Safe Sleep 7 says formula fed babies shouldn’t co-sleep/bed-share. Do you?

[akalime]

@chenml60 My experience- I am currently “combo” feeding. My LO mostly drinks formula but he will latch and breastfeed/pacify which has given me some flexibility. We Cosleep. It’s the only way I can get any sleep because he too hates his bassinet. I will let him pacify at times at night. I don’t think EFF it’s a risk as long as following all of the other rules.

 

[peacseekr]

@chenml60 I combo fed up until recently, I EFF now. My baby has reflux and has choked randomly since she was about 2 weeks old. I have to keep her upright for 30 minutes after every feed to prevent her from losing everything she just ate. I would not sleep because I knew she would randomly choke, and I would have to jump out of bed and pat her back. It has been miserable, to say the least, but because of that, we cosleep. I have peace of mind knowing I will be able to pat her back immediately when it happens. Because it will happen.. loud sigh

Reflux is supposedly worse from 4 to 6 months, so pray for me. (She's on reflux medicine, tried rice cereal, and it constipates her and she would still choke)

 

[chenml60]

@peacseekr Ugh the reflux struggle is so real! I don’t want to over medicate my son and I thought we had solved his reflux problem by switching to a hypoallergenic formula so I didn’t give him his 2 doses of Pepcid yesterday. Big mistake! The symptoms crept back slowly and by the time I realized it, he wouldn’t lie down again. It took 2 weeks to see full results the first time around so it’ll probably be at least a few days of holding him 24/7 again until we get the Pepcid fully back into his system. It’s so hard to know what the right thing to do is, but much easier after you’ve done something wrong.

 

[paulvogel]

@chenml60 So I am a nurse who used to work in a trauma ER before I got pregnant. I participated in two resuscitations for babies who lost their lives in bed sharing accidents that ended unfortunately very tragically.

This was a hugely traumatic experience for me as a young nurse, and having seen that was a humongous contributer to my postpartum anxiety. I was TERRIFIED to bed share, but also had a baby who would ONLY sleep in my or my husband's arms. But being so scared of bed sharing meant that I couldn't sleep if baby was in the bed. It was a horrible, horrible sleepless time.

A big game changer for us was getting one of those side-car style bassinets that attached to the bed. About 20 minutes before I was going to put baby to bed, or when I would get him up for bottles/changes overnight, I would put a heating pad (on low) in the bassinet and underneath his sleep sack. It made his sleep space super cozy and reduced the shock of moving out of mom's arms into the bassinet. That was how we made it through the initial transition from contact sleep to bassinet sleep before we built more independent sleep habits later (using takingcarababies).

I feel for you, friend. It's such a hard struggle. I hope some of these tips help you tremendously and that your whole family gets the rest y'all need so badly here soon.