Co-sleeping with 7 Month Old Safely

Let me say up front that I am not an advocate of co sleeping, but a friend of mine had a bassinette type thing that hooked onto her bed and was open on the bed side. It was like cosleeping without the dangers. Look into it!

Other moms have given great answers. Here's a link to a possible solution -co-sleeper cribs. I read about it but haven't used them. They snug up to the bed so you can be close but the baby still has it's own space.

I don't mean to be a downer, but I never co-slept because a friend of mine lost her first baby, a precious little girl, because she rolled over onto her baby and the baby died. Of course she was and still is absolutely devastated. After seeing what she and her husband went through, I could just never do it myself, and opted for other methods of sleep training. Personally I used Babywise, and I know others who read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and liked that. Good luck with whatever route you choose.

Baby sleeps in my arms. I lay on one of my sides and cuddle the baby next to me. Baby is on her back. When she gets older, she'll cuddle on her side too. I keep pillows in my bed and blankets. I just don't put the baby on the pillows, and I have the blankets set up so that they won't bury the baby at all.

I read something once that said that a mother who sleeps with her baby in her arms automatically protects her baby and is cautious of her child while sleeping. But people who lay their baby down to sleep (not in their arms - giving the baby a spot on the bed) it's not as safe for the baby, until they are much older. I think the main worry is being rolled on. In mommas arms, baby won't get rolls on.

If you are obese, have a waterbed, smoke, or take sleeping meds, then you should be cautious of co-sleeping. In that case, the recliner would be a better choice. (Though a couple of my sisters have waterbeds and co-sleep, one of them being obese, and it's been fine for them.)

But if you don't fit in any of those categories, then co-sleeping is very safe. I've done it with all of mine. Oh, and I use a guard rail thing on the side of our bed so baby won't fall off if on that side.

Also, at 7 months, a baby goes through a major mental leap (you might already know this). All of mine are pretty good at sleeping until seven months. Then they stop sleeping it seems!! It does get better again, but it lasts for QUITE A WHILE before they do. Then it'll get better, then worse, then better, then worse, etc. Teething and growing and learning new things will affect their sleeping.

Good luck! Oh, quick, another thought - your baby is 7 months. Besides the fact that if he is in your arms you will automatically be aware of him in your sleep, if you're worried about him suffocating, he's big enough that he'd squirm and wake you up. If it helps you feel any better, I've coslept with five babies so far and NEVER have they even come close to suffocating. I wouldn't do it if I felt like it was dangerous and nothing about it has been dangerous for us.

I slept next to my babies from newborn ....on to a few years old. I just kind of have a built in "sense" of them and them...me. It has worked out so well for me that i dont even buy cribs, just bassinets for during the day....early on. Also we have the biggest bed they make.

id say that at 7 months old you are far less likely to smother your baby than if he were a newborn but i am NOT going to tell you to sleep with him. I dont know where your intuition ends and your fear begins so i dont think i could give you an answer. I can only trust my own intuition as a co-sleeper.

But i do believe that as far as SIDS and accidental suffocation the odds are actually stacked against babies who sleep alone.....but your son has already passed the scary marker for that. Your odds of smothering him now are even far less.

I hope some of this helps

Hello,
we co-slept from about 6 months to almost 3 years. We had a queen sized bed, and sized up to a king for more room. Our daughter slept in between my husband and I and we used standard sized pillows instead of king sized to give her more space in between us.

She stayed up toward the top of our padded headboard, so the blanket and light bedspread really only came up to her armpits. The heat generated between my husband and I was enough to keep her warm. We never let her fall asleep on top of us, I think that can turn into a bad habit if you allow that every night. Our child was not one to roll around while sleeping, so we lined the sides of the bed with pillows and she stayed right in the middle. If she were a roller, I don't know that we would have co-slept, to be frank. We also laid down with her until she fell asleep, which was generally very quickly.

If you are nursing at night, this is ideal for you. Our daughter didn't take a bottle of expressed milk during the day; she absolutely refused it. So I was a human milk farm from the moment that I got home from work until the next morning. It was hard, but it was what was required and I wanted to have a long nursing relationship and we did.

