This is the story of how my husband and I became co-sleeping parents. When I say "accidental" I simply mean we never planned on co-sleeping before we had kids. Before our girls were born I thought the idea of having your child sleep with you was weird. I didn't understand why anyone would do that. But then I had a child and all my nice ideas went out the window. We had planned to have our daughter sleep in our room in her bassinet (which technically is a form of co-slepping) for the first few months, but not in our bed! However I remember that first night home. We were getting ready for bed and the idea of putting my tiny, less than 24 hours old little girl in a cold, isolated, bassinet did not go over well with me! I had underestimated the power of the bond between mother and child. I now wanted her right by me. Some of this might have been because of my birth experience. After my daughter was born, my husband, myself and our daughter all cuddled together in the birth centers big queen bed, and went to sleep. At the time it never crossed my mind to not be all together. It wasn't weird, it felt natural. Of course I wanted my newborn and my husband by me. We all wanted to be together, and we were all tired. It made perfect sense. The midwives never acted as though this was strange. In fact they were the ones who put our daughter in bed with us. I don't think the center even has separate beds for babies. So that first night at home I was a little nervous as to what my husband would think about her being in our bed. But just as I was going to say something he looked at me and asked if I'd be ok with her staying in our bed. I was thrilled!
Our daughter stayed in our bed for about the first 4 weeks, then we moved her to her bassinet. When we moved her out of our bed, I felt that the reason was primarily guilt. Bed sharing was not endorsed by main stream pediatrics, and I felt like I was doing something forbidden. Our daughter was an ok sleeper. She was up only a few times a night till about 6 months when she was up only once. She consistently sleep through the night by 11 months. But I remember times when she wouldn't go back to sleep during the night. We would take turns walking with her to soothe her back to sleep. She wasn't terrible, but there were still tough nights.
I began to do more and more research about co-sleeping as time went on. I found that co-sleeping is actually the norm in many (if not most) countries around the world. I found evidence that when co-sleeping is carried out responsibly it actually reduces the risk of SIDS. Co-sleeping helps to establish bonding, breast feeding, and can make nighttime parenting a lot easier. Plus co-sleeping was recommended by some of my favorite parenting books (the art of natural family planning, the complete guide to Christian parenting, the happiest baby on the block). I realized we were not doing something forbidden and terrible. We were doing something that worked for us and our girls, and it had many benefits. By time our second child was on the way we knew we wanted to co-sleep this time. Before I had kids I thought our options were to train them to sleep through the night, or be worn out and get no sleep. We discovered this wasn't true. We co-slept with our second daughter from day one. She is now 5 months. Co-sleeping made night feedings and changing a breeze. We never had to get out of bed, and I didn't even have to get up to feed her. No more middle of the night pacing because we would simply lay by her, and she would drift to sleep when she was ready. She slept through the night by 8 weeks and there was never any periods of crying.
There were so many things I loved about co-sleeping. Being able to hear her breathing and knowing she's ok. Hearing all her little noises, and the little sigh she would do as she fell asleep. My husband loved it too. He would always pull her close and snuggle up with her if she was waking up, or having a hard time getting back to sleep. Some of these things i missed out on with our first daughter because we moved her out of our bed so soon.
We loved sharing ourselves with our kids through co-sleeping. We did not feel like they were an intrusion or a nuisance to us. We believed that one of the major purposes of a Godly marriage is to have children. We did not want to exclude them from our marriage but to bring them into that love and care. They are a part of us, and we want them to know that, and feel that from a very young age. We found co-sleeping a great way to do that. The more I have researched and read about the importance of bonding and attachment in the early years of childhood, the happier I am that we chose co-sleeping as one aspect of our parenting. We transitioned our first daughter to her own bed, and the time is coming when we will do the same with our second daughter. But I will never regret the time we shared with them, or the joy it brought us as parents.
