...the main reason why most parents structure their time with their babies is so they can train them to sleep in cots. I never really saw the point in cots. My baby slept in my bed.
Now, a lot of the parenting books that I’ve read says that you should never bring your baby into your bed. They say, if you do, then your infant will develop ‘lasting sleep problems’. Well, I disagree.
By the time my baby was four months old, I could come in from a walk, swing off the back carrier, tip him out, take off his snow suit, undo various layers of clothing, change his nappy, tuck him back together and lay him down on our bed. Without him waking up.
When he was two, his dad took him to a birthday party, and he fell asleep in the car on the way there. Soon after they arrived, it was time to cut the cake, and not wanting him to miss out, his dad tried to wake him up. And couldn’t. That child was so damn good at sleeping that he didn’t stir, even when suspended upside down by his ankles.
The sleep trainers will advise you to adopt certain measures to help your baby to go sleep in his own bed. Fit black-out blinds. Keep household noise to a minimum. Avoid eye contact. The baby gets used to sleeping alone in the dark. But when a baby is always put to sleep in a darkened, quietened room, she’ll become easily startled awake by light or noise. And will grow up to be the adult who is kept awake at night by music from next door. This is so common in our society that we don’t even see our light, disturbable sleeping habits as problematic.
If you’d seen my three-year-old son sound asleep on the sofa at my sister’s twenty first birthday party maybe you’d agree that he’s got a robust, healthy ability to sleep through anything. Even her drunk friend sitting on him.
My son is now four. He didn’t get his own bed until he was old enough to be enthusiastic about the idea. We still cuddle up together every night until he falls asleep and it takes about ten minutes at the most. I spend quite a lot of time holding my child every evening, but not necessarily any longer than another parent might spend repeatedly packing their reluctant child back off upstairs to go to sleep on his own.
Babies and children gain reassurance from continued, loving human contact. Remember, there are tigers out there, and predators come out at night. I don’t think my son has ever had a nightmare.
I just checked:
‘Louie, have you ever had any dreams where it’s horrible, and then you wake up?’
‘No. I don’t want one like that.

Gina Ford will tell you that night terrors are normal for her cot-trained infants.
...parents find their child sitting bolt upright in bed screaming, eyes wide open and staring straight ahead as if witnessing something really horrific. Sometimes the screaming is accompanied by incoherent moaning and thrashing around, causing them to sweat so profusely that they appear to have a fever. Unlike the child who wakes up screaming after having a nightmare and looks for comfort and reassurance, a screaming child having a night terror cannot be comforted...

Just who is raising the child with lasting sleep problems here?
Why it’s safe to sleep with your baby...
There are a lot of strong opinions on this sleep-ing issue. It’s a common view in our society that it’s dangerous and emotionally unhealthy for your baby to sleep in your bed. And there’s a case to be made that it’s dangerous and emotionally unhealthy for your baby to sleep in a cot in a nursery. Don’t let anyone guilt trip you into making such a personal decision as where your baby sleeps according to what worked best for them. They’re not you, and they don’t know your baby. 
You have a choice. But here is some infor-mation about co-sleeping, (that is, sleeping with your baby), so it can be an informed choice.

Much of the fear that surrounds co-sleeping comes from an understandable apprehension that mothers will squash their babies in their sleep. But women have evolved to sleep with our babies, and we’re actually very good at it. 
Scientists have been videoing and monitoring co-sleeping mothers and babies to find out what it is that mothers do so well when they co-sleep. They found that women stir in their sleep, and monitor their babies’ temperature and position throughout the night, adjusting the blankets and checking them in their sleep. Many women learn to latch their babies on and feed them without coming fully awake.1 In my experience, women also unconsciously monitor their babies’ breathing. Once, my son’s breathing became obstructed as he slept beside me. I woke up.
Mothers have an incredible capacity for monitoring their children which doesn’t switch off at night. If you put your baby in a cot, even in your sleep, you’ll still have half an ear out for her cries. It’s the same when you co-sleep, except that it’s easier to put your hand on her to settle her when she wakes.
There is fear about babies dying in their sleep because it does happen. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) kills three hundred babies a year in the UK. No-one knows why. And so there has been a lot of research into cot death and whether co-sleeping is a causative or preventative factor. 
