#310 | The Co-Sleeping Controversy: Overcoming Fear & Supporting Instincts with Isadora of Happy Co-Sleeper

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hello everyone. My name is Isadora Ambrose. I'm founder of Happy Cosleeper. I'm also a certified holistic infant sleep specialist, trained by Dr Lindsay hook way and other big certifications out there for sleep consultants. I've been working with families for the last seven years supporting families one to one how to navigate infant sleep. And over the years, I've kind of niched and specialized in co sleeping, because I realized that a lot of families that I was supporting, they were co sleeping families. I also the way this journey started was because of my own experience with becoming a mom and having a little one who would not sleep anywhere but on me, and I struggled a lot in those first few days with him, and eventually he ended up in bed with me, and I decided to dig deeper into the research and learn what is safe what's not safe, and support families, not only through safety, comfort, logistic of co sleeping, but also how to navigate the challenges that come with, you know, sleep and gaining a little bit more independence and finding the balance that a lot of families seek when they are co sleeping. So today we are going to be talking about cold sleeping. Why cause sleeping matters and why there is such a stigma around cold sleeping, which I think is why, one of the main reasons why talking about cold sleeping is so important to me, because there is a lot of fear led messages that parents receive and they end up falling asleep in unsafe ways. And I'm here to change that and help families to feel confident, feel good about cold sleeping, and obviously also Cold Sleep in a safe way.

I'm not sure that there is anything that a new parent fears more than their infant sleep. And for us and for most of the women in our community, it's very instinctive to want to sleep with your child, your child on you, at least near your child, but mothers are so afraid, especially in the United States, we have been it has just been hammered into us that if you sleep with your infant, your infant is going to die and you are going to be at fault. Like, that's the deeply ingrained belief. So let's just start right with like, tell us about safety of co sleeping. Is it safe to co sleep?

Yes, it is. And you know, when you look at the studies out there, it's really, really hard to know what to believe, because there are studies telling you that it's not safe. That increases the risks. But when you dig deeper into those studies, you are going to see that a lot of the really important factors about what makes cold sleeping safe are not taking into account. A lot of the times when you look at studies, you know they talk about cold sleeping, or they talk about bed sharing, but what they actually mean is any adult or even another child sharing a sleep space. It could be a bed, it could be a sofa, it could be a recliner, with their infants. And we know that the difference between sleeping in a safely prepared bed, you know, taking out all of those known hazards, compared to falling asleep accidentally on a sulfur or a recliner. It's a huge difference. So you cannot compare. Obviously, one of those increases the risks dramatically, and the other doesn't. And fortunately, we have new studies now. They are smaller studies, but they are coming up more and more to show that in the absence of the known hazards. Co sleeping is as safe as a baby sleeping in a cot alone, you know, a clear crib of cot. So we, fortunately, we are. It's, I think with time, the the recommendations will start to change. They are starting to change. In some parts of the world, I'm in the UK. In the UK, for example, we have now the NHS, who is the public health system, who actually puts on their websites guidelines on how to co sleep, and how to when not to co sleep, what to avoid, when co sleeping. Unfortunately, in the US, I think there is still a huge stigma with the AP. They're kind of still sending out that message that it's never safe, that your baby, your baby, is always safer when they are sleeping alone.

They are now recommending, the American Academy of Pediatrics does now recommend room sharing. Totally against is the isn't the opposite actually true, though, isn't it a little safer to co sleep when you do apply all the Safe Sleep techniques?

Some sleep experts will argue that it is safer because you are more aware of your infants if they run into any trouble, especially in those first four months of life when they are more vulnerable. You are monitoring all the time. So we always say that it's important that even if you are not going to necessarily bed, share with your baby. So share the same bed with your baby, that at least in those first few months of life, you are going to co sleep, which can mean just basically room sharing. It might be a bedside crib, and we normally say arms reach, and that normally means the baby's arm reach. So that's how close you want your baby to be in order to monitor them, to monitor their breathing, to know if they run into any trouble at night, which could happen. So I'm I'm a fan of co sleeping, of course, so I'm biased, and I'm going to say that I I believe that there are many more benefits to to co sleeping with your baby.

Isadora, did you just say that? That means within the baby's arm, reach, the baby's parents arm reach. That's that is co sleeping. Their arms are not very long.

