sorry meant to reply to Rose

Why me? I agreed that it was OK to sleep with the baby. Geez :(

sorry Rose should have been selma nilla I didn't read far enough up the thread chain.

sorry Rose should have been selma nilla I didn't read far enough up the thread chain.

i am with you on this... heck my son and I slept in the same bed after my divorce for a long time, he was x. Needed to know I was there.

Totally agree you have my vote. I wouldn't have had them anywhere else but with me.

I'm just saying the car thing is always the fall back thing. Thousands of people die in car accidents just because of the shear number of people in cars. I am saying why even TAKE THE CHANCE that you could smother your kid, or they could fall out of the bed? They're perfectly fine in a crib next to the bed and you won't take any chances.

I appreciate your point of view... ...but my instinct disagrees. Maybe my ancestors had babies snatched by owls in the night and I just can't stand to have my babies sleeping out of my arms reach. I don't know, but that's what my fatherly instinct left me doing. The "car thing" is just as valid as any argument you've made, even if "sheer numbers" of people are stupid idiots taking chances with their babies' lives by projecting them at x miles an hour down the highway in a mass of steel a few feet away from people doing the same in the opposite direction. I'm not telling you that you're wrong in your beliefs, I'm just telling you what I felt and what I did.

Well, if people don't want the "car thing" we can always substitute the accidents with window blinds, buckets, washing machines, toilets, electrical cords, animals, small toys, (fill in the blank). Accidents happen with pretty much everything. It's a moot point to argue back and forth about cars vs. sleeping in the same bed, lol. We just have to do the best we can as parents to practice common sense and try to keep our homes safe and our kids out of harm's way.

Prevention I cut my blind cord in x, put a door knowb thing on the bathroom and kept the lid closed, weeded through their toys to pull out the small or dangerous ones, and generally baby proofed the entire house top to bottom for both kids. I'm talking about taking as many precautions as you can to cut down on the risk.

That's what my last sentence was about.

You can do whatever makes you comfortable. I just never wanted to take the chance that I might roll over them or they would fall out. I loved having them near me but was fearful something would happen. They both turned into wonderful, loving, warm human beings, so it worked for us. Next you're going to get into the whole Family Bed thing, where the kids NEVER leave the bed, and Mom and Dad never get the bed back to themselves again.

You may THINK I am, but I'm not. My kids were in their bascinet, typiy, by two or three months, the crib after that, and they never went back. Right now, they have their own rooms. My six year old comes in our room a couple of times a month, but it's generally back to bed for him. If we're too tired or don't notice, he gets away with it. My two year old can't get his door open yet. No, I didn't want to give up sex just because I have kids in the house. We don't do the "family bed" thing.

Blarg, five, not six. I was looking at crap on eBay earlier for my eldest's birthday and have it in my head that he's six already. He's five.

We talked to our pediatrician about this because we were worried about all the crap that you hear against co-sleeping or having your kid in your room. He said it's really about personal preference, but studies have shown that babies thrive better when sleeping WITH parents, or at least in the same room as them. Babies also hear their parent's breathing at night and have been shown to regular their breathing to their parent's (which also reduces the chance for SIDS). The kids who are smothered are because parent's didn't take precautions, like the little foam bed you can buy with the sides that prevents the baby from rolling out (you can make one with a blanket too), the parents are heavy sleepers, or the parents are under the influence of something. Personally, I woke up if my kid MOVED next to me. Neither my husband and I ever rolled over on them or DIDN'T wake up if they moved or cried. We didn't get much sleep in those times, lol. :o)

curious Did the pediatrician say anything about the benefits of siblings sleeping together? Does that have the same impact? Just curious, I love info. on child development.

Hmm, we didn't ask but that's a good question to bring up next time. We plan on our kids sleeping in bunk beds, so it definitely applies. The youngest really doesn't like to be alone and gets scared, so there's really no other way around it. I would imagine it would be beneficial though, for same sex children anyway. The security and stability is there, as well as the ability to play with one another and share toys when they wake up. I personally feel that opposite sex children should be allowed that kind of privacy, but then again that's a whole new can of worms for the LTR hahaha.