Surprisingly, fewer babies die in countries where co-sleeping is common. In Beijing, China, more than half of all babies routinely sleep with their parents, and SIDS deaths are less than 0.01 per thousand. In Sweden, nearly half of all babies co-sleep and SIDS incidence is  0.02 per thousand. Here in the UK, the rate of sudden infant death is five times that.2
It could just be a genetic thing. Maybe white Western babies are prone to cot death. After all, immigrant Bangladeshi mothers in the UK, who sleep with their babies, (and who don’t smoke) have SIDS rates far below the national average.3 Yet the longer they live in the West the more likely immigrants are to start using cots, whereupon their cot-death rates rise.4
So, could co-sleeping actually help protect against SIDS? Well, it’s hard to be sure, because we don’t know why SIDS happens, but there are indications that this could be the case.
Have you ever watched your little baby sleeping, and noticed how her breathing jerks in and out irregularly? Perhaps cot death happens when a baby simply forgets to breathe. 
When a baby sleeps curled up by her mother though, her breathing is more regular. As the mother breathes out, the carbon dioxide in her exhalation ‘reminds’ the baby to take another breath.5 When babies sleep alone, the oxygen levels in their blood dip periodically. This doesn’t happen when they sleep with their mums.6
Like adults, babies have different stages of sleep. There is the light, dream sleep where their eyes move and their faces twitch (so cute!), and there is the sound, heavy sleep where their limbs go floppy, and you know you can finally put them down. Unlike adults, babies have more light, dream sleep, (which is, incidentally when their brains do a lot of growing). Your husband might be able to crash out soundly and be snoring within minutes. Your baby will probably take a lot longer to settle.
It is during the second, heavy phase of sleep that cot death could be more likely to occur. Scientists have monitored babies who nearly died of cot death, but were resuscitated in time, and also the brothers and sisters of cot-death victims. They found that they moved less in their sleep than normal infants, woke up less in the night, and were more difficult to wake. If something obscured their breathing, they were less likely to struggle away. They were sleeping more deeply, which isn’t necessarily healthy for a small baby.7
By contrast, when you put a baby in bed with her mother, she stirs more in her sleep, even during heavy sleep. Both the parent and the infant have more brief awakenings, where they don’t become fully awake, they just touch base, and check each other are OK. The baby has more healthy light dream sleep, and less dangerous heavy sleep. Mother and baby wake together more of the time. Both mother and baby settle back to sleep quicker each time.8
Researchers have concluded that these brief awakenings protect babies against SIDS. Maybe trying to get small babies to sleep through the night on their own just isn’t a very good idea.
Overheating is another known risk factor for cot death. Again, researchers have found that mothers monitor their babies during the night when they share a bed. They respond to changes in the room temperature and cover, or uncover the baby accordingly. Although the babies do end up underneath the adult covers at times, the mothers shift and throw back the blankets in response. Co-sleeping babies have more stable temperatures than cot sleeping babies.9 
Babies are more at risk of SIDS if they sleep on their tummies. And babies sleep more on their tummies when they sleep in cots. Babies who sleep with their mothers curl up on their sides or their backs so they can keep snacking through the night.10 
There has been no research into whether it is safe for a baby to go to sleep on her tummy, lying on your chest. It would seem to me, that if you have one of those babies who strongly prefers to lie on her front, then she would be best off lying on you, where you can monitor her breathing. Put her down on her back once she is fully asleep.
Co-sleeping is brilliant for breastfeeding, and breastfeeding protects against SIDS.11 Babies get more than three times as many breastfeeds when they sleep with their mothers.12 The breastfeeding hormone prolactin is higher at night. Frequent contact with the baby and the nipple boosts prolactin levels even higher.So, you make better milk when you sleep with your baby.13  I’d like to point out at this point that if your baby does more of her feeding at night, while you are asleep, then she will need less feeding in the daytime, when you are awake, and might rather be doing other things.
There is, however, one proven link between cot death and co-sleeping, and that is if you smoke. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: cigarettes are really bad. When a mother sleeps and smokes in bed with her baby, the infant runs twelve times the risk of dying of SIDS.14 Even when mothers don’t smoke around their baby, the tar in their lungs, means that they breathe out toxins that put the baby at risk. This skews the statistics. If you lump smoking mothers in with non-smoking mothers, then co-sleeping looks dangerous, when it isn’t.15  
‘There is no evidence that bed sharing is hazardous for infants of parents who do not smoke.’ That’s a quote from the British Medical Journal. But occasionally babies do die of SIDS in bed with their parents, and society is quick to blame their bed sharing. The majority of babies die in cots, and no-one blames the cots.