That's right, you could have your baby in a in a bedside crib. You could have your baby in a bedside crib, in your debt clothes and they have a separate space. You want your baby to be able to touch you, to feel you, to experience all of those sensory exchanges. They are so important to keeping your baby in that light stage of sleep, because one thing that people forget is that that waking up very often. We're talking here of newborn babies, right? First few months of life, they wake up a lot, and it's normally very light arousal. It's not necessarily a full waking they're just slightly arousing, checking that you were there, and they go back to sleep. So those light arousals, they are very protective for babies. They need to happen and the closer you are to your baby, all of those sensory exchanges that you have a mother and a baby. So it might be, you know, the sound of your heartbeat, if they are that close to you, they're sleeping on you, or it might be just your your breathing, so just feeling those those sounds, and being close to you, and when you you wake up normally, a mother who is breastfeeding, they their sleep cycle aligns, syncs with their baby sleep cycle, which is fascinating, because If you think about sleep deprivation and all of that which so many of us experienced in the first months of our baby's lives, when you are co sleeping with your baby, and you are waking up so you're not being woken from a deep state of sleep, and you're like completely, you know you're in the deep sleep, you wake up and then you really struggle To go back to sleep. You actually use sleep cycle ends at the same time as your babies, and then you are in that light state of sleep already. You both go back to sleep naturally. So it makes so much more sense in terms of sleep deprivation as well. Sowe, when we shared with our community that we were going to be discussing co sleeping, we got flooded with hundreds and hundreds of messages. This is a very important topic to mothers, because, like I said before, I think this is really innate in moms to want to do this, and we fight it and we are afraid and we feel guilty, and inevitably, mothers end up falling asleep with their babies. It just It happens because you're exhausted, you're tired, and we know that we have research to show that, that, you know the majority of parents. The latest data from the lullaby trust here in the UK suggests that nine out of 10 parents go sleep with their baby at some point in the first few months of life. So we know it's going to happen, right?

So it serves us to teach them how to safely do it. So one of the biggest questions that comes up for us frequently, and I'm a lactation consultant, so I also get this question pretty much in every consultation I do, because breastfeeding and co sleeping just go hand in hand. I mean, it's just absolutely to exclusively, effectively breastfeed. You need to sleep near your baby. So everyone asks me, is it safe to sleep with my baby on my chest?

What is your answer? Yes, chest, chest to chest. Co sleeping. It's really hard to give you an answer yes or no, because we haven't got, unfortunately, research to say yes, absolutely you can go sleep with your baby on your chest. There isn't any research on that. In fact, the research that we have on some sleep, prone sleep, we know, the back to sleep campaign in the 80s has dramatically reduced the risk of seeds. So we know the safest way for a baby to sleep is on their back. However. A baby sleeping on their tummy on a sober caregivers chest is a very different story to a baby sleeping flat, on a bed or on a crib. It's very, very different. And the reason is different is that, firstly, your baby can be slightly more inclined. So you know, you know, if babies, especially newborn babies, they don't have a lot of head and neck control, and their heads are very large compared to their body. So when they're very young, they don't have the capacity, the ability, to lift up their heads if they are down on their tummy. It's very hard, if they get into any trouble to lift up your heads. When you're sleeping with your baby on your chest and their chest to chest with you, you are going to be slightly inclined so that your baby's head is higher than their bottom, so that if they need to for any reason, to lift up their head, they are not going to struggle because they are in a higher up position. Not only that, you also have, again, those sensory exchanges that I was talking about. If you're sleeping on a parent, you have, you know, breathing regulation, temperature regulation, you're hearing your mother's heart beat. So all of those things are highly protective, and we know that we have studies talking about the regulation of not only the emotional regulation, but also the physiological regulation that goes with that really close contact to the parent. So I talk about a lot how to reduce the risks when chest to chest go sleeping, because we can't say for sure there is no risk. We can't say that for sure about anything, because there is risk, and risk doesn't is not ever completely eliminated, even for a baby sleeping in a crib. We know that seeds can happen with a baby sleeping in a crib, especially if they are not being monitored. We know there is always risk, so we always talk about risk reduction. This is my, you know, the main point of my my work, what I do, it's about understanding risks and understanding how to modify those risks. Because a lot of the risks are modifiable. A lot of the risks, when we talk about cold, sleeping, bed sharing, they can be changed and they can be eliminated. So with the chest to chest cold, sleeping would be dressing your baby lightly so you're not increasing the risks of of overheating, making sure their airways are clear. So you're going to have your baby face to the side, their head to the side, rather than kind of down on on your body. And their airways. Their head is slightly upward, so they their airways are clear. You are dressed slightly, and you are kind of an inclined position. You are not sitting up too much, but you're not completely flat either. So you feel stable. Your baby feels stable in you. And you know in those first few months, they are not rolling, they are not moving too much, so they are normally just, they just sit there, and they are safe there. They don't move too much. I sometimes hear about babies rolling off parents chest, and that's normally when they try to sit up too much, or or they are completely flat. So they need to find that ideal spot where it feels safe, it feels stable. But again, it is. For me, it's like one of the oldest positions out there. When you look at primates, it's the position that's been observed forever for mothers and infants. So it's a very, very common and normal position. Newborns love it. You know, my I'm I don't see newborn sleep without chest to chest. Go sleeping. It doesn't exist for me, my newborns all slept on my chest. Yes, I'd like to add to that too. There is a lot of research out there on kangaroo care, which is the chest to chest position and continuous skin to skin contact between mother and baby, sleeping around the clock that way, day and night, and how beneficial that is for a premature baby's development, but it's, you know, there's also research on how beneficial it is for a full term baby's development, and how it facilitates the the behavioral attachment between mom And baby and releases oxytocin, and it's really good for breastfeeding, but mothers in US hospitals, at least, are if a nurse walks in and sees a baby co sleeping on a mother's chest, they are going to ask them to remove that baby and say it's unsafe.

