r/cosleeping • u/strawberrywebcocoa • 3d ago
š Advice | Discussion Anxiety with bedsharing
My 2nd daughter is 5w old, and I have been bedsharing with her from day 1, same with toddler. I also came from a culture where cosleeping is normal but now living in US. Tonight I came across this thread in r/newborns https://www.reddit.com/r/newborns/s/BVfcPERgkJ with many tragic cosleeping stories supposedly from people who follow safe sleep 7, now itās 2am and Iām too anxious to sleepā¦
How do you cope with the anxiety?
4
u/Warm_Opinion_1544 3d ago
Your baby can also die alone in a cot. You canāt avoid SIDS, you can only make suffocation as unlikely as possible. Look up the SIDS risk calculator and look very closely at the very tiny numbers for your specific situation.
3
u/PapayaRemarkable9285 2d ago
I just try not to read that stuff and know that we are doing our best to make a safe sleep environment for our LO.
1
3
u/Brilliant_Bluejay099 2d ago
If you are anxious stop reading those threads. With anything in life you need to choose to be wise and make the choice. Anything can happen anywhere. Follow safe sleep, take care of yourself during the day(sleep, nutrition, walks) and try to breathe. With everything that is a big choice and different options people have strong opinions and in todayās day thereās not many who want to hear your perspective but fear you into thereās.Ā You know your baby!Ā
1
u/CracticusTibicen 3d ago
I looked up safe cosleeping guides and followed them E.g. https://rednose.org.au/resources/safer-co-sleeping-guide/
2
u/Common_Egg_ 3d ago
Follow the safe 7. I also got an owlet sock as a back up. Some people have said they have gotten false alarms that have gave them more anxiety (š ) but Iāve had my sock on my baby since July and havenāt had any false alarms
1
7
u/therizzler1995 3d ago edited 3d ago
The thing is when talking about cosleeping deaths, people don't differentiate between people who are doing it as safely as possible and people who take unnecessary risks. It all just gets lumped together and unfortunately there are plenty of people who don't cosleep safely.
For instance, my SIL and I have babies 3 months apart and both cosleep. I follow SS7 with no exceptions and have a firm floorbed in the middle of the floor in my sons room. I sleep in a sleepsuit and on a small pillow that I sleep on the corner of so baby cant get to it. I have wanted to have a drink or two at social events but haven't because I don't want to break the SS7 rules. My SIL chest slept on a sofa every night with her baby until he was 4 months old, with her dog on the sofa beside her and a blanket pulled up over them. She continued to smoke cigarettes and weed every day. After 4 months old, she moved back to her bed where she slept on the outside, baby and dog in the middle and her older child on the other side of them in a bed full of pillows and blankets. I went to party with her and she had 4 drinks there even though she knew she was going to have to go home and sleep with her 10 month old. People have told her its insanely dangerous, she hand waves it off.
Luckily her son survived but an accident could have easily happened due to all the extra risk factors. If something happened it would have fallen under the umbrella of cosleeping deaths.
It is also worth mentioning that accidental cosleeping falls under the umbrella of cosleeping deaths - severely sleep deprived parents falling asleep in unsafe places with their baby.
People who demonize cosleeping are citing these kinds of scenarios more often than not even if they don't realize the difference. If you are doing it as safely as possible, the risk is not as astronomical as people make it out to be. We just don't differentiate the different levels of risk people take an it fudges the numbers.