Co-sleeping's advantages and disadvantages for infant health and development

Parenting

Co-sleeping has more advantage than disadvantage for infants

Infant sleeping has mainly been a western practice where the training of children to sleep alone through the night is almost two centuries old. Previously to the late 1700s co sleeping has been the standard in all societies (Davies, 1995). However, currently, in most cultures the practice of co sleeping continues, with infants seen as normal extensions of their mothers for the initial one to two years of life.

According to sleep lab studies, the benefits of co sleeping include nursing of infants with more frequency throughout the night rather then babies sleeping in separate room or bed. This increase more interaction of mothers with their babies. However, upon awaking for the morning mothers have little recollection of those interactions.

Benefits of Co sleeping for infants

Even though researchers have provided studies that show both advantages and disadvantages of co sleeping, yet looking all together, it can be said that co sleeping has more advantages then disadvantages for the infants. Below are few positive aspects of cosleeping:

Promotion of Physiological Regulation in Babies by Co-sleeping:

The closeness of the parent help the infant's undeveloped nervous system learns to self-regulate during sleep (Ball, Hooker, & Kelly, 1999). At the same it may also help in preventing SIDS by making the infant stop from entering into sleep states that are very deep. Additionally, by means of parents' own breathing, infants may also remember to breathe (Mosko, 1996)

Better Sleep for both Parents and Infants:

Due to the closeness of the mother, babies don't get fully awake and cry to get a response. Also, mothers don't get fully awake to give a response due the presence of the baby in the same room or bed. As a result, mothers had more positive evaluations of their nighttime experiences (McKenna, 1994) since they were more likely to sleep better and wake less fully (McKenna & Mosko, 1997).

More Care Giving to Babies:

One of the biggest advantages of co sleeping is increase in breast feeding (McKenna, 1994; Richard et al., 1996). This is admitted even by the most conventional American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that co-sleeping has the most advantage of breast feeding. According to the research, mothers who co-sleep breast feed an average of twice as long as non-co-sleeping mothers. Moreover, the act of sucking in breast feeding increases oxygen flow, which is useful for both baby's growth and immune functions (McKenna, 1994).

In addition, co-sleeping infants also get more notice and protective care. The studies have shown that mothers who co-sleep provides five times the number of care like as adjusting the baby's blanket, stroking or cuddling as compared to those mothers who were non-co sleepers (Mosko, 1997).

Long-Term Benefits of Co- Sleeping in Children as adults

Higher self-esteem:

Those boys who co-slept with their parents during the time of their birth till five years of age had notably much higher self-esteem along as well as experienced less guilt and worry. At the same time, women, who co-slept during their childhood experienced less uneasiness about physical contact and affection as adults (Lewis & Janda, 1988). Thus, co-sleeping seems to encourage self-esteem, intimacy and confidence by reflecting an approach of parents' acceptance (Gordon, 2002).

More Positive Behavior:

study was conducted on parents based in military, where co-sleeping children got higher evaluations from their teachers as compared to those were solitary sleeping children (Forbes et al., 1992). Another study in England was carried out in 1994 that showed that those children who had never slept in their parents bed, were more difficult to control, less contented, having bad temper, and were more scared than children who always slept in their parents' bed, all night (Gordon, 2002).

Increased Life Satisfaction:

study was conducted on a large; five different cross-cultural ethnic groups in cities of United States found that, all groups, co-sleepers have shown a common feeling of satisfaction with life (Gordon, 2002).

Conclusion

Not much enough literature data is there to suggest or discourage co sleeping of babies and parents. While, majority parents and health care professionals believe that co sleeping is the best way in order to bring up a baby psychologically, emotionally and physiologically. Hence, this is proved that co sleeping of parents and babies have more advantages not just in the infant development stage but also when the child grows up as an adult.