They are going to remove the baby themselves, because that's what I hear a lot. They sometimes mothers are in hospital if their baby's on their chest, and the baby gets removed from their chest without even asking so, which I find completely appalling. How can you just move my baby without asking me? But yeah, the same is here in the UK, and I think that comes down to liability they don't want to be. You know, hospital beds are not made for co sleeping. Okay, they are too narrow. They, you know, they have lots of gaps where babies could get entrapped, so they are not safe for COVID Sleeping. And it's sad, because it could, they could be made safe if it was normalized. If you look at countries like I've had followers sending photos from a hospital stay in Sweden or Denmark, you know, and the beds are like a bed that you have at home. They are large, they are safe and cold. Sleeping is not seen as a problem there.

They're called Family beds, and they have them in birthing centers after you give birth, they encourage everyone to get in bed together and just rest

Absolutely. This is part of the problem that women in in the hospital environment, are told that this is unsafe because the environment that the baby is trying to co sleep in is unsafe. But then they're not told that when they go home, that if they are in the center of their bed with their baby on their chest with, you know, pillows and blankets removed, that that's a perfectly safe and appropriate and normal way to sleep with your child. And I think it's such a missed opportunity to educate families at that point, when they are in the hospital, they're starting out, they are going to come across a situation where their baby needs to feed. And as you said, the message that we get out there is setting mothers up for failure, basically because you were told that you have to breastfeed. Breastfeed is great. Breastfeeding is great, but you cannot bring your baby to bed. So how does a mother wake up all night to breastfeed their baby and then place them back into an into a crib? You are going to get into a state of extreme sleep deprivation. It's not conducive. You then get to a stage where you are dangerous. You will. You agree and become a danger to your baby. That's exactly what happened with me. I ended up co sleeping with both of my babies. Thank God, because it was wonderful and it was the right thing. But it only began because I was jumping up. I you know, when my son would cry in his sleep, my feet would hit the floor before I was conscious that I was awake. You know, how mothers are? We respond so quickly. I would feel like I was waking up when I was one or two or three steps away from my bed, already on my way to him on the other side of our bedroom. And I remember picking him up once seconds after he made a sound in his sleep, and going to carry him back to the bed to breastfeed. And then I would usually do that and then try to return him to his little sleeper. But I remember feeling my knees buckle, and I thought, this is not safe. I should not be on my feet with my baby when my body is weak from sleep deprivation and my mind is not even aware. I think the biggest problem we see all the time, and I'm so many other examples come to mind is that the way I phrase this, these blanket approaches, is they're really removing responsibility from parents, which they shouldn't be doing. So for example, when they tell women that they need to give their baby the hepatitis vaccine at birth, and the woman says, I don't have hepatitis, they're like, well, we don't know that. I feel like saying, I beg your pardon, you know, are there women who are even told like, Well, we haven't tested you in months, and we can't be sure that you haven't been like, been with anyone else. I'm sorry. I mean, I don't need to explain my health to you. You know, that's not how it works. This blanket approach of telling parents not to co sleep is their way of also saying, well, we don't know that you're not drinking. We don't know that you're it's the easiest way. It's a simple message that is going to reach everyone. But right? So the problem with that message, it's not just the simplest way. It's removing the fact that this is actually so beneficial for the people who aren't drunk and who are doing it responsibly, why can't they just package the advice and the recommendations appropriately and then let parents decide? And I do think there's an argument to say that maybe I'm biased, but I also think I'm onto something here. I don't think men and fathers are wired in the same way as women, and it might be very different if the father is co sleeping versus the mother. I mean, there's so many factors that go into this, but most women are hyper vigilant after they have a baby and father.

