."

Wasn't there a lot of moisture?

There was a lot of blood. At first I thought I was hemorrhaging or something.

Either way I blame the cat.

Honestly, I would have only been able to keep one kitten anyway, so problem solved. (Am I evil?)

Law of the jungle.

She only had two?

One time our cat only had 1. We never even knew she was pregnant until a very well-fed looking kitten stumbled out of the closet one day.

Yes, she only had two. Then we got her fixed. She and her daughter were our only two cats.

Oh dear.

Our gerbils used to eat their young. Our guppies also ate their own babies.

What can you do.

It happens.

If the infant was either still born or malformed, it might be an evolutionary thing where the mother eats it to keep predators away from a meal.

I did not co-sleep with little. He did have very bad silent reflux as a baby and there were nights he would only sleep in my arms cuddled to my chest. I did not sleep on those nights.