3 biological benefits of bedsharing
Hi beautiful friends! How is your day and your sleep journey treating you?
This information comes from the book Safe Infant Sleep, which is a must-read in my opinion for any new parent to armor yourself with knowledge and empower you to create a sleeping arrangement that works for your family and that you feel good about. The author, Dr. James McKenna, studied mothers and babies sleeping together in a sleep laboratory at Notre Dame for over 30 years, and this is what he found.
Breastsleeping is a specific form of co-sleeping that is comprised of a breastfeeding mother and her baby sharing a bed during sleep in order to facilitate breastfeeding.
“It is not possible to document biologically normal human infant sleep outside of the breastfeeding context.” (James McKenna).
Breastsleeping makes it easier for babies to arouse from sleep.
Wait, what? Don't we want our babies to sleep deeper? Actually, no.
Light sleep is safe sleep. We WANT our babies to arouse from sleep easily, because this actually protects them from SIDS, while the arousal mechanism in their brain is still developing.
Here are 3 biological reasons why the relationship of sharing sleep with your baby, while you're breastsleeping, can actually benefit them and keep them safe.
More Maternal Inspections
When mothers are sleeping with their babies, there are more opportunities for them throughout the night to check in on baby and make sure they're okay. This happens even without us knowing it a lot of the time, because even while we sleep or partially rouse between sleep cycles, our bodies and brains are in tune to our babies. We are physiologically wired to our babies, even while we sleep. Although anecdotal, there was in internet study of 200 bedsharing mothers of instances when bedsharing actually saved their infant's life, such as being able to notice that baby stopped breathing or was making strange choking or gurgling noises, and quickly intervene.
More Infant Arousals
This was news to me when I started my sleep certification and gave me a HUGE sense of relief. I thought something was totally wrong with my baby (and me!) because he was waking up so much, but when I learned that it's actually normal and SAFE for babies to wake often (every 2-3 hours!), I was shocked that no one had told me this. More arousals mean more practice for the infant's brain to practice developing their arousal mechanisms.
Less Deep Sleep
The mother's small movements and vocalizations help keep baby in a light stage of sleep. The smells of her breastmilk and other sensory exchanges actually prevent babies from spending too much time in deep sleep, which can be dangerous if babies are forced into deep sleep before their brains are ready for it. Babies spend a lot of time in REM sleep, which is that same active/light sleep we're talking about, which is also where brain growth occurs.
So, as hard as it is in our modern times, we really need to let go of this idea that babies should be sleeping through the night. It's completely unrealistic and not aligned with the biology of a mother-baby pair.
“What we call consolidated infant sleep may be convenient for parents, but it does nothing good for babies.”
I hope this is helpful in some way friends! I remember very vividly walking my newborn around in circles outside on the patio to get him to sleep, wondering how on earth I was going to return to work, and having a major AHA! moment of wow, our society really doesn't support parents in the postpartum period well enough for us to even support the intense physical and emotional needs of a newborn.
It's just so much, and you're doing an amazing job.