1. Decide whether you want to share your bed with your baby for the whole night or just for a few hours and stick to the plan.
2. To protect your baby from falling out of bed, put the bed against the wall to eliminate gaps and put a guardrail on your bed; it is cheap and it works.
3. Remove any large pillows and heavy covers from the bed to create more room.
4. You don’t need to dress your baby in heavy pyjamas. Your body heat will keep her/him warm.
5. You will know by instinct where your baby is, so don’t worry that you will roll over on top of your baby.
6. Another option to sharing your bed is to create a ‘sidecar’ by taking off one of the sides of the baby’s crib and attach the crib to your bed. This way you can nurse and cuddle your baby and when the baby falls asleep you can put her/him back in the crib.
7. When moving the baby out of your bed, be very gentle and do it slowly so not to interrupt the baby’s sleep. If the baby wakes up, don’t lock the baby in her/his room alone and let her/him cry for hours. The baby will feel safer if you follow a positive and consistent routine.
If you like this article, click the Like button below so that your friends can get the chance to read it as well.
Other things to consider
• If you’re a light sleeper and the baby’s snuffling is enough to keep you awake, block out the baby’s breathing sound by adding some ‘white noise’ to the room, such as a fan.
• If you share your bed with your baby, chances are that your baby will become a toddler before she/he will be able to sleep alone in her/his own bed. If you can’t sleep with a toddler you should make other arrangement from the start.
• Using the family bed for breast feeding nurtures the nursing relations between mother and child.
• Parents who smoke should not share the family bed with their newborn. According to studies smoking increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. In the other hand (and provided that both parents are non smokers) there is some evidence that sharing your bed with your baby may reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.