Another benefit is that should your child wake up during the night, you are right there to soothe them and it took literally seconds for our child to go right back to sleep. I was also always confident that she was warm because I was right there.

My husband and I aren't overweight, drug users or heavy drinkers so there was no issue of us rolling over on her and smothering her. We're both fairly light sleepers.

We also never had to deal with crying it out or any methods like that. Honestly, if I were to do it all over again, I would change absolutely nothing about our co-sleeping arrangement. Our now 6 yo had an easy transition into her own twin bed at 3 years old and rarely, if ever wakes up at night. And, if I may say, there is nothing sweeter or more comforting than sleeping next to your child. People all over the world do it and have for centuries.

Good luck!!

I sleep in the fetal position anyway. So my babies were always next to me, head on my arm, faced away from me so that I could know their nose is free and clear. I would draw the blankets right up around my shoulders and then tuck them just under the babies face. I never moved from that position until I needed to switch sides. I learned to roll over with the baby still in my arms. They never woke up unless they wanted a bottle. When they were older, over a year, then they slept between us and I would constantly check on baby and husband to make sure he wasn't rolling around too much. I had no problem with smacking his arm if he was getting too close :) We had a king sized bed. He rolled over on her a couple times when she was just newborn. That's when I realized she had to be in my arms to be safe. I sleep light and stay on my sides. He doesn't. But by the time they are over one, they will holler if someone makes them uncomfortable.

I'm in cali so its not sooo cold here, lol. But we got rid of the comforter and just used a sheet a thermal blanket and one of those fleece blankets over that, otherwise we kept the house/apt to about 70degrees.

Often they were just snuggled up against me - their head on my arm. My middle one liked to sleep on his own so in our king bed he was between us and we had smaller pillows.

As long as your little one can move his head on his own (all three of mine were crawling by 7months) then i don't think you have a lot to worry about, just make sure you and hubby aren't such heavy sleepers that if you happened to roll over on top of him you wouldn't notice. X(

How do you like to sleep?
Last year at this (cold) time my son was 6 months. He liked to sleep in the crook of my arm. I would lay on my back.
When I slept on my side I would have him just beside me. We'd face each other.
I like blankets. :) We have a king sized bed and we (DH and I) don't share well...so we each have our own blankets, using them has never been a problem. We usually have a big open gap between the pillows.
When they are teeny tiny then there can be a little nervousness (slept w/ both of mine from day 1) but at 7 months, like Teresa C. said, it will be fine.
Hope you and your little fella get some much needed rest! :)

I could do it during naps but couldn't figure how people did it at night either. My kids were always trying to crawl up on me and play when I tried. Nobody was getting sleep that way!

I did buy a little thing that you could put the baby in and then put the baby right in the bed between you and your spouse and sleep safely, with your hand right on them, I never actually used it bc I ended up just using a co-sleeper which fits right up next to the bed and then moved mine to their cribs/rooms at 3 months, but I shared that to say that they do make them! So maybe just look up co-sleeping aids online. I think there is a book and info online about having a family bed as well. I know my MIL had 5 kids and they all slept with her until they were pretty old and all faired just fine! I just can't sleep with a baby in my bed, but lots of people do :D Good luck!

Totally was scared, but had to in order to get any sleep. I'd put him between me and my husband, but really close to me and I'd scoot myself down in the bed so I couldn't really roll over on him...so basically my head would sort of be in line with his hips. I don't know, might sound silly, but it made me feel a little better.

Hi. I think it CAN be done if you do it correctly. Some of the people below actually scare me, and were very fortunate. For example, you should NOT have a baby sleep on a water bed, with or without you! Also, you should not take sleeping aids, or drink heavily. If you are very heavy it is probably unsafe. No heavy blankets. If you are concerned about being cold, wear heavy clothes or turn up your heat slightly. If you are too cold, your child will be too cold, whether they are alone or with you.

Here's what I did, and I felt it was safe:
We put the matress on the floor, and put exercise mats on either side (we have wood floors).
I cleared the bed of everything except my pillow and a light blanket, over me only.
She slept between us, or with me only, my husband moved downstairs for part of the time.

I would not put the bed near the wall - they can get trapped in between.
Don't use a sleeping "buddy" type of thing, They can actually suffocate against the "walls."