We have research on that, actually. So it is, it's, it's, it's true. We know that our brains, as mothers, our brains, our amid amygdala grows in size, which makes us more alert. And it's like It's danger. We are more alert to danger. So we are more attuned to our babies. We are more responsive. We wake up, we hear our babies crying when we are in the shower. So we are in constant state of alertness when we just had a baby. Fathers, in general, they don't go through those changes unless they are the primary caregivers. There are changes in their brain as well, but it's normally the matter that goes through those changes, and we know and hence, why the recommendation to until at least four months, which is their critical development. Developmental period for babies, it's advised that the baby sleeps with the mother only because exactly that we fathers tend to be less aware and less attuned to their babies. There's also differences whether you breastfeed or not. So it's really interesting. When you look at research, we know that in a breastfeeding relationship, so we a family, that baby is breastfed, the mother takes, tends to take that role of you know, the baby is my responsibility. So the baby is right next to the breast. The baby is oriented to the breast. They've their main focus is the breast. So they're not going anywhere, because they're focused to the breast. The mother places the base, the baby lower down, you know, near the breast, and the father tends to be or the other parent tends tend to not be as involved, because they know the mother is breastfeeding. It's kind of that breast sleeping. I don't know if you've heard the term, but you are asleep. Your baby is asleep. They find the breast, they latch, and you both continue to sleep, so the other parent tends to be less involved. So we know that when we observe a family, father, mother in the research is a father, mother and a baby, the fathers tend to put the duvet up a little bit higher. They tend to not face their infants as often. They don't touch the infant as often. The baby doesn't face the Father as often, because they for them, the only thing that matters to them is the breast, right? So they which is super protective, they are not going to wander off to areas where a more dangerous near pillows or gaps. So they're there right next to the to the breast. Now, when you look at formula or bottle feeding families, it's really interesting, because babies tend to be placed between parents as often higher up. So they put the doula up a little bit higher, and they don't want the baby near the doula, so they place the baby higher up next to the pillows, which is not as safe. So, which is why we recommend, even if your bottle formula feeding, try to imitate those protective breastfeeding positions and behaviors like placing the baby lower down next to the breast, sleep in that cuddle, curl position, curling around your baby so your baby is more protected they can't wander off to, you know, high up to the pillows or under the covers. But we know, interestingly, that fathers in a formula feeding family, they tend to interact more with the baby at night, so they tend to be more aware and more attuned. Because it's almost like that responsibility is a little bit more shared. You know, the the feeding responsibility is not only the mothers, it's the father is also feeding at night, so they tend to face the infants more. The infant tends to face them more. They have more contacts. They touch more than in a breastfeeding relationship. That doesn't mean it's more protective. We know that breastfeeding is a lot more protective. But we we also know that when you know a mother is sleeping with a baby, and it's a newborn baby, we don't want the baby to go in the middle, because the father is not going to be as aware. So we want the baby to be next to the mother only for those first few months, because we know that mothers are more attuned when I talk about what to wear, and more you know what babies should wear when co sleeping, I tend to avoid recommending blankets, because it's a loose piece of fabric. So whatever you do, even if you put it under you, it's still a loose piece of fabric. So in general, I find that sleeping bags are Sleep Sleep socks right in the US are safer because there is nothing loose in the bed, and we want to avoid anything that, you know, extra pillows, extra blankets. So what we normally do when the baby is at the edge, when the baby is very little, right? They are not moving yet. They are not rolling. Generally, the mother is going to be lying in the middle of the bed, so the baby is right next to her in a cuddle crow. If the other parent is also in bed, we want the other parent to be next to the mother, so not next to the baby. So mother is in the middle. Baby is kind of in the middle of the bed as well, so there is no risk of baby falling because they're not mobile. Yet, some families like using a bedside crib as an extension of the bed, so there is no risk of falls. And once baby becomes more mobile, there's a number of things that you can do. I'm a huge fan of flow beds, so I always recommend that you put a mattress on the floor, because you remove that risk of the baby falling. And it happens. It happens to it's happened to me. It's happened to so many families that I speak with. So you want to remove that that moment they start crawling or moving around more. You want to remove that risk of falling. And flow beds for me, are the ideal choice, but it doesn't work for everyone, right? Not everyone likes flow beds, not everyone. Some people want the storage space under their bed. So it might not be the the best choice you can. Then look at other solutions, which might be a bedside crab next to your bed to increase the space so bed rails. I'm not a huge fan, but they can be made safe, but there are additional risks that you introduce to the sleep space when you have a bed rail. So, yeah, my preference is, is floor bed.

I love the floor bed idea. My my six month old crawled off the bed.

