7 Safety Tips for Bed Sharing: Sleep is a crucial component of early postpartum (and beyond)! It is a point of stress for many parents in trying to figure out how to support their child’s sleep health and their own, as well! We can’t function as parents if we are not sleeping at night!
The only guidance in the United States is from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which says to put your baby on their own sleeping surface on their backs.
This may be different in other countries and cultures, but generally in the United States, your sleep guidance is to put baby in their own sleeping surface, such as a crib or bassinet.
But what if your baby won’t sleep in a crib? What if they prefer to be held and sleep next to you? What if you get better sleep with your baby in bed with you?
So, what happens? Many of us may find ourselves falling asleep while holding our baby on the couch or in a position that is unsafe due to fatigue.
Bedsharing CAN be dangerous if we do not do it safely, similar to how sleeping in a crib CAN be dangerous if we do not do it safely. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of guidance on how to bedshare!
Let’s discuss ways to safely sleep with your baby in bed with you!
Tips to Bedshare Safely
1) Remove Entrapment Risks
The biggest risk while bedsharing is that your baby will roll or be pushed into a small space and suffocate. This is known as entrapment.
The way to avoid entrapment is to remove any gaps between your mattress/bed and the wall/furniture. There should be no gaps that baby can fall into and become trapped.
Places that could pose a risk:
- Mattress and wall to the sides
- Mattress and wall/headboard at the top of the bed
- Bedframe and mattress gap
- Bed and nearby furniture, such as an end table
Take a look at your bed and go along each edge to note if there are any possible entrapment locations. If so, fill them!
Options could include:
- Filling gaps with blankets, pillows, or bed bumpers
- Moving the bed AWAY from the walls
- Moving furniture AWAY from the bed (to include end tables)
- Using bed bumpers on the bed to prevent baby from rolling off the bed
2) Remove strangulation hazards
Next, we want to remove all possible strangulation hazards, such as phone charging cords, loose-fitting clothing, long hair, pillows, and large blankets.
We want to also ensure that if your baby fell off the bed, they would not land or roll into your charging cables, as well! All cords should be secured and away from the bed!
Tips:
- Tie up long hair at night
- Wear minimal or tighter-fitting clothing
- One light blanket
- One pillow per adult
- All cords away from the bed and secured away from the floor
3) Avoid alcohol and drugs and no smoking!
We want to avoid consuming anything that may make us a deeper sleeper or harder to wake up!
When you hear stories of folks rolling onto their babies in bed, it’s usually because they were drunk or had taken some medication that made them a deeper sleeper.
Avoiding alcohol and drugs (including prescription medication*) that may make you a deeper sleeper would be optimal while bed-sharing!
*This is only for medication that would make you a deeper sleeper or harder to wake up. Discuss with your provider or pharmacist the side effects of your medications, and if you need to take them, consider putting your baby in a different sleep location.
4) Breastfeeding
If baby is less than four months old, breastfeeding is an important factor in bedsharing.
When we are breastfeeding, we tend to automatically move into a C-shape sleeping position around baby. We are also more likely to wake up when baby wakes up!
5) C-Shape Sleeping Position
The sleeping position around my baby is usually a C-shape. I like to position my back towards the rest of the family in our bed, and I will curl around my baby with her back towards the bed bumper.
My husband is a very heavy sleeper, so it is important that I am a physical barrier between him and our baby.
This position is also easiest to breastfeed in and is the position I tend to intuitively find as I am sleeping next to my baby.
6) Bed Bumpers or Floor Bed (Or Both)
We opted to trade in our standard-height bed for a floor bed after our son rolled off the bed a few times as a toddler.
There are several types of floor beds out there! You could even just throw a mattress on the floor. We opted for a frame for the floor bed so there would be airflow under the mattress.
If you don’t want a floor bed, you could grab some bed bumpers to help prevent your baby from rolling off the bed. We have bed bumpers on our bed even with a floor bed too!
You place the bed bumpers under the sheets (we also have a waterproof cover down) on the edge that baby will be sleeping.
Each night before we go to bed, I check the bumpers to make sure they haven’t slid or moved and that they are still secured in their position on our mattress.
7) Baby is not pre-term or low birth weight
If your baby is pre-term or was a low-birth weight, it is not recommended to bedshare! But, if you have a newborn that was born at term (37+ weeks), you can generally bedshare with them using the tips above!