Good luck. I do hear that people have good luck with CIO, but was never willing to try it myself. I heard/read too many horror stories of hours of crying, kids being afraid to go into their rooms. You could try a "no-cry" solution too, but I eventually gave up and co-slept. She kept almost-sleeping through the night, or sleeping for a night or two, and then starting all over again. I think she just had a lot of issues with teething.

I co-slept with my kids as babies... on a floor futon in our room.
I nursed on-demand too, so that was the easiest, for me/them.
I often just co-slept, because I'd fall asleep while putting them to sleep or nursing.

I had NOTHING on the futon. Only the mattress.
And my pillow.
But I like sleeping in the floor, anyway.

Some babies don't sleep well because:
1) gas
2) hunger... my kids as babies had GINORMOUS appetites, and I nursed, on-demand night and day. Especially at growth-spurts. For their 1st year of life. Though I had tons of milk, they fed very often and cluster-fed. And they grew like weeds.
3) Teething
4) noise... such as, someone snoring in the room.
5) Developmental changes and their own limbs, moving about. At this mere age, they CANNOT control their appendages and startle reflexes. Hence they wake up.

Maybe start with trying a nap time? I would be sleeping less hard then, more able to see him, no one else in the bed with us. I don't know if that would help, but I think that's how I started with my kids. Then when that went well, I was comfortable doing it at night, too. We never co-slept as a regular thing, but on especially sleepy nights, after a nursing, if they were sick, etc., I would keep them with me for various reasons at times. I slept on my side and I could cover my back and top side with a blanket while keeping it off the baby. I would lay the baby where his head was even with my chest and thus he was not on any pillows. I guess he kept the front of me warm!

On a semi-related topic but not co-sleeping, we had phenomenal success with Richard Ferber's sleep book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. A lot of people don't like it as a "cry it out" method, and I don't know if it works for every child. But we had twins who wouldn't sleep and were are desperately sleep-deprived as you sound, and we saw amazing results the very first night. I had to ask myself how humane the sleep deprivation for me AND them was. It might be worth a look if you haven't seen it before. I do recommend reading the whole plan carefully before trying to implement part of it. Good luck!

I co-slept with my daughter often. She slept close to me, between us. I was used to sleeping on my left side from pregnancy and I just tucked her up against me with her head close to my breasts. As my husband's snoring got worse, we kicked him out and she and I shared our queen-sized bed. I slept on one side with her in the middle and she never rolled out of bed. I kept the same pillows and comforter on the bed that we'd always had. I just didn't pull it up over her.

You won't roll over on him, really you won't. You will sense him there. But you both need to get some sleep and are potentially more dangerous to him sleep-deprived than sharing a bed!

Have you tried letting him sleep on his stomach? Can he lift his head and turn it. If he can , then he can sleep on his tummy in his crib.
We discovered our daughter slept so well on her tummy, she slept through the night from then on..

When our did sleep with us, she slept next to me. I Kind of curled around her. No pillows around her. We just had her dressed appropriately to sleep without a blanket, plus I am pretty warm natured I am like a furnace.

My husband was really nervous about her sleeping with us, so we did not do it too often while she was an infant.

They sell cosleeping beds you can put in the bed with you, so you don't have to fear rolling over him, but he's a little old now so may not fit in it:
http://www.examiner.com/early-childhood-parenting-in-nati...

As for me, I coslept with baby between us, or with baby on the side and the bed against the wall. You can still have a nice comforter and pillows, just use them in moderation and don't pull it up over the baby or you. Sleep in warm tops if it is a concern.

Nursing on demand while co-sleeping is awesome and baby, daddy and I all got better sleep.

Co-sleeping is not recommended for smokers, waterbed, on sleep meds, obese people, people with sleep disorders (sleep apnea...), with pets in the room who share the bed.

I had no problems with mine in the bed. I had a water bed so it had a lip and the kids couldnt roll out. A king size bed works best tho. Mine would either sleep right next to me and sometimes in the middle between me and dad. we never rolled over on them or anything like that, we were just "aware", and it is very cozy. I sure miss those days. I think they make little inserts now that you can put your child in and put them inbetween you and dad, I think that's what my son and dil do, their 3 yr old has slept with them since day one.