MAKING CO-SLEEPING WORK WHEN YOUR PARTNER HAS PTSD
Co-Sleeping and room sharing is not for everyone. Having an infant in your bed can seem scary, and having a squirmy toddler in your bed can seem like a nightmare. The fact is, co-sleeping is a very common practice in many parts of the world. Sometimes this is out of necessity, but mostly it is a cultural practice or personal preference. Even in the United States, almost 70% of parents reported co-sleeping at least some of the time. Breastfeeding mommas find it easier for them and beneficial for their babies, attachment parent practitioners advocate for it, and there is a whole new market for bassinets and cribs that attach to the parents bed in order to make it more mainstream and accessible.
But what do you do when co-sleeping is not safe beyond the typical dos and don’ts list? Most of the don’ts are obvious: do not sleep with your child if you are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, if you are on a water bed, if you are extremely exhausted, if you are a smoker, among other things that will make a parent less responsive or increase the risk of suffocation. It is even highly recommended that you only share your bed with an infant if you are breastfeeding, because a breastfed baby and their momma are more sensitive and responsive to each other due to the fact that the baby will naturally wake more often to feed. When my little lamb was born I did not have any of these issues: no drugs, alcohol, waterbeds, smoking, and so on. I was faced with a very different problem: my husband has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It has been almost five years since my husband has been out of the military, but being in active military zones where the threat of stepping on a land mine is a daily occurrence will affect an individual physically, mentally, and emotionally. My husband has not had an episode in his sleep for years, but this was not a risk either one of us was willing to take with our brand new baby. So what is a family to do when something like this is an issue, but you firmly believe in the benefits of co-sleeping? The short answer: room sharing!
When I was pregnant I did a great deal of research on co-sleeping, room sharing, and the like. I really never saw myself as a co-sleeper, but I new the idea of having my baby in another room at night during those first few months did not sit right with me. Not to mention the fact that I was nursing on demand, which meant getting up every few hours in the beginning. I came across co-sleepers that are specifically designed to be a separate sleeping entity for a baby, but attach to the side of the parents bed. When I came across the Arms Reach Co-Sleeper brand, I was finally able to breath a little better knowing I had just found the answer to our co-sleeping challenge. I was ecstatic when our bedside co-sleeper arrived and was set up. Having our little lamb right there next to me without having to worry about my husbands PTSD was a relief to both of us. She slept in her co-sleeper for four months, and when I needed to nurse her in bed, she was nestled between my body and the co-sleeper instead of my husband and me.
When our little lamb was getting ready to outgrow her co-sleeper, I wasn’t ready to have her away from me at night. She was still waking numerous times to eat or just be soothed, and neither of us were ready for the separation. Our next solution was to get a mini crib for our bedroom and put it up against the wall next to my side of the bed. This was a great solution, but the reality was that she ended up in our bed more nights than not. I have learned to function on very little sleep over the course of my pregnancy and the first year of our daughter’s life. I can actually function with quite a pleasant demeanor most days too. My husband, on the other hand, cannot. What we decided is not for every family, but because of the extreme of our situation, my daughter and I room share/bed share, and my husband has the luxury of his own bedroom where he can now get a good night sleep before his alarm clock goes off at 4:30 a.m. This may seem extreme, and we would all obviously prefer being in the same bedroom, but dealing with extreme situations sometimes requires extreme solutions.
So what does room/bed-sharing look like in my home: My little lamb goes to sleep after being nursed, and sometimes rocked, in her own crib in the room we share. She wakes to nurse anywhere from 4-5 hours after first going to sleep, and will usually go back in her crib. She wakes again 3-4 hours later, nurses, and nine times out of ten will spend the rest of the time curled up with me sleeping and intermittently nursing until she is ready to start her day. I once read that if you don’t mind that your child needs to be nursed and rocked to go to sleep than there is nothing wrong with doing that. It just so happens that I do not mind, so that is what we do! One day, my little lamb will not want either of those things, but for now they are her comfort, and they are my joy.
Co-sleeping, bed sharing, and room sharing are not for every family. But please know there are options for everyone if it is something you want, but didn’t think was possible.
Love, Laughter, & Light,
