Baby in Bed

by Kim Milford Courier-Post Staff

Before she had children, Amanda MacMinn thought sharing a bed with her child was "the wackiest thing in the world." Then her son, Jalen, was born. One night, she fell asleep while he was nursing in bed and woke up four hours later to find the baby still next to her. It was the beginning of their family sleeping arrangement.   "It was the only way we got to sleep," said MacMinn, a 25-year-old Bellmawr mom who shares a queen-size bed with her sons, now ages 4 and 2. "Everybody slept. Everybody was happy."

The MacMinn family isn't alone. Despite a warning last October by the American Academy of Pediatrics against co-sleeping, a growing number of mothers are ignoring the advice.   Attachment-parenting advocates and breastfeeding experts say safe co-sleeping practices promote exclusive breastfeeding, bonding between mother and child, and reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The controversy has caused many co-sleeping moms to hide what they do at night from their pediatricians.

"It's a well-kept secret," said Louise Geverd, a lactation consultant for the Women, Infants and Children program in Camden and Burlington counties. "It's more widely done than you would think." For many nursing moms, it's a matter of sleep.

Diana Giampietro of Riverside has been co-sleeping with her 1-year-old son, Michael, since he was 3 months old. "I didn't know it at the time, but he had countless food allergies," said Giampietro, who turned vegetarian so her son could continue breastfeeding. "He didn't sleep. He would scream all night."   When her husband went away for two weeks, she started nursing the baby in bed instead of getting up and down all night.   "He can nurse countless times during the night," said the 29-year-old former elementary school teacher. "I don't even know how often. The biggest thing is being able to sleep. I never feel sleep deprived."

Candy Cure of Delran slept with both her babies, who are now ages 8 and 5. A deputy attorney general for New Jersey's Division of Criminal Justice, Cure said it made sense to do it.   Her second daughter was colicky and only slept for 45 minutes at a stretch during the night and Cure still had to get up and go to work the next morning. Bringing the baby to bed meant Cure could nurse her through the night and still get some sleep.
"I could never bear hearing my kids cry," said Cure, 44. "Closing the door and letting them cry it out just seemed wrong."   She researched the issue and decided the statistics don't bear out what the pediatricians say. She ended up switching pediatricians after one doctor objected to what she was doing. Her new pediatrician went over guidelines on how to do it safely.

"The deaths that have been caused by kids sleeping on a bed or couch have usually been because an incoherent person has rolled over on them," said Cure. "Or, if there were blankets and pillows around them, they would get smothered."   Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, a breastfeeding expert and pediatrician at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, said the issue is complex.

A member of the executive committee for the section on breastfeeding for the American Academy of Pediatrics, Feldman-Winter said bed-sharing by breastfed infants and their moms may not be as risky as the academy's policy statement would lead one to believe, as long as safe co-sleeping practices are followed.   "We want to keep mothers and babies together as much as possible, particularly in the early weeks (when baby is nursing frequently)," said Feldman-Winter.   "I think the most important thing to recognize is that bed sharing has a cultural basis," Feldman-Winter added. "There are places all over the world where mothers are exclusively breastfeeding, not smoking and sleeping on hard surfaces, without all the fluffy pillows...that are a part of our American culture."

Some studies found co-sleeping reduced the risk of SIDS, while other studies found an increased risk of death by suffocation or entrapment. Feldman-Winter said more research is needed on the matter. Mothers should tell their pediatricians what they are doing and pediatricians should help mothers learn how to do it safely, she said.   "We don't want to shame mothers," Feldman-Winter said. "We want mothers to tell us exactly what they are doing and not denounce behavior that may not be risky."

Geverd, the WIC lactation consultant, co-slept with all five of her daughters, who now range from 27 to 18. Nighttime cuddling with her little ones brought the family closer -- a bond that exists even now. The last time one of her girls slept in her bed was a few years ago, when a teenager with a broken heart asked to sleep with her for just one night. "She knew she could climb in for some comfort," said Geverd, a 57-year-old Haddon Heights resident and La Leche League leader.

How long are children co-sleeping with their parents? It varies from family to family. Some parents allow their children to wean themselves from the bed; others move them out when the baby starts sleeping well at night.   Vinessa Lupan of Marlton used a three-sided co-sleeper attached to the side of her bed for the first four months of her daughter's life. Seven-month-old Victoria Rose now sleeps in a crib in her own room.   The transition was easy for her and tough for her parents.   "She took to it very quickly," said Lupan. "I was accustomed to waking up and just being able to look up and know she was there. It took me two weeks to relax into it."

Bed sharing can affect intimacy between parents, but having a baby in the house will do that, too. What a couple loses in "private time," they gain in family time.

MacMinn said she loves cuddling with her two boys. "When they grow up, I'm never going to think, "Oh, yeah! I think I've snuggled them enough,' " said MacMinn. "There are many nights when I sit next to them and think, "I'm not going to cure cancer. I'm not going to walk on the moon. To rear these kids to the best of my ability is the best accomplishment I'm going to do."

Reach Kim Mulford at (856) 251-3342 or kmulford@courierpostonline.com
Published: August 22. 2006 3:10AM