Yeah, it happens to so many, yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. You know, it doesn't get any more terrible than what happened to me, because I was on holiday recently. And, you know, it's hard when you go on holiday, because it's not your normal control sleep environment that you thought completely out. And I was on holiday in Paris, and we had these beds that they were fixed to the wall, so we couldn't, normally what I do in the hotel room. I just moved the bed, the mattress, to the floor and sleep with my baby on the floor. So that's what I do in most places, Airbnbs hotel rooms, but in this place, I couldn't move the bed and I couldn't move the bedside table either. They were both fixed to the wall, and there was no floor space at all. So we thought, I haven't got a baby anymore. He's two, nearly two and a half years old. So I kind of got a little bit complacent. Because you think two and a half years old, you know, I know that all the risks, you know, there's no seeds risk anymore. The majority of risks don't exist anymore at that age. So I put my baby in the middle between myself and my husband, but at some point breastfeeding, I'm used to breastfeeding him in his floor bed, so breastfeeding in the night, switching sides, then at some point, he must have got to the other side, to the edge of the bed, and he fell, and he hit his head on the bedside table, And he actually had to get stitches. So the mom guilt and so it's one of those things. It can happen to everyone. I have dedicated my life to co sleep and to understanding the risks and safety, but there are circumstances, and you get complacent when your baby gets older, and if you like, there's no risks anymore, but you have to always think about all the risks, especially when you go on holiday, because you are outside of your environments that you've set up so thoughtfully. So you need to think more when you go away. I still wouldn't have put my baby in a crib because he wouldn't have sleep slept in one but yeah, so in that case, I think I would have used the bed rail. If it was like just a holiday stay and it was a temporary thing, I would have a lot of hotels offer bed rails. So, you know, we could have asked for one, but we didn't think about that. So a bed rail could be a solution for an older toddler, for a younger baby, there are additional risks, because you could, you know, you could create a gap between the mattress and the bed rail, unless the bed rail is really, really firm, really sturdy, right? There is no gap at all. The mesh doesn't stretch, then you're okay. But there are those risks, and when baby starts to pull up as well, sometimes what they do is they use the bed rail to as a something to hold on to, to pull up to standing, and then it's a bigger fall. So even in those cases, they don't necessarily stop a baby from falling. So you still, you know, should be sleeping in a cuddle Crow, completely in contact with your baby, so you can feel when they move, and you know all their movements, and it increases your attunement. That's why, when we're talking about arm's length before, I think it's so important that proximity, that contact, and I think a lot of people are afraid of that. They will add something to the bed to make it safer, like they will put a lounger, a pod, the nest, on the bed, because they don't trust their bodies, because they were told that they they are not safe, so they put something that is not regulated to their bed to avoid that contact, because they don't want to be that close to to their baby, when it's actually that closeness that makes you more attuned, more aware of your baby movements, and it's actually more protective. It's always interesting, because mothers, mothers are so afraid that they're gonna roll over on their babies. And I always ask them, like, do you roll off the edge of your bed? When is the last time you rolled off the edge of your bed while you were sleeping? Exactly like never, when did you last roll on your husband? Not intentionally? Never. It's like you are aware. We're so aware you're not gonna roll over your baby unless you are under the influence of something exactly. And that's the main thing, I think you know, for me, one of the main, the most. Important thing, if you ask me, the most important thing about safe, cold, sleeping is the parent. Is the parent being sober, being attuned, being responsive, so not extremely sleep deprived. Because sleep deprivation is a funny one, because everybody feels like they are sleep deprived when they have a baby, but when you're talking about true sleep deprivation. It's you know you need to not have had any sleep, like less than four hours sleep is what research says in 24 hours period. In that situation, your tiredness might make you you, you almost as if you were intoxicated. So you're you feel as less aware. You lose your awareness, you lose your instincts, your ability to respond quickly. If you had, if you haven't had that, that's that much sleep.

And let's, let's add to that, that the way to actually avoid getting to that place is to start off by co sleeping.

Absolutely. So it's kind of a chicken and egg situation there, because a lot of people get to that situation where they start cold sleeping because they are so sleep deprived, but if they didn't let that situation happen, and I always say to parents, even if you don't plan on cold sleeping, just learn, educate yourself. Understand the risks and prepare your bed just in case. In the same way that I say to families that if they are going to go sleep, it's also important if you don't have any other support, if you don't have a partner to support, you have another sleep space for your baby in case you need to, because it might be that you're in a situation that you feel like I don't feel safe, I'm so sleep deprived, or you've had a drink for whatever reason. It might be a celebration, Christmas, whatever you've had a drink, it's not safe. So put your baby in a bedside crib, in a in, you know, in a bassinet for that night only. So if families starts out. And a lot of families, I think they start out before they have a baby. They always think they are not going to go sleep. I was like that. I was certain my baby was going to sleep in a crib. I set out, and we do it sets out the whole nursery, don't we that pretty nursery with all the pretty cute things, a little cot. And, you know, I was certain that he was going to sleep there. I kept hearing from people that my baby sleep is was going to be really difficult. Is one of the hardest things after you have a baby. And I was certain, for me, was like, No, my baby is going to be okay. He's going to sleep all night long. And then obviously the shock. So I think that the our expectations before we have our babies are completely unrealistic. We don't understanding fun sleep. We don't understand what's normal. And then when it happens, when your baby won't settle in the middle of the night, or you need to bring them to bed to have a feed, you don't know what to do because you haven't prepared your bed in advance. So I always say, do it? Prepare it? Know what to do. Have a safe space in case you need to, because it's much safer to fall asleep intentionally and in a pre prepared space, then falling asleep out of exhaustion completely accidentally in a potentially unsafe position.

