To co-sleep or not to co-sleep

Never before in history has there been more debate about how a baby should sleep. Historically, in a way or another, parents of every culture have co-slept with their infants. Yet, recent studies have brought up to light the dangers of it sending our infants to flat, hard, empty bassinets and cribs where none of us could endure ten minutes of sleep, at least in the US. It’s all about reducing the chances of SIDS, suffocation, and other dangers. But this debate has brought so much shame, anxiety, and stress for parents of infants that you have to wonder if it’s necessary or even effective. 

I’m in no way advocating for co-sleeping, we don’t do it ourselves, for the most. We’re too scare to even consider it, too anxious, too worried that something bad would happen to our little baby because we gave into our natural instinct of having our baby close at all times, including bedtime. But as often happens when you have an actual flesh and bone newborn in your arms at night, instead of hypothetical babies in a study, you start reanalyzing things. When it’s dark, and the baby wakes up to feed, you do so, and then proceed to rock the baby to sleep with the last drop of strength left in your body after days or weeks or even months of sleep deprivation. When baby is not having it and wakes up as soon as his little swaddle wrapped foot touches the bassinet, and you cringe. When you decide to continue rocking sitting down because you can do the passing no more and all of the sudden you open your eyes without knowing how long you’ve had them closed and you panic, baby is ok, sleeping soundly in your arms, this time at least. Then, you find yourself re-evaluating if co-sleeping is really less safe than that. If it’s less safe than falling asleep with your baby in your arms and drop him. If it’s less safe than having a broken down parent. If it’s worst than a baby failing to thrive because they’re not having as much sleep as they need to grow properly. Then, you start reconsidering your previous beliefs.

As a parent of an infant I’m in that stage of life right now. I haven’t had more than 3 hour of sleep in one night for weeks, never in one stretch. “Sleep when baby sleeps” has gotta be the stupidest advice ever. When baby sleeps during the day, if I even manage to put him down on my bed or some other place where he shouldn’t be sleeping like a swing, I have piles of laundry, dirty bottles and pump parts, and other million chores to do. So what do I do? I do my best, me and my partner, while hoping time would fly and one day we wake up and he’s already 4, 5, or 6 months old and I can write about baby led vs purees or some other boring subject instead of how we need to put on a brave face while living in panic.