Co-sleeping or not co-sleeping?
Get informed so that this does not become a missed opportunity…
If you ‘re a mother you’ll be happy, if you’re a father you’ll be ecstatic.
For those of you who still have the opportunity, just know that this is one of your choices. Trust your heart, trust your instincts, and if it feels right, just do it. Science says it’s for the best of your loved ones (btw, if you don’t feel like it, just don’t do it and don’t worry about it, no-one should criticise you either way).
Do not feel afraid to touch, hug, kiss, cuddle, and any-other-way express your love and passion for your little ones. Soon, they’ll be grown up and all that will be left will be your missed opportunity. Missed opportunity to give and receive love and affection, to give and receive happiness. Indeed, so-sleeping with my two little princesses (and their mother Queen of-course) – I hope our Minister for Education excuses my language – has been probably the most happy activity in my life during the last few years. Especially when the day-to-day life was becoming chaotic and hectic, when I hadn’t seen my little ones for 24hours or more, it was then that co-sleeping has proved most important; I would then lie next to them, put my hand on their chest, feel their rapid heart-beat, hear their soft breaths, and feel happy, relieved, light… Indeed, all the burdens would then be lifted, so that I would feel floating rather than lying on the bed, weightless, from another World…
What follows is excerpts from an expert’s interview; Enjoy responsibly…
“Parents with less rigid ideas about how and where their babies should sleep are generally much happier…”
“There is no such thing as a baby, there is a baby and someone.”
“The solitary infant sleep environment represents a neurobiological crisis for the human newborn as this micro-environment is ecologically invalid for meeting the fundamental needs of human infants. Indeed, sleeping alone in a room by itself and not breastfeeding are now recognized as independent risk factors for SIDS, a fact that explains why most of the world never heard of SIDS.”
“We now know that many breastfeeding mothers choose to bed-share precisely because they get more sleep, manage their milk supply better, and attach more intensely with their babies.”
“When done safely, bed sharing makes mothers (and fathers!) and babies happy and has positive developmental effects on growing children. Surely mothers should not be stigmatized or considered irresponsible for bed sharing. In fact, 90 percent of all human beings sleep with their babies in some form or another!”
© Kostis Tsarpalis, June 2016