“Cosleeping/bed-sharing creates dependent children”

[jess75]

Hello! ♡

I’m a FTM to a 4mo and I could use some advice and wisdom when it comes to bed-sharing from your own experience and research.

During pregnancy, like many other mothers, I was adamantly against bed-sharing. I thought about how risky it was and how I wanted to reserve my bed for my husband and I, but we ended up bed-sharing around 2 months out of desperation for sleep and we’ve been doing it ever since. LO sleeps better during naps and bed time, wakes happier and less fussy, and it’s overall easier on all of us when it comes to sleep time (I also love waking up to see my son next to me). However, I can’t stop thinking about the notion that “bed-sharing/cosleeping creates dependent children instead of encouraging them to be independent” like many people claim.

Just recently, LO’s pediatrician mentioned how he needs to learn to self soothe and not rely on me or dad to always answer his cries. I tried many times to transition LO back to bassinet… sometimes it works but many times he’d fight and fall asleep from exhaustion or he’d fall asleep for only 20-40 mins and only poor quality sleep. My insides would literally churn when I’d hear him cry and for not responding. But when I do answer his cries, he’s calmer and even seems more independent?! He’s taking his naps on our bed and he’s been able to put himself to sleep without any help and nap for like 1 hour on average.

I see this evidence that bed-sharing is best for him, and even us, but I can’t help but fear I’m setting us all up for failure. I want LO to be independent and feel secure within himself (even though he’s only 4mo right now) and that when the time comes for him to sleep in his own bed it’ll be easier cause he’s used to sleeping on his own…

Don’t know… what do you think of this claim? Have you bed-shared and had positive results? How independent are your littles? How are you handling it?

Thanks! ♡

Edit to add: Thank you so much to everyone who commented and shared their experiences, expertise, and even resources to look into! I can’t express how comforting it all was. Husband and I are going to continue bed-sharing, which we feel is the right course for all of us. And, I officially switched pediatricians. Thank you again!

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@jess75 Hi, psychologist here please tell him to read all of Allan Schore’s volumes on affective neuroscience which demonstrate at a neural level that infants CANNOT self soothe and this part of the brain doesn’t even develop till closer to 6-7. Furthermore, the consistent attunement to your child’s needs actually does the OPPOSITE of what he says. It creates positive neural pathways so that they can self soothe later. They can’t do this without the foundational framework which your attunement provides. Longitudinal fMRI data shows this. And he can read it in Schore’s very technical books.

Signed, a psychologist who specializes in attachment neural science who presents at the local, national and international level, publishes in peer review journals, and treats attachment disorders and is really tired of the harm being perpetrated by sleep trainers and pediatricians who advocate for this harmful practice leading to insecure attachments and treatment resistant mental health disorders BECAUSE WE EXPECT INFANTS TO BE MATURE ADULTS. The absence of no “harm” by CIO methods does not mean it is not harmful.

P.S.: the frustration is at the pediatrician not you

 

[sharkdive1]

@apostolicfaithone1 Thank you. I'm going to save this comment for those very few moments when I doubt what I'm doing and when the nights are hardest.

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@sharkdive1 Absolutely. Everytime you attune to your child you are actively helping create the pathways needed towards helping them self soothe so to say. Bowlby called it internal working models. Meaning how you respond to your child will lay the foundation for what they can give themselves AND others (meaning they’re future SO and/or children). While we can absolutely rewrite the brains of adults it’s so hard and so many of my patients wish they had had the attunement they needed as children because it cripples their self worth.

 

[trivialator]

@apostolicfaithone1 Holy shite, I cannot thank you enough.

I was raised by CIO parents, abusive, manipulative, physical, and dismissive when I seeked help for being SAed and threatened by another family member. I am now (obviously) dealing with crippling CPTSD, albeit self-diagnosed. My husband doesn’t want to even see my dad again because of how proudly he proclaimed he would let me cry it out for hours, while he’s seen me unable to manage my emotions in very normal situations, and have panic attacks for years, and also how “easy” it is to soothe a crying baby with..just love. I’m currently reading The Body Keeps The Score, trying to be a better human and mom, and I am fascinated by it. We cosleep too, bedshare with our 12m/o because it just feels like the right thing to do. I still find it extremely difficult to reach that attunement with my baby when I’m feeling overwhelmed. My default when I’m under stress is freezing, anger and frustration, so being gentle when it’s loud is trying to go against this learned nature. My body wants to ignore and snap but I try with every cell of my body to breathe and be calm. It’s exhausting but so worth it.

Do you think I would benefit from reading Allan Schore’s work too, or is it maybe too technical? I am starving for understanding, because I’m so tired of having my past determine my actions; of having to fight this “need” to be like my parents were, with a deep desire to break the cycle. I really want to find peace, I’ve been stressed my whole life.

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@trivialator You could! It’s technical and boring but incredibly fascinating. To be honest, even just reading “Affect Regulation and the Origin of Self” was healing to me as well. It is 600 pages documenting only the first two years of brain development in a child and really hones in on the importance of experience dependent interactions to lay the foundation for later self/emotion regulation. Try to find the book used! It’s usually used as a textbook.