Think about what else causes babies to die of cot death. Being poor is the biggest single risk factor.16 You may not be able to do anything about that right now. Sleeping in a room with mould on the walls increases the risk.17 Stress increases the risk.18
Sleeping in a separate bedroom increases the risk, and more UK cot deaths occur in a separate nursery than in any other environment.19 Really, don’t bother decorating a nursery for your tiny baby. She’ll be far more impressed if you wait until she’s two. Whether your baby co-sleeps, or cot sleeps, let her sleep in the bedroom with you for the first year. Whether in the same bed, or in separate beds, mothers and babies are safest together.
The Rules
For co-sleeping to be safe, a mother’s natural ‘asleep alertness’ should not be compromised. Don’t co-sleep if you are drunk, or have taken sleeping tablets or other medications that ‘may cause drowsiness’.
It is also recommended that you don’t co-sleep when you are very tired. Ha ha ha. Very funny. How are you not meant to be very tired when you have a new baby is anyone’s guess. However, the advice still stands, because very occasionally, a mother becomes so exhausted that she needs some very deep sleep away from her baby. If you hit a brick wall of exhaustion where it feels like your entire life is falling apart, then phone someone, anyone, to come and mind the baby while you get some sleep alone. This is yet another reason why new mothers need support. It’s not a reason not to co-sleep. 
The breastfeeding mother is the ideal co-sleeper. Your partner won’t be as tuned in to the baby in the bed as you are. So for the first couple of months your baby is safer between you and the edge of the bed, with your partner on the other side. Always sleep like this if your partner smokes, and if he smells strongly of smoke, encourage him to shower and wash his hair before he gets into bed. 
It makes sense to minimize the risk of your baby suffocating or falling out of bed. Put your bed up against the wall, or sleep on a mattress on the floor. If you can’t push your mattress right flush with the wall, stuff the gap with folded blankets. Firm mattresses are best. If your mattress is soft and downy, you can put a thin camping mat under the sheet to make a firmer safe baby surface. 
Keep the pillows away from the baby.
Free-flowing waterbeds are dangerous for babies to sleep on (the ones where you bob about like a ship at sea). ‘Motionless’ or ‘fully stabilised’ waterbeds are OK.
Don’t wear dangly strings, longer than six inch-es, around your neck or off your nightclothes.
If you are really quite fat, as in, obese enough for it to affect your mobility, then your extra rolls of cuddliness might be too soft for your baby. If this is the case, you might want to try a co-sleeper, a crib that clips onto the side of your bed, so your baby still sleeps with you, but she has her own little zone. 
You can make your own co-sleeper by taking one side off a conventional cot, bolting it to the side of your bed, and raising the mattress to the same height. (Again, fill any gap between the mattresses with firm rolled blankets). This gives you ‘baby area’ and ‘adult area’, which you may be psychologically more comfortable with.
Never, ever sleep with your baby on a sofa. Or a beanbag. A remarkable number of babies die on sofas, because it’s easy for the baby to become wedged between the cushions, and also because drunk people end up falling asleep on sofas with their babies.20 You could consider replacing your sofa with a firm futon arrangement. 
If you’re staying at a friend’s house and they offer you a sofa to sleep on, you can take all the cushions off, lay them on the floor, and tuck a blanket around them tightly to make a bed for you, and put the baby on the floor next to you on a folded blanket.
Don’t let other children sleep next to the baby as they won’t be sleep-alert like you. Put the baby between you and the wall, and practise feeding her off either breast like this. Then you can let another child sleep on the other side of you if they need to.
Don’t let pets sleep near the baby. I trusted my old dog to sleep staying at the foot of the bed, but you might not want to risk that with your pet. And you might want the extra space.
Don’t sleep with your baby if she has a disability that causes poor muscle tone. 
Lay your baby to sleep on her back.
A word about overheating. Your baby is already wearing a nappy, you’ll probably want to add a vest, and if scratchy toenails are a problem, a pair of socks. That’s quite a lot of clothes. Quite apart from the safety issue, she’s not going to be comfortable if she’s too hot. Experiment with blankets to find an arrangement that works for you. You may want to use lighter weight bedding on the baby side of the bed. You might need to wear a cardigan to stop your neck and shoulders getting cold when you push the blankets away from the baby. You could put her in a fleecy sleep suit and keep her outside the blankets altogether. 
