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Home › Articles › Issues for Mom › Breastfeeding in Bed

Breastfeeding in Bed

What You Need to Know
About Co-sleeping

By Shel Franco

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  

  • Infants a year or less should not sleep with other children, but always with a person who can take responsibility for the infant being there.
  • Persons on sedatives, medications or drugs or persons who are intoxicated or excessively unable to arouse should not co-sleep on the same surface with the infant.
  • Excessively long hair on the mother should be tied up to prevententanglement around the infant's neck.
  • Extremely obese persons, who may not feel exactly where or how close their infant is, may wish to have the infant sleep alongside but on a different surface.

    • McKenna says that the physical and social conditions will determine the risks or benefits of the co-sleeping. "What goes on in bed is what matters," he says.

    The Truth
    After breastfeeding Angelo for more than two years, it's a little known fact that I almost quit by week two. As twilight descended upon my home one unremarkable day during those ominous first two weeks, I sat on the couch with tears streaming down my face. "It's too hard," I remember telling my husband and my mother. "I can't do it. I want to quit. I don't want to be the only one who can feed him."

    Twenty-two years earlier, my mother had been told to wean me, because the doctor couldn't tell if she was making "high-quality breast milk." That night, she sat next to me and made me a promise: "Give it 100 days. If you still feel the same, then I will support you 100 percent, and we will walk away with no regrets."

    At 7:30 the next morning, with sunlight dancing off the snowy white of my newborn's skin, I knew it wouldn't take nearly that long to love being a breastfeeding mom.

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