Myth #5: Parents who sleep with their children don’t have as much sex. Untrue. Co-sleeping parents are not celibate, but have simply put their children’s nighttime needs above their need for unrestricted sexual access. There are other places for sex besides the marital bed. Some couples find that the creativity required to find places to have intercourse while co-sleeping adds spice to their sex life.
Myth #6: Co-sleeping causes SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). To the contrary, co-sleeping may help to prevent SIDS! First of all, co-sleeping promotes breastfeeding, and breastfed babies are less likely to die from SIDS. Also, SIDS is much less common in countries where co-sleeping is the norm (for example, Asian countries), despite the fact that sometimes these infants may otherwise have more risk factors. When Asian families move to the United States and adopt Western parenting practices, their babies’ incidence of SIDS increases to a level similar to that of American babies.
Theories abound as to the reason for the protective nature of co-sleeping, but some believe that the failure of SIDS infants to take that next breath may be prevented by stimulation from the movement of a live bed partner. Co-sleeping babies spend less time in deep sleep, when SIDS deaths may be more likely to occur. In addition, sleep studies have shown that when a mother and baby sleep side by side, their breathing rhythms tend to synchronize. Finally, the carbon dioxide exhaled by the mother may stimulate the baby to breathe.
For whatever reason, co-sleeping appears to have a protective effect against SIDS deaths. The reason for this myth might be a problem called “overlying,” which has been the subject of speculation and rumor for the last two centuries. Parents are warned not to sleep with their children because they might roll over on top of them and suffocate them. A century ago, what we now know as SIDS may have been blamed on overlying. In general, mothers do not roll on top of their babies and suffocate them for the same reason adults do not often roll out of bed: There is a sense of the body’s location that remains even during sleep.
In reality, a normal infant squished by an adult squirms and gasps or cries, and the sleeping adult moves. The exception to this is adults who are taking sedative drugs or are otherwise impaired. Co-sleeping is not recommended for adults who are sedated or obese, as they might be a danger to their infant bed partners. In 1999, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a statement recommending against co-sleeping with a baby under age two.
This has been the subject of great controversy. Adult mattresses sold in the U.S. are not designed to be safe for infant sleep. In order to make co-sleeping safe, you must take precautions like those listed in the last section of this article.
Myth #7: Adults who share a bed with a baby get less sleep. Who is more disturbed, the mother who must get out of bed, run to Baby’s room, pick up Baby, possibly warm a bottle, and feed the baby while sitting up, or the mother who simply moves Baby closer to her breast (before he has time to totally awaken and begin crying), and falls asleep with him by her side? Indeed, some Western parents begin co-sleeping because it is the only way they can get enough sleep! An added benefit for the combination of breastfeeding and co-sleeping is that Dad is often not disturbed at all!