Probably nowhere do modern Western cultural expectations and the reality of babies’ needs conflict more than in the area of sleeping behavior. Babies and their parents sleep together in approximately 90% of the world's population. Co-sleeping is simply the "norm" and has been for thousands of years.

In the United States, a growing number of parents have been ignoring warnings of “spoiling” their infants and other dire condemnations of the family bed by keeping their baby warm and safe at night exactly where nature intended—next to a loving and nurturing parent. In a poll by Parenting magazine 42 percent of parents responded that they share sleep with their infants at least part of the time.

Many parents intuitively feel uncomfortable with the advice of well-meaning family, friends and physicians who suggest practices that foster separation between baby and mother in misguided attempts to force babies to become independent. Practices such as sleep training, scheduled feedings and "crying it out" only add to babies’ distress. Babies whose cries are soothed quickly tend to cry less, not more.

We cannot “spoil” our babies by always responding to their needs. Babies have an inborn need is to be touched and held. They enjoy having physical closeness day and night, and this kind of connection is essential for avoiding stress. The section about carrying discussed how being carried—in a baby carrier or sling during the day—meets a baby’s needs for warmth, comfort and security. This dependence does not diminish when the sun goes down.

Babies who sleep with their parents feel the importance of loving touch and remain in connected to that love throughout the night. When they awaken, they can feel the presence of their parent or hear their parent breathing in the dark. Then they are reassured and go back to sleep.

Co-sleeping is the infant and caregiver sleeping within sensory range of each other (within the same room). Bedsharing means that the infant sleeps in the adult bed with at least one parent. Although a 2005 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on sleep environment and the risk of SIDS condemned all bedsharing as unsafe, empirical data has suggested that almost all SIDS deaths in adult beds occur when parents are not doing so safely. . The majority of cases of co-sleeping deaths occur with certain factors that impair safety. A large number of these cases are impromptu bedsharing cases where bedsharing is not a common and usual practice for that family. Impromptu bedsharing occurs either when a baby is crying excessively; meaning the child already has some problem going on, or when parents are impaired by drugs or alcohol. Co-sleeping with a smoking parent IS shown to be associated with more deaths so this too would be considered a less optimal situation.

Independence

Despite our society’s reverence for independence and the belief that children will not become independent unless we force them, babies whose early dependency needs are met are more likely to become trusting, emotionally secure, and independent when they are ready.

Human infants need constant attention and contact with other human beings because they are unable to look after themselves. For perhaps millions of years, infants as a matter of course slept next to at least one caregiver, usually the mother, in order to survive. Unlike other mammals, they cannot keep themselves warm, move about, or feed themselves until a relatively long time after birth.

As children get older, they don't need the security of their parents' presence as much and they can gradually be weaned from the parent’s bed at a time that seems right according to each family’s circumstances.

Safe sleep while bed-sharing:

• The mouth and nose must not be obstructed. (Studies showing that sleeping on the back was safer were done in New Zealand where heavy bedding, such as sheepskin, is common.)
• Parents must be non-smoking, not impaired by drugs or alcohol and not extremely obese.
• Use lightweight covering. Parents must not use fluffy comforters, which allow for rebreathing of air. Do not let your baby sleep on a pillow
• A firm sleeping surface is needed, which rules out waterbeds or soft foam toppers, sofas or sheepskin covers.
• Make sure the baby cannot become trapped between the mattress and headboard or wall.
• Don’t leave your baby alone on an adult bed.

Bedsharing is inherently safe. Many of the publications and articles designed to scare parents away from keeping babies in bed with them suggest that there is a great risk of suffocation or overlaying. In May 2002 the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in conjunction with the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association (JPMA), released a recommendation against putting a baby to sleep in an adult bed. This announcement was part of a "national safety campaign". However, it soon became clear that the sponsorship of the campaign by the JPMA—which stands to profit from increased crib sales—was nothing but a tremendous marketing campaign to promote cribs and other infant paraphernalia. Pamphlets and posters targeting new and expectant parents were sent to daycare providers and retail outlets of infant products to disseminate the message that infants should sleep only in safety-approved cribs.

