I had a lot of ambivalence about co-sleeping. Here’s my story.
Trying to sleep for the first few weeks of my daughter River’s life was brutal until I learned more about co-sleeping. Now I have a relationship with sleep I feel proud of.
Before I had the baby, my plan was to co-sleep because I had a smart friend who did it and her kids seemed happy and well adjusted. But, I wasn’t sure how comfortable I felt with it once I actually gave birth. “What do you think about the risks of co-sleeping?” I asked my midwife and basically any expert I could. “Maybe not a good idea, while she’s so young” my midwife replied.
But the baby would only fall asleep while she was lying next to me!
I tried my best to sleep in the safest, doctor-recommended ways. I waited until River was unconscious on my lap after breastfeeding, and then picked up her limp body and put her in a bassinet. If I timed it just right, she would stay asleep. But, about half the time, she would wake up, notice I wasn’t cuddling her, and start screaming. Or, she’d only sleep for 30 minutes before waking up and crying. It wasn’t working.
We got the robot crib Snoo to help her feel more soothed, and we wanted to really give the product a try. One night, my husband James and I stood over her as she cried, and the robot jiggled her more and more aggressively. The more it jiggled, the more she cried. After a few minutes of this I couldn’t take it anymore, and picked up the baby and soothed her, “it’s ok, my love”. We returned the Snoo after that.
James and I started sleeping in shifts. On my shift one night at 3am, I fed River until she fell asleep on my lap. The lights were turned low, James was peacefully sleeping nearby, and I was so tired. I was trying to stay awake, for safety reasons. My head would slowly tilt back as sleep took over me peacefully, and then I’d jolt awake and gently shake the baby awake to make sure she was alive and breathing.
It didn’t help that newborn baby’s breathing is erratic naturally — she basically always sounded like she was dying (See Tim Michin’s impression: https://youtu.be/r0HNu77t354?t=137)
So, it seemed like a pretty messed up situation! EVERYTHING in my intuition was telling me to sleep next to my baby. It felt so good. The baby wanted it. And I was so tired. But every expert is telling me I may murder my baby if I do it. It was terrifying. Nothing felt more scary to me than the possibility of the baby dying, and I didn’t know how I’d recover if that happened.
So, I felt torn for weeks.
These days I have a really healthy relationship with sleep, IMO. River and I are both well rested and feel bonded. We are co-sleeping, and I feel really good about doing it.
Three things helped me get to this place that feels good for me.
1. Base rates
First, my husband did some research, crunched some numbers, and estimated the base rates for SIDS given our situation (like the fact that we don’t drink before bed). He estimated the risk of co-sleeping every night for the first year is the same as the risk of us driving from San Francisco to Tahoe roundtrip once every two months for a year. That helped me put co-sleeping in perspective somewhat, though I still felt too scared to do it just knowing this.
2. Unpacking the SIDS diagnosis
The second thing that helped is was deeply researching what SIDS is, and surprisingly that I came to the conclusion that SIDS is a poorly defined and overly applied diagnosis. Contrary to what it claims, I now believe that SIDS as a diagnosis primarily captures asphyxiation cases.
I came to this belief intuitively over time because the more I researched SIDS, the more confused I felt about what it is. All the advice I read about preventing SIDS was shaped like advice to reduce asphyxiation risk. But SIDS is a different thing than asphyxiation, right?
I wrote about my confusion to some good friends who are smart, and someone sent me this powerful and sad slam poem: https://youtu.be/PgmRUJ3rofM?t=5
I recommend it, though it’s intense. This anecdote suggests that SIDS is used as a label, at least sometimes, to help parents cope. If this is true and widespread, it’s hard for me to grasp the cost of this at a societal level. So many parents are avoiding a vague and terrifying thing called SIDS, and it’s made much scarier by our inability to model it precisely.
3. Adding an Owlet
The final thing that helped me feel good about my approach to sleep was using an Owlet. Once I had a model that I was primarily trying to prevent asphyxiation, I felt good about taking steps myself to monitor that risk. With the Owlet, I could monitor her heart rate and breathing all night. And the output looked similar to a hospital’s readings, at least as demonstrated in this video I looked up: https://youtu.be/zqNq8ok1Ohk?t=70
It took me a few days to trust the Owlet, but once I did, it gave me so much peace of mind. I really value it.
So, after lots of research and trying things, I’m now absolutely in love with my sleep process with River. I’m sleeping 6 to 8 hours a night every night. And I feel proud. Here’s a video that felt really beautiful to me and inspired how I sleep: https://youtu.be/ikuBmXqY2Q4?t=1385. It gave me a vision that I felt motivated to pursue.
I hope you can figure out what your sleep dreams are and feel resourced to follow your dreams!
