Coseeping: Cuddling vs. Cribs

When my baby was born, he was a month premature, it was February, and my midwife suggested—no, COMMANDED—me to cosleep. "They learn their breathing from you," she said. Sounded good to me. Anyway my husband Mr. Pokey had yet to put the crib together and we had nowhere to put our early arrival. So slipping him safely between us seemed like a fine idea. Plus it saved me from having to stumble out of bed to nurse him during the night.

Now I've come to LOVE our arrangement. Until he's ready for his big-boy bed, it's cosleeping or no sleeping in my book. And yet even though it's clearly working for us, my family can't leave it alone. "Why isn't the baby in a crib?" my mom gasped the last time she was over. I explained that although it had started out as temporary, I'd come to love sleeping alongside him. And why not? We get to cuddle and kiss. Anyway I'd decided that cribs kind of looked like cages. My mom glared at me like I was from Mars.

My aunt also weighed in and said she was afraid I'd roll over on my baby and squash him in the night. Ha! Ed didn't even let me sleep when he was in utero, he wiggled around so much. There's no way I'm going to roll over on this lively, squirming, noisy baby long enough to smother him. He'll just wiggle me right off of him!

Many of my mommy friends have told me that their little ones have slept many nights right beside them. And yet they're sheepish about admitting that, as if cosleeping is something bad, something to be judged. Well, wake up fellow co-sleepers! We have nothing to apologize for. Whatever way we choose to get a goodnight's sleep is our business.