Despite the fact that co-sleeping has been practiced without harm to babies for centuries throughout Asia, Africa, and South America, as well as many parts of Europe and North America, suddenly mothers are being warned that it is causing infant deaths.

The common term for SIDS is “crib death,” so named because the great majority of SIDS occurs in infants sleeping alone in cribs, not in bed with their mother. With common sense safety factors accounted for, SIDS rates (including suffocations) for co-sleeping infants are actually lower than for crib-sleeping infants. In fact, except in the tiniest of infants, there is NO evidence that habitually sharing a bed with a parent increases the risk of accidental infant suffocation.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of cribs are recalled because they can trap or strangle babies. In November of 2009—in the largest crib recall in CPSC history—2.2 million Stork Craft drop-side cribs were recalled, including 147,000 cribs with the Fisher-Price logo, after four United States infants died while trapped in the cribs. Other injuries as part of this same crib recall included 20 falls from cribs, with injuries ranging from bruises to concussion.

In December of 2009, the CPSC announced a recall of 24,000 Amby Baby Motion Beds, an infant sleeping device consisting of a steel frame and a fabric hammock, connected by a large spring and metal crossbar. Infant suffocation deaths had occurred when infants became entrapped or wedged against the hammock’s fabric or mattress pad. The recalled product could be identified by a label attached to the bed reading, “Amby - Babies Love It, Naturally.” In announcing the recall, the CPSC said. “Parents and caregivers are urged to find an alternative, safe sleeping environment for their baby.”

While recalls work to stop further distribution of a defective crib, these announcements often fail to reach many families that own and use the product. There is currently no process in place for consumers to be contacted directly from manufacturers about defective cribs. For instance, a recall of Simplicity-manufactured cribs began in December 2005. Parents and caregivers were advised to dispose of these cribs because all of the recalled cribs have the potential to pose a danger to young children, yet there continued to be reports of baby deaths due to those cribs four years later, in December, 2009. Despite the recall, these cribs continue to be used in homes across America.

The CPSC, a consumer product safety commission has no mandate to tell parents where and how their babies should sleep, particularly when the non-bedsharing arrangements have proven to be so dangerous, as shown by these constant recalls. A public health initiative to educate parents about safe co-sleeping for parents who choose to do so would be a far greater contribution to child welfare than scaring parents into buying unsafe cribs, useless “hammocks” and other isolating devices.

Research shows that it is not bedsharing itself, but rather other factors in the environment that create danger. If one accepts what the studies show, that SIDS is associated with prone sleep positioning, maternal smoking or intoxication, soft mattress toppers, and heavy or fluffy bedding that could cover infant’s head, then avoidance of these situations while bedsharing creates a particularly safe sleeping environment.

Breastfeeding

Co-sleeping encourages breastfeeding by making nighttime breastfeeding more convenient, and the combination helps babies fall asleep more easily, especially during their first few months and when they wake up in the middle of the night.

The AAP counsels that breastfeeding is an important factor for SIDS prevention and acknowledges that bed sharing facilitates breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding.

The AAP admonition that a breastfeeding infant never sleep in the mother’s bed appears to be an ironic contradiction which in practice is likely to have an adverse effect on breastfeeding and serve to increase the rate of SIDS. When a baby is nursing frequently during the night, it is much easier for mothers to nurse for a while and then fall back to sleep with their babies. Mothers who have to get out of bed to nurse can be expected to suffer significantly more fatigue getting fully awake to fetch the baby and then putting the baby back to bed after each feed. Breastfeeding is more likely to be diminished or given up altogether.

Safe bedsharing combined with breastfeeding is a practice that does not kill or harm babies. Crib sleeping has resulted in many dangers as evidenced by the millions of cribs that are constantly being “recalled” because they are unsafe and possibly deadly. If alarmist hype about dangers of co-sleeping were true, mothers would know it by now.