What do you say to the parent who believes that babies need to learn to sleep on their own, that this is setting up babies for bad habits for life?

There is not it's not true. Simply it's not true. We have research to show that there is no negative impact in long term co sleeping so we have studies to show that. We have studies to show how important attachment is, how important responsiveness is. And you know, we have, I have my own personal experience with my children. My children are completely fine now i I've worked with 1000s of families over the years who have co slept from the start, and their babies at some point. It might not be the age that people expect them to sleep independently. And obviously when we there is a study that says compare solitary sleepers to babies who co sleep, and it shows that when babies sleep alone, from the start, they begin, they become more independent in a sleep sense, earlier. So it might be that at six months, they are sleeping independently compared to, I can't remember whether it's 26 or 2728 months for a co sleeper. So it's quite a big difference there. But in the grand scheme of things, does that really matter? And what is really biologically normal? Because for me, a baby sleeping independently, a six norm in six months. It's not the norm. The norm for me is for baby. You know, we know that the first three years of life. Life of a child, they are growing their brain in a dramatic speed. They those first three years, they are considered infancy. You know, when you talk in neuroscience, brain development is the most critical period for a baby's life. So if they start to sleep independently at 28 months, when they co sleep. Is that abnormal? I don't think so. I think it's our expectations.

So it seems like a lot of babies who start off co sleeping end up sleeping with their parents for many, many months, if not many, many years. So how then, when you have a subsequent child, do you bring a new baby into the bed with an older sibling who says two, three, maybe 18 months, four, whatever it was.

I actually just did a workshop on that, and, you know, it's a huge subject. There isn't just one answer. You might want to set up a space where you can co sleep with both. It's not recommended. Obviously, there are huge risks for to a toddler or a young child sleeping with a baby. You never want them to sleep side to side, or for the toddler to have access to the baby. Obviously they don't have the same awareness as us, but there are situations which are not researched, that if you have a baby and a toddler, and the mother is in the middle. The toddler doesn't have any access to the baby. It's all set up safely. The mother is facing the infant the whole night. That could be possible. So I again, I talk a lot about how to reduce risks if you have to sleep with your baby and your toddler. I had to do that when my second was born, because I had a highly sensitive child, and he needed to sleep with me, actually, before when I was pregnant, he started sleeping independently. From around two years old, he started sleeping independently. He was fine. And then obviously, end of pregnancy, he started feeling that a little bit more and feeling like something big is happening here. So he wanted to sleep with me again. And then when the baby was born, he's like, I want to sleep with the baby. And I was alone a lot of the time because my husband was traveling a lot, and there was no way it was going to leave my two, two and a half year old alone when he I knew he was a child would need a little bit more. So there are ways to reduce risks, but there are also other ways that you can create a setup, by maybe putting a mattress on the floor next to your bed in the same room, and kind of explaining to your toddler, depending on age, that it's safer for them to sleep there. The Mummy is still there, and kind of go between the bed and the mattress on the floor if you have a partner. What a lot of families do when another child is born, is the partner, the other parent goes to sleep with the toddler. So and we know also when we talk about parental preference, when we talk about attachment phases, we know that when we look at the role of the mother and the role of the father, the father has a really critical role in helping the child to separate from the mother in a natural way. And a lot of the times that happens when a second child is born, so the father is the one who is going to naturally in a healthy way, take the child away from the mother and help to develop the independence a little bit more. So a lot of families do that, and they start, you know, they either start sleeping more independently, or they start sleeping with the other parent. And like I said, like when you're saying before that, they a lot of families who call sleep from the start, they might be cold sleeping for months or years, and it's not necessarily the case. Because what we need to understand about cold sleeping is that it's not all or nothing. You don't need if you're going to Cold Sleep, you don't need to just cold sleep for 345, years. You don't need to do that. It's personal. It depends on your family circumstances, on your preferences, on your values, on your child's temperaments. I think your child's tempering. It's actually one of the most important, crucial factors in deciding how you're going to navigate sleep. So a lot of families, they do a combination of things. They might have a baby start in a crib and then they join the bed later. Or, like with me, my babies had floor beds from around six months as soon as they started getting mobile and crawling. We did a floor bed. They had their own room, so they moved to their own room, but I moved to leave them, so I would sleep in their bedroom from six months onwards, but then slowly encouraging more and more independence in that way, and letting them have their own space, kind of giving them their chance to sleep independently if they could.

