Have you already decided where your child should sleep? Please be aware that your opinion may change after reading this article. But my goal is not to confuse or scare a young mother, but to give her the opportunity to make a choice based on the opinions of various specialists.
So, nowadays, two opposite points of view are popular: "the baby should sleep with his mother" and "the baby should sleep in his crib." I want to note right away that it is up to you (with your spouse) to decide where your baby will sleep. Moreover, it is you who will best understand what your child needs. And the tips of people who study infant sleep at a professional level will help you find answers to many questions and dispel doubts.
The Pros of Separate Sleep …
The vast majority of moms today grew up in their own cribs. They took us "under the wing" when we were sick, rocked us in a lullaby, and then put us in our places. But not more. And our moms and dads grew up like that too. Someone turned out to be an astronaut or a pilot, an exemplary family man, someone drank himself or suffers from loneliness. There is a small percentage of people with severe mental disabilities. But, in general, in most cases we love our parents and did not isolate ourselves from each other, continuing to create families and give birth to children.
Some psychologists argue that this is how it should be: from the first days, put the child in a separate bed and do not teach him to "hands". Separate sleep, as it were, relieves the child of the possibility of becoming overly dependent on the mother, overcoming the Oedipus complex, becoming independent at an early age, as well as avoiding excessive sexualization and even problems with the choice of sexual orientation. Here I would like you to think about it, since it is not so easy to identify a clear cause of all these consequences. Can only one circumstance of sleep (alone or with the mother) rule the fate of people?
Some parents are afraid:
- spoil, accustom to your bed;
- press down, "sleep";
- lack of sleep due to increased self-control;
- the development of excessive dependence.
Separate sleep completely eliminates the possibility of crushing in a dream. If you smoke, drink, use drugs or medications that affect the depth of your sleep, then it is better not to risk taking your child to bed.
If the spouse is against sharing the bed for three, then using a crib will deprive you of an additional topic for quarrels and disputes. You will be able to sleep peacefully in an embrace and not think about how it is safer for you to lie down or turn around.
Some mothers are very afraid, cannot relax and sleep next to the baby. They also have the right to sleep, neglecting which, they can harm the child, one day losing consciousness from excessive fatigue.
There are parents who, without knowing a special reason, insist on principle that everyone should have their own bed, children should sleep all night without waking up or having a snack, etc. For example, simply because they themselves were raised that way. And this opinion also has a right to exist.
Dr. Richard Ferber, director of the Center for Sleep Disorders in Children at Boston Children's Hospital, offers a system in his book that you can use to train your baby to fall asleep in its own crib. Not without crying, not right away. Mom needs patience and endurance, but the baby sleeps "by himself" and stops waking up "a hundred times a night". Ferber believes that this is how the child and mother can get enough sleep. Other authors have similar systems. The books of these educators and pediatricians are very popular and are reprinted dozens of times. This means that for many, this approach is acceptable and in demand.
… And the joys of sharing
However, there are many parents who find all these systems difficult to implement and somehow unnatural. If a person is already inherent in the alternation of sleep and wakefulness, walking upright and speaking, then sooner or later he masters all this and without special techniques (if we are talking about healthy children). But most newborns are in no hurry to enjoy life away from their beloved mother. And they prefer to fall asleep at her breast. Is this idea close to you? Consider taking your baby to sleep with you.
The pros of sleeping together:
- nightly breastfeeding has a beneficial effect on milk production;
- mom and baby adjust to each other and get better sleep;
- you can feed half asleep, without getting out of bed;
- the child feels protected and loved;
- the baby has the opportunity to make up for the lack of touch if the mother does not often pick him up, feeds him from a bottle or is forced to go to work early;
- the baby, being next to the mother, sleeps superficially for a longer time, that is, sleeps lightly enough to call for help if something goes wrong, for example, breathing problems.
Responding to the objections of many parents, adherents of co-sleeping argue that the probability of crushing your child in a dream is very small, and scary stories about this are more likely associated with sudden respiratory arrest or drunkenness of the parents.
The need for physical contact for children has long been known. Deficiency in touch causes developmental delays, lowers immunity and increases the risk of allergic reactions.
Back in the middle of the 20th century, the English psychoanalyst D. V. Winnicott suggested that for several months after birth, a child still feels like one with his mother and parting with her, even for a short time, causes him to fear, a feeling of decay and dying.
The latest findings of scientists related to infant sleep and its consequences speak only in favor of co-sleeping. James McKenn has done a great job and summarized the results of numerous studies. He collected data that children who have slept with their parents grow up happier and more confident, have fewer problems in relationships with others.
Dr. William Sears is a pediatrician, advisor to Parenting magazine, and author of dozens of textbooks on pediatrics and family education. William Sears and his wife Martha studied the sleep of their own child using attached sensors and found that when the baby sleeps with his mother, his rate of respiratory arrest is significantly reduced. And they associate the deep sleep of separately sleeping children with the work of protective mechanisms against stress caused by loneliness and crying. What's more, pediatricians claim that shallow sleep is responsible for better brain development.
Sears emphasize that sleeping together is the most natural and close to human nature and remind that no animal lays its young in a separate bed.
Obviously, there is no one size fits all method and rule for every family. How your child grows up depends not so much on whether he will sleep with you or alone, but on the totality of all internal and external factors of his upbringing and development. If you get a good sleep and everyone in your family is happy with their place in bed, then you made the right choice.