If you bring the baby from a cot into your bed, you might need to take off a layer of her clothes.
Well, all that sounded extremely complicated didn’t it? Basically it boils down to, don’t sleep with your baby if you are drunk, drugged or if you smoke. Keep the baby away from soft things that might suffocate her, and unless you are very fat, that’s not you.
You only need to set up your safe sleeping space once. Since practically everyone ends up sleeping holding their baby at some point, it makes sense to work out ahead of time where is a good safe zone (in your bed, away from the pillows) and where is dangerous (on the sofa, under the dog). 
Play it by ear...  Co-sleeping isn’t the answer to everybody’s sleep situation: it’s a tool that parents can use safely to help them find their way. For me, it worked brilliantly. It went something like this: wake up, wriggle slightly, feed baby, both fall back to sleep. Repeat as necessary.
When he was three months old, my baby slept through the night. Just the once. I woke up at  7am with bosoms like barrage balloons, dripping milk everywhere. Ouch. Wake up child. Eat. I didn’t want him to do that again in a hurry. 
Gradually the spaces between the feeds became longer and longer. Now he always sleeps right through. But then, he is four years old, and has been weaned for some years.
Some babies are easier to sleep with than others. Some are lovely soft snuggly bundles. Some are manically wriggling energy balls. There are a few babies who are very ‘sucky’. They like to fall asleep with the breast in the mouth, and then wake up if it isn’t there. Childcare expert Martha Sears suggests placing your finger in her mouth and pressing firmly at the end of a feed to give her a secure feeling as you extricate yourself. Once your breastfeeding is well established, you can experiment with using dummies or helping her to suck her thumb. Or dad can hold her. Or you can find another solution that works for you. 
Co-sleeping can take many forms. If you like, you can have a regular bedtime for your little one, where you bathe her and settle her in her cot and then get some special time with your partner. When she cries in the night you can bring her into your bed. You can use a cot as much as you want to, you don’t have to be strict about it. You may find the sleep solution you have with one baby doesn’t work so well with another.
Parents and kids can end up swapping between beds in co-sleeping households. Sometimes, your partner will really need some uninterrupted sleep, and may be better off sleeping elsewhere. My sister recounted a conversation she had with a friend about this. It went something like this:
Friend: Oh, I’m ever so worried about Matthew having to sleep on the sofa while Noah is in your bed.
My sister: Matthew is thirty-four years old. I think that by that age my husband can cope with sleeping on his own for a few nights. He seems to be more rational and less needy than a seven-month-old baby.
You can experiment with when the right time is to move your baby out of your bed. Some babies will start to settle in a cot fairly easily – some are not so easily fooled.
I know a couple of mothers whose babies started out with them when they were tiny, and then, with some continuity and calm, settled in a cot when they were six months old.
I know a couple of mothers who sleep trained their babies to a cot at a year, using the ‘controlled crying’ method. Buy another book if you want to know about controlled crying, because I never had any truck with it. Still, that seems to me to be a reasonable compromise on the sleep training issue. If you are going to undertake a system of leaving your baby to cry to get used to her cot, then it would seem to make sense to wait until she is a year old, has built up a lot of loving trust with you and has some sense of cause and effect and the passage of time. 
But if you’re happy with her in your bed, you don’t actually have to do the cot thing at all. At some point, you can sell the idea of ‘your own special bed like a big girl’ to her. She’ll probably quite like going to bed. It has always been nice for her so far. 
If you don’t do cots with your baby, you don’t have to do bedtimes. She can fall asleep on you breastfeeding, and you can keep her with you until you go to bed. That’s another personal thing. Some mothers really like to get their children all asleep by 7pm so then they can have some time off. But I work in the daytime, and I liked my baby to take long naps then, while I drew cartoons, so I could play with him in the evening. I also discovered that when a child goes to bed at 6.30pm, he wakes up at 6.30am. But if you don’t put him down until 9pm, then you get more of a lie-in in the morning!
Co-sleeping seems to be parenting’s best kept secret. Studies in the US and the UK have shown that about a quarter of parents usually sleep with their babies, and more than two thirds of parents sometimes do.22 Incredible huh? That’s quite likely to be you too, at some point, because sometimes babies just really, really want their mums.