Two-gether is good?

Till recently, co-sleeping (where the mother shares the bed with her infant) was the norm. But some experts woke up and claimed that the practice was detrimental to the child's growth. However, Qadijah S. Irshad finds that if practised with care, it could benefit the child.

Almost all mothers did it: they ensured that their infant slept with them – on the same bed and cuddled next to them. They enjoyed having their little bundle of joy next to them and were convinced that this arrangement also strengthened the mother-child bond.
Everything was fine and all parties seemed to be happy with the arrangement. But along the way it all changed.

In the name of independence for the mother and fearing danger to infants, the idea of co-sleeping – or parents sharing their bed with their infant – began to be frowned upon.

Babies, even those barely a couple of days old, were being moved away from their mother's warmth to impersonal cribs and cots.

Why? In Western culture, co-sleeping gradually waned as feeding bottles and cow's milk made separation [of the mother] from the infant possible, explains Dr James J. McKenna, infant sleep researcher and author of a new book called Sleeping With Your Baby: A Parent's Guide to Cosleeping (Platypus Media, LLC, 2007) in an e-mail interview with Friday.

A few psychiatrists and medical experts also argued that co-sleeping was bizarre, strange, primitive and
not appropriate for parents or for children.

Across the world, the movement began to gather steam and hospitals and care centres began separating kids from mothers. New moms were also encouraged to continue the new sleeping pattern even after they returned home from the hospital. Several 'research findings' were put forth to support the new argument: that sleeping together put the child at risk, that parents would find it difficult to get the kids to sleep alone at a later stage ...

But when and why did the practice of co-sleeping become so unpopular?

Individualism and autonomy (two important social values) were mistakenly considered important for infants. As a result a false notion that infants would grow to be overly dependent if they did not learn to sleep alone emerged ... and was promoted by [some] physicians. However, to date no single study has shown this to be true, says Dr McKenna.

The West also came to distrust the mother's body and what it produced or could do for the baby, he says. People favoured feeding bottles and cow's milk and technological innovations such as automatic swings, rocking cribs and mattresses that make breathing sounds rather than obtaining these signals or cues from the mother.

"In the US,'' says Dr McKenna, "we still suffer from these lingering folk myths to the extent that some groups believe that a sleeping mother is unable to prevent herself from rolling over and crushing her infant, an idea that people in most parts of the world would only laugh at.''

In a nutshell

Proponents of co-sleeping say this style of sleeping reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) since it is the way nature intended us to sleep. It can also help everyone sleep better.

But why is co-sleeping in the limelight now?

"Co-sleeping is in the limelight because the majority of parents are practising it again,'' says Dr McKenna, who directs the Mother-Baby Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame and has been studying co-sleeping for over 25 years.

"[The stress on] breastfeeding is probably a primary reason moms are having their babies next to them in bed. Moreover scientific evidence from our laboratory shows that not only do babies benefit from co-sleeping, but they also like it.''

As one Dubai-based mum recently put it, "Only parents who co-sleep will be able to relate to the sheer joy of sleeping with their child. The touch of his tiny hand, the smell of his powder and the softness of his body when he falls asleep after a feed more than justifies all the other discomforts you may experience."

But how does co-sleeping benefit babies?

For one, the baby's chances of dying are reduced by half when it sleeps close or next to the mother, says Dr McKenna.

The brain of a baby is not fully developed at birth and so the infant needs the comforting touch of its mother's body next to it.

Infants expect and are pre-sensitised to absorb and be regulated physiologically by the mother's sounds, warmth, smells, movements and touch, says Dr McKenna. These [stimuli] affect its breathing, sleep architecture, immune system, feeding and growth rates.

Sleeping with your baby reduces its stress levels while promoting the infant's sleep. It enables the infant to get lighter sleep rather than deeper sleep for which babies are not yet prepared, he says.

Babies cry less when they sleep with their parents and they breastfeed much more when next to their mothers, in fact they feed twice as much, adds the doctor, who suggests that fathers also can sleep next to the newborn. It strengthens the emotional bonds, he says.

What about the argument that children could become emotionally dependent if they co-sleep with their parents?

Dependence is not determined by where infants or children sleep, says the doctor. "The nature of the child's temperament and personality and special needs in relation to the on-going relationship between the child and each parent (and siblings) determines how much or how fast a person grows towards building the confidence and comfort they will need as adults. But expecting infants to acquire some enjoyment by being alone, including sleeping alone, has always been absurd.

"Most folks are just now beginning to learn about what does or does not promote social competence and an ability to be successful. Not surprisingly, children who receive more attention from their parents – that includes co-sleeping from birth – are able to cope alone more easily and solve problems independently [when they grow up],'' he says.

As for training a child to sleep alone, Dr McKenna has this to say: "All children will eventually learn how to fall asleep by themselves and to follow the pattern [of sleep] compatible with their family's needs and routines.''

So is there an age when parents should start teaching the child to sleep alone?

Each family and each child or infant has different needs, he says. "So, there is no universal cut-off age [as long as] what is brought to bed to share is a loving and healthy set of social relationships.

"It is not the sleep space that is important but what the proximity means to the participants and does for the participants and how much they evaluate it positively. If someone is unhappy with a co-sleeping arrangement then it should be changed,'' he suggests.

Does he believe that co-sleeping with the baby can affect the relationship between parents negatively?

"Only if one of the parents is unhappy about the decision to co-sleep,'' says Dr McKenna. Then it can lead to a problem. It can also happen if there is some other unrelated negative issue already creating pressure between the parents.

"Always, though, having a baby does change the relationship of a husband and wife towards one another but hopefully, ultimately, it will strengthen and expand the overall nature of that relationship, even where there are trade-offs in spending quality time alone."

Social decision

So would he recommend parents co-sleep with babies?

"I do recommend that parents always sleep on separate surfaces next to their infants. But since same-surface co-sleeping such as bed sharing can be dangerous when not practised well, I feel no sweeping recommendations [to do so] can be made, just as I believe that there should not be any unqualified recommendation against bed-sharing.

"All families deserve to receive full information on how to maximise safety in bed-sharing situations.

I believe, barring factors that we know make bed sharing dangerous (having other children in the bed), parents should be supported by their physicians if they decide to bed share because deciding where a baby sleeps should always be the parents' prerogative and not that of outside medical authorities. It is a social decision and not a medical one.

A relational choice and not a clinical one. "Mothers know best the needs of their infants, themselves and their families,'' he says.