About 5 years ago Margot Sunderland, director of education at the Children's Mental Health Center in London, recommended in her book "The Science of Parenting" that children sleep with parents at least up to 5 years.
Now Nils Bergman, a maternity director neonatologist at the Mowbray Hospital in South Africa, recommends the same, although he is not so daring to mention the ideal period. According to Bergman, Children should share their mother's bed at least up to 3 years.
According to this pediatrician, Children who sleep with their mothers are less stressed than children who sleep alone. Moreover, children who fall asleep on their mother's chest rest better than those who spend the night in a crib.
The brain development of children can also vary depending on where they spend the night, as it seems that the separation of the child and the mother and father every night, if the children generate fear and stress, could lead to behavioral problems in adulthood.
Fear of sudden death and colecho
The usual recommendations regarding infant sleep and sudden death say that the ideal is for babies not to share a bed, but rather to be in their crib, even if they share a room.
In a study conducted in the United Kingdom it has been observed that in two thirds of the unexplained deaths the children shared a bed with their parents.
In Babies and moreColecho yes, but for sure: avoid the risk of suffocationThis makes the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (Foundation for the Study of Infant Mortality) continue to recommend that parents and children do not share a bed.
Dr. Bergman, one of the parents of the so-called Kangaroo Mother Method, says instead that the data that is usually collected regarding the mortality of children at night is wrong, because These deaths are not caused by the presence of the mother.
According to him, they are usually for other reasons such as parents being smokers, having drunk alcohol, using cushions or large pillows that reach the height of babies, etc., that is, sleeping with a baby in bed is something dangerous if you don't consider a series of basic rules.
Studying the children's dream
To end up recommending sleeping with children up to at least 3 years, Bergman and his team have carried out a study in which the sleep patterns of 16 children have been observed.
In this study it has been seen that Babies who sleep alone in a crib have a stress level up to three times higher than babies who sleep in their mother's chest.
In addition, it has been observed that babies who sleep in the crib have interruptions in their sleep cycles, something of vital importance in the general development of the baby's organs.
Babies should not stress
As we have said on other occasions, babies also get stressed and get nervous like adults, with a (very big) difference. We know different strategies to calm down, relax and find solutions that return us to our normal state of tranquility, while babies do not.
In Babies and more, they create in the United States the perfect mattress for families who make colechoThey don't know how to relax, they can't call their best friend to tell her the sorrows, nor can they write on Facebook that "today I have a bad day," The only recourse they have for not living stressed is to avoid reaching that state and, once they are in it, that dad or mom helps them calm down.
If this does not happen, as Punset explained in the documentary “The baby's brain”, they will reach adulthood with less tools of self-control, being people who live in general with more anxiety and stress than others, with the handicap added of being less able to control that state.
If anyone asks me…
One of the tips I always give to recent mothers is: "Don't listen to anyone, don't even pay attention to me", so they can look, compare, read, listen, learn and decide for themselves.
I comment this because with respect to sleep there are many theories, some in favor and others against sleeping with the baby nearby, some who think about the baby, others who think about the parents and others who try to find a (difficult) balance.
Nils Bergman is one of the few professionals who, when speaking, thinks about babies and their well-being. I think like him. We adults are more rational than babies and we are better able to understand loneliness and separation, they don't understand it and that's why they get stressed.
In Babies and more How I became in favor of colechoOne of the rules of all "handyman" is "do not force it, or it will break", a rule that I personally jump (because I am not handyman), carrying things that with a little patience now would remain whole. As well, separating a child from his mother and father is to force the children to do something for which they are not prepared.
If in the end you decide that each one sleeps in his bed and that each one has his place, that is to say, that the baby sleeps in his cradle or even in his room when he is older, know that in many occasions you will have forced too much. Listen to him, see if that could be affecting him on a day-to-day basis, and assess the possibility of changing strategy if so.
