Sleeping with your baby-Is it right for you?

Is Co-Sleeping With Your Baby Right For You?

Author: Nicole Johnson

Sometimes, out of necessity, co-sleeping with your baby can seem like the only solution to getting some sleep when you have a newborn or young baby. For some parents, getting up every two hours or more is not reasonable or possible. Co-sleeping with your baby can seem like a good temporary or long term solution depending on your situation and overall parenting philosophy. Some parents also find that co-sleeping to help baby nap can be helpful in extending the length of naps. However, co-sleeping is not always the solution for every family. A co-sleeping baby can still end up waking up at night just as often as if she were sleeping in a crib. It can also be an additional sleep challenge when you decide to transition baby to her crib. It is possible to successfully co-sleep with your baby, help your baby sleep better and break sleep associations if necessary.Co-sleeping SolutionIf your baby is having sleep problems, co-sleeping might be a good solution for you. Whether you are breast feeding or bottle feeding, if numerous night wakings are doing more harm than good for either of you and you feel your baby is too young to learn to self-soothe, you may find simply sleeping together is the best option. This is a personal decision for each family. The main thing is that you do co-sleep SAFELY. For co-sleeping to be a solution for you and your family, it is best when both parents are on board as a first step. In some cases, a partner will take up temporary residence in a guest room to get more sleep. Here are some guidelines for safely co-sleeping with your baby:
Do not co-sleep if you have been drinking, on drugs or on medication that makes you too drowsy
Do not smoke in the room you are co-sleeping as it's an increased risk to SIDS
Do not co-sleep if you have a too-soft mattress or waterbed
Do not co-sleep where baby can get stuck in a hole or crevice (such as between you and the back of the couch)
Do not place a baby to sleep next to an older child
Do sleep on a firm mattress with not too much adult bedding (too much bedding in a crib is just as dangerous!)
If your baby is young, consider an Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper as a co-sleeping aid.
If your baby is older or a toddler, and moving around, consider a bed rail to keep your baby from crawling off the bed.
If you think co-sleeping might be the right solution for your family, it would be a good idea to research in more detail about co-sleeping safety tips and the benefits of co-sleeping with your baby.
Co-sleeping is not a baby sleep solution for everyone and we all must find our own way to parent our children and find the right solution to our baby's sleep problems. Hopefully this article has helped you determine whether co-sleeping is the right solution for you and your family. Keep in mind that even co-sleeping, you may need to manage sleep associations in order for all of you to sleep well. And, when you are ready to transition to crib, it will probably require a slower approach the longer you have been co-sleeping.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/is-co-sleeping-with-your-baby-right-for-you-3783744.html

About the AuthorNicole Johnson is a baby sleep coach and the owner of The Baby Sleep Site specializing in baby sleep products and consulting services. Nicole also offers a Free Baby Nap Guide and a Free Toddler Sleep Guide for parents with nap problems and toddler sleep issues. Nicole is a wife and the mother of two boys. Nicole has received an honorary degree in "Surviving Sleep Deprivation," thanks to her son's "no sleep" curriculum. She has become an expert on infant and toddler sleep and has made it her mission to help other parents solve their child's sleep problems, too.