In two of the previous posts we looked at the benefits of co-sleeping. I’m a huge co-sleeping advocate but there are safety precautions to take in most issues that concern your little one; co-sleeping is no different. Here are some tips to help you co-sleep safely.

• Babies still need to sleep on their backs (always) no matter if they’re co-sleeping or in a crib.
• Never cover your babies head or allow her to sleep on or with a pillow or stuffed animal. It’s safer not to use a blanket at all if you co-sleep cover yourself but not your baby. If you feel she needs to stay warm those tiny sleep sack nightgowns are great — bonus babies look utterly adorable in them.
• Don’t put your baby to bed in your bed before you go to bed. If she sleeps in a big bed you should be there.
• Make sure she’s not on the edge of a bed where she can fall off or that she can fall between the wall and the mattress. One way to solve this is to sleep on a fouton on the floor with no frame. That’s what I did because I was worried Cedar might fall off and hurt himself. By the way he never did, not once. Cedar was always a perfectly safe co-sleeper. I bet most babies are.
• Now they have these little bassinets that open on one side.These are a great way to co-sleep but have your baby in her own area.
• If you co-sleep do not use drugs or drink. They can render you unable to respond to your baby and in that state you could roll onto he. If you’re sick and need medication that may make you drowsy or loopy also arrange other sleeping arrangements for your baby.
• In the picture above it’s a daddy co-sleeping but in most cases a mama is a safer choice to be next to a baby; studies show that mamas tend to sleep at the correct distance from their baby and awaken if anything is amiss while dads are more likely to move about, even into their baby. I think that’s what they call mama instinct. So if you have a choice it should be mama in the middle. Not that dads cannot co-sleep well; they can. Still, I’ve met far more (and by far I mean TONS) dads who don’t wake up when a baby fusses than mamas who don’t.

Co-sleeping can sound complicated but really all of these safety guideline are simply common sense. They’re easy to follow and become second nature.