Co-Sleeping With The Whole Family
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March 3rd, 2007
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Sleeping pattern of children is surely one of the most discussed subjects among parents. It brings out a lot of frustration, thoughts, and ideas among almost all parents. NYT is talking about this tense subject in the article "Whose Bed Is It Anyway?" The conclusion is that involuntary co-sleeping with the whole family is more common than ever before.
Visiting "child-sleep consultants" dealing with problems sounds like a standard procedure in some areas of the country. I've noticed parents being softer in handling crying and other sleeping related problems but are we doing ourselves and our children a favor by acting this way? Should we perhaps go back to basics and follow some ideas the previous generation used?
There are two basic ideas of how to put a baby asleep, the cry-it-out method and the no-tears method. Both have several different variations and it's up to each family to decide what will make them less insane suits them best. Both methods attempt to give parents a seemingly priceless commodity, lots of sleep.
Ms. Lange said she and her husband “work long, hard days and come home exhausted.”
“By the time I get into bed at night,” she said, “I’ve really had it. I can’t spend from 1 to 3 in the morning running back and forth, moving them back to their beds. I will tell you that my daughter does kick and spin. My husband will swear she pulls the chest hairs out of his chest. But if I don’t make an issue out of this, I do — we do — get a decent amount of sleep, at least six hours.
Having children learn how to sleep takes lots of patience and mental stamina. This sounds easy in practice but when you're tired and irritated it's tough to be effective. And lets not mention the difficulty many parents have with seeing and hearing their child cry. Especially the first one.
Our approach to sleeping has been kind of combination of the two methods. We sometimes let our son 3-year old son cry in his younger days but mostly we tried to be patient and not let him cry for more than ten minutes at the time. It has worked fairly well and he's been a solid sleeper for at least a couple of years. He rarely sleeps in our bed, unless he's ill, but he'll come into our bedroom a few times a month after a nightmare or asking for a drink. He's been a superb sleeper on all our vacation trips, 25 flights before he was two years old, which has made traveling much easier.
Our 6-month old daughter sleeps alright but she has been waking up very early lately and so far it's only been my wife who has done the evening routine with her while I put our son to sleep. And her sleeping through the night means 6-7 hours in a row since she's still breast feeding and seems to have her fathers fast metabolism. Her slight colic and reflux has made her story a bit more complicated but her crankiness has luckily mostly taken place during the day. So we're doing fairly well but might benefit from using stricter sleeping rules with Annika.
Are todays parents simply too wimpy to teach children how to sleep well? Do we love them too much?
Ms. Kunhardt and others suggest that parents, stung by the sometimes arbitrary boundaries set by their own parents, are concerned to a fault with the emotional well-being of their children.“I say they’re much sturdier than we think they are,” Ms. Kunhardt said. “You can be both a really empathetic parent and be firm.”
Do we need to be more firm and listen to out children cry more initially and reap the benefits later? Hearing our first child cry was a little difficult at times. It was tough deciding if he was crying for bullshit reasons or because he was in pain. Now that we're more confident we've got no problem letting our daughter cry since we know she's rarely in pain. But I'm not convinced that letting a child cry forever is the best solution though. Every parent should do what suits them best but when a child is young it's tough to know what the best solution is. It's a lot of trial and error. We always try to discuss all problems with our son but that's easier said than done with a 6 month old baby.
They say that sleep takes over sex when you have kids. Ask a parent what to do when there is some time left over and I'll be surprised if the answer is not "sleep!" It's demanding to have a baby regardless of how well they behave. Sometimes I wonder how such a little thing can have so much energy?
Our kids don't sleep often in our bed but I don't mind when they do. For some strange reason, the wife is usually the one who's kicked in the head. Or at least the one who notices. Do you co-sleep with the whole family in bed? If so, is it by choice or did it just turn out that way?
We are a co-sleeping family right now, both by choice and out of wimpiness. I would not let my daughter sleep with us when she was born even though I was nursing. I was such a heavy sleeper at the time, and there was a real danger of my lying on top of her and not noticing. Fast forward two years, and I am a much lighter sleeper. When we moved last year she ended up in bed with us, and both my husband and I have been fine with it. Now that I am more aware of my body at night I love snuggling with her. And it is especially nice now that she has gotten over the kicking us part.
Now with our son who is six months old, he has been in our bed since he was born. He never slept a full night in his bassinet–maybe an hour at most? We were fine with it initially, but since Christmas he has been nursing so often at night that I have nearly been unable to function during the day from lack of sleep. We keep telling ourselves it is going to get better, but we are torn on how to handle it. We don’t believe in CIO, so we won’t put him in his crib and just leave him. But he can be dead asleep on my husband’s shoulder and as soon as he leans over to put him down, the baby wakes up and just screams. I know that eventually he will be able to sleep on his own, I just hope I can make it to that time without passing out.
The Co-Sleeping thing…
Sleep is important to us. My wife and I believe good sleep habits along with good nutrition and exercise is the key to good health. In fact I believe sleep is overlooked when people analyze disorders like ADD, ADHD, and other learning disabilities. We believe sleep is critical to building your mind.
So when our first was born, we devoured everything on sleep. There are two authors out there on the extreme edges. Babywise written by Gary Ezzo and The Baby Book by the Sears family of doctors.
Ezzo is a proponent of separate beds, scheduling, and crying it out. Ezzo has caused much controversy with Babywise because he is not a doctor and he is a born again Christian, which seems to have led him to write some other controversial texts about child rearing that led to widespread criticism.
The Sears family favors the family bed, child directed feeding, and immediate attention to crying infants up to age two. I think they called it attachment parenting.
We never tried the family bed, except under special circumstances, like a thunder storm or after a nightmare or something. We scheduled feedings and naps religiously with our first born and he was sleeping through the night by seven weeks and is still a great sleeper. He goes down at 8 PM and sleeps until 8 AM.
Our 2nd was colic. No matter what we tried he didn’t sleep through the night until 12 weeks. I used to sleep sitting upright in a chair leaning forward with my hand under his belly. It was insane, but we never let him into our bed. We worked hard on his sleep habits and today he sleeps from 8 PM until 8 AM too. I have never experienced anything more mentally, physically, and emotionally draining than raising my colic infant.
I’d say we followed more Mr. Ezzo’s ideas than the Sears methods. In fact I’d say we didn’t follow any of the Sears methods. They may work for others, but they would never have worked for our boys. Every child is unique, so all I know is what worked for our boys.
But about Babywise, we didn’t follow those methods like a bunch of Nazis either. Sometimes we let them cry it our and other times we responded immediately. Sometimes they could sleep in the bed, but mostly not.
If you are struggling with an infant sleep issue, I recommend reading both books. Find out what works for you. Get both sides, use your best judgment, and decide what is best for you and your children. There isn’t one simple solution.
well the Brat was a terrible sleeper and my pediatrician and mother insisted that i feed on demand. a first time mother i knew no better and i fed him every few hours through the night and walked with him when he had colic which was all the time!!but i did keep him in the crib consciously and only ended up co-sleeping accidentally if i fell asleep feeding him.
we recently (at 20 months) moved his crib out of our room and he is doing great there. sleeps right through the night and i dont believe i didnt do it earlier.