Many parents who share a bed with their baby – also called co-sleeping – believe it helps their baby feel safe and secure. They like the close bodily contact, feel that it’s rewarding and satisfying, and believe it’s good for their relationship with their baby.
Some parents also bed-share because they find it more practical. Breastfeeding during the night can be easier – the hungry baby can be fed then settled back to sleep quickly.
For these reasons, advocates of co-sleeping feel it can be worth making the adjustments necessary to learn to sleep with a small child. The most important thing is that bed-sharing is done safely.
During pregnancy when baby has spent nine months inside the body with a constant supply of food and comfort, it seems strange and unnatural to infant when he/she is suddenly separated from you and compel to sleep on his own without food or comfort for long periods. Only through co-sleeping and breastfeeding give the same condition that your baby has been used to during pregnancy. This combination supports the development of a healthy child hence it continues throughout much of the world. Modern parents often feel guilty or make excuses that bed sharing perceived their child as weak. Some parents are worried about that co-sleeping makes baby habitual to and spoiling their baby.
Steps to follow before you have bed sharing with your little one
Make sure your mattress is firm:
A baby could overheat or suffocate while sleeping on a soft mattress or waterbeds. If your bed has a frame, a headboard or is against a wall, then check thoroughly that the mattressfits tightly with them. By this you can avoid the risk of your baby falling into the gap. This risk is mostly found in 3 to 10-month-olds.
Use light and minimal bedding:
Use lightweight coverings and make their minimal use as it keeps your child away from being suffocated or overheating. During first three months of life of any child this risk is biggest. Sometimes child wriggle down, to avoid danger make sure that head should be covered. Never cover the baby with your own covers, cover with his/her own covers. Be sure that covers are made with special material that allows them to breathe even, whenever baby’s head get covered too accidentally.
Hair problem:
Mother with long hair should pull back her hair. Because the hair may become wound at the baby's neck and further posing a strangulation danger.
Avoid sleep on a sofa or waterbed:
Never sleep with your baby on a sofa. Your baby gets wedged in the cracks between the cushions or sometimes between you and the back of the couch. Waterbeds may have deep gap around the frame where your baby could get trapped.
Keep baby warm, not hot:
While bed sharing, contact with your body has already raised skin temperature of baby. So light dressing make baby feel much better during sleep.
Don't let your baby sleep on a pillow:
Pillow has soft folds; hence your baby may roll off it or into it, and may be smothering in it. So, don’t let your infant sleep on top of or beside a pillow.
Don’t let babies and toddlers sleep next to each other:
Your toddlers don't know the risks, and could roll over onto your baby or may put an arm across his/her mouth or head. In order to avoid such risk you or your partner should always sleep between the children.
Never leave baby alone on the bed:
When you run to the toilet or get up early in the morning, your baby could easily fall out of the bed. Inform your partner or put baby in a safe place like bassinet or crib while you are out of the room. Never put pillows either side of him/her when baby is asleep and unattended.
Room temperature:
The ideal room temperature is between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius. So, try to keep this standard.
Avoid Bed sharing in following cases:
- When you or your partner smoke and sleep with baby, the risk of SIDS is higher.
- Whenever you or your partner have been drinking alcohol, or have taken any medication or drugs that can impair your memory and make you fail to remember that your baby is in your bed. Even you may roll over on your baby.
- Sometimes due to extreme fatigue or a sleep disorder, you may sleep so deeply. So, due to any lack of care, you may harm your child.
- If your baby was premature or of low birth weight then the risks are increased.
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