We have been very lucky in that Theory is a super-easy baby.  She is not very fussy and she is quick to soothe.

There are times however, when putting Theory to sleep can be a heartbreaking experience.  By 6:30 or 7, her eyes get red, she rubs her face, shaking her head back and forth over and over again.  She can shout out with surprising force.  Her frustration and anger are ever so visible as her down-turned frown and red face precede her cries.

Usually she quickly and suddenly falls asleep. Once she is asleep, she occasionally wakes with a start giving a sudden shout, as if awaking from a horrible nightmare.  This is also like a dagger in the heart.

So Tara and I are uncomfortable being very far from her, even in our modest apartment.  The same goes at night.  So we sleep together in a family bed.

On the occasion when we do have a rough night, it is devastating to my day.  It takes a long time to recover.  And I do not even need to be at an office at 9 am.  I cannot imagine how we would cope if Theory was a poor sleeper and I was working a traditional office job.

So we want to create a sleeping situation that works for us.  Where we can get the most sleep and where we feel comfortable and confident about Theory’s well being.

As I mentioned, so far, Theory has slept with us in our bed.  I realize this is not typical, but it felt like the most organic and natural way to go.  While we even have a manual on how to safely share our bed with our baby, we have basically followed our intuition on what works and what is safe.

In fact, I was surprised how much angst there seemed to be out there about babies sharing the bed.  Partly, no doubt, it is tapping into the more general fear of SIDS, and the lack of understanding about its causes.  Research findings seem to be all over the place, at times framed in ways that drive folks to conclusions despite the fact that much is not understood about the variables at play.

In 2005 the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that infants room share but not bed share.  But again, this public health policy is driven by aggregate outcomes.  Alcohol, cigarette smoking, obesity and many other factors that seem to play significant roles in infant deaths while bed sharing do not apply to Tara and me.

I am trained as an evolutionary psychologist, so it is hard for me to imagine not sleeping with your offspring right next to you — having a whole set of instincts to encourage this behavior.  Here is a descent article from Slate that outlines the basic train of thought     Ferberizing just seems unnatural.  Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal,  has written a bit on the issue too.  People are adapted to sleep with our offspring, to protect them and keep them warm.

Professor James J. McKenna, an anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame has also studies co-sleeping extensively and frames the practice from an evolutionary perspective.  His site offers substantial resources to anyone interested in the topic and its safety.

Now, it may be true that we are evolved to co-sleep, but it may not jive well with a 9 to 5 job.  Our brains may be hardwired to be foragers, but at 6 am we need to shower and head out to the office.  Foragers, by and large, had a lot more free time and flexibility.

The fact that we have slept together in the same bed is partly, I think, why Theory sleeps for long periods.  She typically sleeps from 7 pm till about midnight, wakes for a feeding with Tara, and then sleeps until 4ish, at which point I get up and take care of her so Tara can get some extra sleep.

So we have been torn.  We want Theory to sleep soundly and with a feeling of confidence and security, but we also want to sleep well too.  We love the feeling of having her in our bed.
But Tara often finds herself preoccupied with Theory, either watching her in awe, or anticipating her waking at any moment for a feeding.   Consequently, often Tara does not get enough sleep. On occasions where Theory seems to sleep in a state of unease, it keeps both Tara and me awake.

So a few days ago we decided to move the crib from the nursery into the bedroom.  We want to try to get Theory to sleep on her own for part of the evening and try to transition her out of the bed eventually.

Ironically, the issue is really us, not the baby.  So since Theory seems comfortable sleeping in the crib during the day, we decided it would be a good time to try to transition her to sleep there at night.  Besides, Tara and I also miss cuddling together and having some “alone” time.

We are not yet comfortable having Theory sleep in another room.  Nor do we like the distance of a monitor.  So we had to re-arrange the furniture a bit.  Tara and I tried to move the crib ourselves, but it got stuck on the few steps leading down from the nursery.  Our friend John had to come over and help us out.  But now it sits perfectly in the bedroom.

We have also read about folks who wait too long to transition their baby out of the bed until their baby is much more aware and then they really fight the transition.  So unless you are going to go the family bed route, you have to start the transition to a crib sometime before the baby can stand up in, point a finger at you, and say “I want to be in the bed too.”