Do you think that's the optimal time frame to try to move a child out of your your your personal bed in that six month range?

I think six months, it's an important age, because it's an age where 90% of sleep. Deaths happen before six months. So we know that risks reduce dramatically, which is why it's recommended that any sleep is monitored until at least six months, if not a year. So six months is the point where I would feel more comfortable with leaving my baby alone for short period of periods of time. So that's the point where I started to practice a little bit more independent naps. I would let him start the night in his floor bed, and then I would join him when I went to bed. So slowly, gradually, just giving him the chance to have that stretch of independent sleep to see how he did. You know, a lot of the times, he was waking up a lot, and I had to go back to him and resettled, but he would have the chance and and I think by giving them that chance, if independent sleep is important to you, then you can do that in a healthy way, in a way that is not pushing beyond what they are, you know, developmentally able to do. But you're also giving them the the space, and you're giving yourself some space as well. So I think that you know, can can work in terms of finding balance, which is something I think a lot of families struggle with.

One other question that came in from our community and there, there does seem to be a lot of concern around this and and also a lot of societal pressure around this, and that is how co sleeping impacts the marital relationship. So do you believe?

Yeah, what do we do about all that endless sex early postpartum. I know, I share a lot of videos online of myself sleeping with my baby, and it's generally just me and my baby, because my husband, he didn't feel comfortable sleeping with us in the early days, because he felt like he slept really deeply and all of that. So we didn't feel safe. And then moving forwards, we didn't have a really huge bed, so it was more comfortable. It was easier for everyone, for me to just sleep by myself with a baby. And I get a lot of comments exactly like this, oh, poor husband. Oh, you don't have any sex and all of that. And I'm like, wow, how can you make an assumption about someone's sex life by because they don't sleep together in the same bed. And I think that just shows that, firstly, you know, we need to redefine intimacy, because intimacy is not just, you know, having sex, sleeping together in the same bed. And also, sex can happen in a multitude of places. And yeah, when it says a lot of day, and different. It says a lot about their sex life if they assume that because you're absolutely sleeping in the same bed, you're not having sex, it doesn't need to happen, just in bed. It also, you know, I don't know if you've heard the phrase, never trust the sofa of a co sleeper. We always joke around with that, because it's where CO sleepers end up. And it's like using all spaces of the house. Wait, that's very cute. Let's just, let's, let me just make sure we all absorb that. That's very cute. No sofa of a co sleeper, because you're implying that's where they're having their sex. Because it's not during the night when they're in the bed sleeping with the baby. You're not very cute. I'll sleep anywhere, but on your sofa Exactly. That's cute.

So it might be a spare room, it might be the shower, it might be the kitchen, it might be a number of places. I want to just say, Wait a minute. I want to just say it might be that they're not having sex right now in America, exactly. Still going to be. I had a postpartum group every week, and I can hear those women right now thinking they're the only women in the world who are not having sex more than you know, once in a four month period right now, because they're just they're wiped out, exhausted, and I don't want those women scared for their marriages this they will never be this time. So that's also a possibility that they still have a good marriage, an affectionate marriage, and a marriage that can sustain a period of not necessarily having intercourse 100% I believe that so strongly. Yeah, I think the worry is that the child's gonna end up in the bed for six years, and what does that do to the long term sex life? But I think you covered it. You just get used to having sex, not in the bed, not at night. It's easier. All families have have different circumstances, so it's hard to you know you have to be creative. It might be if you have a spare room, for example, what we've always done, we have my my baby has his own bedroom. I sleep with him in his own bedroom, but I still have my bed with my husband. Right now, he's two, nearly two and a half years old, and I start the night with my husband. So we still have that moment of falling asleep together. I fall asleep with my husband, cuddling up with him. We have our time together. We have our bed. Once my baby wakes up, I join him in his bed, spend the rest of the night with him. That's what we do. But it could be a number of other things. It could be that you, you know, you put your baby to sleep and then you have an evening to. Together, have sex on the sofa, have watched some Netflix together. You know, whatever. There are ways, if you if you want to have sex, there are ways to have sex. But as Cynthia said, I feel that sex is something that it's going to change. Whether you're cold sleeping or not. It's not the cold sleeping. It's becoming a parent, it's and that's what people forget. They blame me on the cold sleeping, but you're tired. You just had a baby, and even a year after you had a baby, it's still a lot. So you're still a year postpartum. So I feel like a lot of the times it's not the cold, sleeping, it's everything else.