 

[eknd]

@trivialator I have read Allan Schore's book and my partner is currently reading Nurture Revolution. That seems like a lighter version of similar ideas if you want something less technical.

 

[favourfelix]

@eknd Just read the sample and am already loving it

 

[dayssola]

@trivialator When I am so overwhelmed I sing. Last night I broke out into ooh child while baby was wailing in pain while trying to go to sleep.

HE IMMEDIATELY STOPPED CRYING!!! It was magical. It helped us both regulate.

He still cried a little bc of the pain (teething maybe?), but I think the signing let us both know that I was right here with him and we were in it together.

Just an idea to try as a strategy in case you’re interested!

 

[trivialator]

@dayssola I’ve been starting to sing recently too. When he screams and i can’t with the noise, i start singing a major scale slowly up and down one note at a time, and it helps us calm down. My parents made fun of my voice so I’ve always been shy about it and stopped singing very young, but i have near perfect pitch so i can at least sing some scales. Also it’s easier to just start counting or singing scales than trying to remember a song to sing when I’m overwhelmed.

I will start singing when he cries to, i think it will help. Thank you

 

[dayssola]

@trivialator I don’t even know what a scale or pitch is (I can guess)— I rarely even know the right words for songs!

My friend who is even more extreme just sings jingle bells or happy birthday bc she knows the words and it is so easy to break into without having to think like you said.

Hang in there! We are doing our best to love our babies in ways we weren’t.

 

[sharkdive1]

@apostolicfaithone1 I feel this, as I'm sure a few others do when reading this comment. My parents tried their best with the knowledge they had, but there's a reason why I am an anxious people pleaser who finally started therapy when my son was 5 weeks old. I did baby led feeding, I just see what I'm doing now as baby led sleeping - he needs me for a reason, and I'm happy to be there for him as much as he needs.

 

[jeremytheanglercan]

@sharkdive1 I love the phrase 'baby led sleeping'; thanks so much for it!

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@sharkdive1 Yes! Love that phrase. Also; much of my healing came in accepting that fact as well. They did the best with what they had. AND two things can be true at once: they did the best with what they had AND I didn’t have my needs met in the way I needed. The flexibility of thought is important. ACT principles helped me with a lot.

 

[claysmithr]

@apostolicfaithone1 This is so lovely to read. I think it's a huge disservice to US mom's and parents that we are so adamant about not co-sleeping. The zero risk strategy (baby on back alone in crib) would be hard to pull off even in places where there is a village to help out new parents. Let alone here where there are so many nuclear families of parents and child only and limited outside help.

Co-sleeping is such an obvious solution here, but rather than teach parents how to do so safely, we go zero tolerance, full fear mongering and demonize parents who do co sleep.

I like having the data you provided to help explain my choice.

 

[iccs]

@apostolicfaithone1 My answer was "why the fuck do people think we need to foster independence in a literal infant, who is designed to be completely reliant on their adult caretaker?", but yours is much more complete and well cited.

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@iccs The way I laughed all the way out loud to be honest, I say that too sometimes hahaha

 

[recall]

@iccs Seriously! I will never understand how people think this is acceptable. It's so simple when you spell it out like that!

 

[rollo22]

@apostolicfaithone1 Can I hijack your top comment and ask you a follow up question? When I’ve told critical friends or family that babies can’t self-soothe at this age, they often respond by saying that their kids or other kids they know DO self-soothe, and that sleep training was effective for them in this way. What can I say to that? I’m assuming some babies are just less high-needs than mine because mine would’ve screamed for every minute that I would’ve let her if we hadn’t coslept. Maybe the babies they’re talking about just aren’t as freaked out about their sleep space?

 

[apostolicfaithone1]

@rollo22 I will say that I agree with your point that there are lower needs children yes. However, what I say to people is that it’s not that they learned to self soothe - they didn’t. They just learned that you aren’t coming. Brain studies show that the area of distress is still active in the brain they have just behaviorally been trained that YOURE not coming. There is a famous Russian Orphanage study that looked at this phenomena and identified just this as well. The babies weren’t crying because they knew no one would come to them. Which is why we have teens and adults who self isolate - that is literally how they were trained to act when in distress. I often have parents who bring in teens and they will say “they don’t talk to me!” or “they don’t come to me when they are upset” and then I explore developmental areas of the child’s life and the parenting that occurred and they were sent to their rooms, never had repairs occur following a rupture, sleep trained… there was no affect regulation that was developed. Which is literally what Schore talks about. You attuning to your child and providing coregulation quite literally builds the neural pathways for them to do it in the future. And it requires consistent and Bowlby argues predictable attuning for that to happen. It’s not a one time thing. Does that answer your question? Y’all‘s questions are great but it’s also hard to put 7 years worth of studying for my doctoral degree in a succinct paragraph so hopefully I was able to!!

Edit to add: when I say they know you’re not coming they are still in a fight or flight mode; they are in a freeze state. For those with some psycho education related to trauma theory.