I remember with my children, they came, they got out of the beds when there's a period where I don't know the age, I don't remember anymore, but it's not terribly old. It's somewhere after the first year, the babies just start moving so much you can wake up with their legs across your face. I mean, they start flipping all over the bed. And I remember with each other, it was like you're done here. You're fine without me. You're not cuddling and sleeping next to my breast anymore, you are going to we're going to transition you over there. And I have no memory of any struggle at all with transitioning them, because they at that point, they were so secure, they were sleeping successfully. I could so easily transition them away from the bed, because I wasn't sleep at first i had i co slept because I slept better. Then it got to a tipping point where I slept worse because they were in the bed, and the transition was a breeze, because they just weren't exactly they were flipping all over the place. Yeah, and I think we just worry too much too soon. You're worried about independence. There is such a huge focus on independence in the western world in particular, we just we want our babies to be independent from six months old. And it's ridiculous. They are, they are literally, that's the definition of being a baby. They depend on us. Their brain is not developed. They can't regulate their emotion. So I think it's that rush for independence. And it's like, if you actually take it day by day and you find solutions to find balance, that's something that I cover a lot in my work. It's, you know, that support for co sleeping families to find that balance. Sometimes it's getting your partner involved a little bit more. So it's not all on you. Sometimes it's doing a mix of co sleeping in a floor bed or a crib, you know, finding that balance, but just taking a day at a time. And if it gets to a point where it's not working anymore, at that point, you can absolutely make changes in a gentle way. My perspective on independence is that a child becomes independent because they come to perceive you as I view myself, almost like this touch point, like this, this stone in their lives. And they could come and touch this stone when they need to, and they can come find me when they need to. But Trisha and I both have very independent children. Our oldest are 20 in each of our cases, and we have younger, younger children as well, and I really believe it's because they learn unconsciously when they're very young. I'm safe. My parent is here, and now I'm the one who can step away when I'm ready. I step away, and then I come back and touch this parent, and now I step away and I come back and touch this parent. And it's not that we push them away and teach them I'm not here. You better get used to the fact that I'm not here. Oh, but sometimes I'll be hearing you'll see me at points. So I actually believe this definitely fosters independence. Let them depend on you as much as humanly possible when they're little, and just watch, watch watch the first time they close that bathroom door because they want privacy. Watch the first time they want to go sleep at a friend's house or do something without you because they trust you're going to be there. They know you're there from families who have older children. They say it happens sooner than you think, and it's that you know that rush that we are for independence. But then it's, it's happens, and when they're secure and they feel safe, and it's that thing that people say, you know, about sleep training, that if you respond to your baby each time your baby is always going thing, going to think that you're there for them. And I'm like, Yes, exactly. I want them to know that I'm there for them until they're, you know, an adult. I don't want to them to ever think I'm not there for them. So either, you know, in terms of of security, absolutely not rushing things, just letting them feel like have that base to connect and then to explore. There's research. There's good research out there to support this, too, the research by KENNELL and Klaus, the book bonding talks all about how the more attached your child is to you in those early years, especially in the first three months, the more secure they are later, because they they are their brains are developed on a foundation of Trust and Safety, as opposed to developing anxious attachment because they were pushed away. So the more you hold your baby, the more you respond to your baby, the more independent they are.

There is a lot of research on attachment and security, which obviously co sleeping is so closely related to and you know when families talk to me about what about sleep? Training. What about non responsive forms of sleep training? I always say to them, we can't prove that there is any harm. At the moment. We can't prove that there is harm, but we can absolutely prove all the benefits of that responsiveness, day and night, and that closeness, that contact, how that builds security, builds their independence. We have research showing that post leaping children, they are more socially independently, later in life, that they are more able to form friendships, more able to more self reliance, or more able to dress themselves. So it might not be this leap in the independence from the western standards that we are looking at. You know, six month old sleeping independently, but in other terms, in terms of making more friends, being confident and being happier in general. We know we have research that suggests that co sleeping, that closeness and contact during the night, they lead to a child that is more adjusted later on in life. So yes, I'm, I'm a big fan, as you know.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.

So just gonna have to ask you this, what is your opinion on the snoo? Tell us, oh my goodness, I I'm not a huge fan. I know some people are very passionate about it, but for me, it's one of those things that you are trying to replicate the things that you as a mother, as a parent, are meant to do. So you're trying to replicate those behaviors. And I don't trust anything more than myself or a mother. I think it just breeds into that belief that a device is safer than you, and I just don't like that idea. So it might you might be able to prove that it's completely safe, but you were forgetting all of the things that you're missing out by having your baby strapped into that device without contact, being rocked and being put in deeper sleep in an unnatural way. So it's all the things that you're missing out. So you know, your people are focusing on safety, but they are forgetting about the emotional benefits. And you know that those are the things that we we are we need to start trusting our bodies more than devices. Is that is the message, I think, that this device is safer than you. You cannot be trusted, and we need to move away from that and start trusting our instincts more, our bodies more. Yes, so that's my, my. My opinion about it. I would never buy one. Yeah.