Cosleepy

Kim Hawley lives in Washington, DC and supports families all over the world as a lactation consultant and holistic sleep coach. Last year, we dove into safe bedsharing on her podcast and became fast friends. I frequently send new parents to her when they need 1:1 sleep support.

As I got to know Kim better, I found out that she is legally blind. I had so many practical questions about bedsharing — I wondered what it was like getting her guide dog used to the new baby, how they set up their family bedroom, and if her sight had anything to do with bedsharing in the first place.

Kim was kind enough to give us a peek into her unique experience as a parent with a baby in her bed. Hit play above to listen to our 9-minute chat during your next contact nap.

Or you can read the transcript below, if that’s easier!

And make sure to scroll to the bottom of this page for a quick update regarding the LA wildfires. 🫶

KIM HAWLEY:

When we first brought my son home from the hospital, my guide dog slept next to my side of the bed — he always had. He was eight, he was not a young dog. And I was like, I'm not changing things on him. A baby's going to be a big change, so on and so forth. And so we put the bassinet at the end of the bed.

And that lasted, I think, one night. I had a C-section... And getting out of bed was hard, let alone walking a few steps to pick up my baby when he woke up.

And then I was like, All right, dog’s going to my husband's side of the bed! Sorry, Ralphie, you get to sleep next to somebody's side of the bed at least. The bassinet's going literally right next to me.

So then the baby was sleeping in the Arm's Reach bassinet and then the Pack ‘n Play, because he was a chunker and the bassinet only had a 15-pound weight limit. He was 15 pounds at two months because I had an oversupply.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

So did you have all the lights off in your room, or did you have a nightlight? Maybe what you could do really fast is just tell us about your sight. Like you said, you can see a little bit —

KIM HAWLEY:

Yeah! I mean, it's really hard to explain because my eyesight has always been the same. It's genetic. I was born legally blind, which does mean I have some vision, but not a lot. And so it depends a lot on lighting and contrast. And where it is in my field of vision, if I'm focusing in on it.

But most baby care tasks, I wasn't really doing visually. Like diaper changes by feel. We did a lot of baby-wearing our kiddos when they were young, very much in arms, because then you have a better sense of what's going on with them, but also a lot by sound.

Any parent learns their baby’s sounds, and what those mean. And when you're not relying on your vision for those cues, you are relying on sound for more awareness.

So, no, we didn't do lights on overnight at all. Maybe when my husband was helping me in the first week or two, when you're still learning to nurse and all that kind of stuff. And so maybe we turned on a low light for him, to help me get positioned. But after the first couple weeks, I did most of the nighttime parenting by mutually-agreed choice, not my husband trying to get out actively doing it, but I just coped better.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

So, at least here in America, what a lot of families do is follow the guidelines that your baby should be in your room for the first six months. And then right at that 6-month mark, especially if they're sleep training, they'll put their baby in a separate bedroom. Is that something that —

KIM HAWLEY:

Yeah, so I had always planned to have him in our room for the first year — like minimum the first six months, ideally the first year. And I came from a maternal and child Public Health background. My job was infant mortality reduction at the time that my oldest was born. So I knew I wanted to be room-sharing for the first year.

But it felt weird… Once he was here in my arms, as a real baby, the idea of putting him in another room did not feel normal to me. Didn't feel right to me.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

So is it because of your career that at the time that you did not want to bedshare? Is that the main reason?

KIM HAWLEY:

Yes, yes. Because I mean, I bedshared with my mom for the first, I don't know, three years. And I knew that, growing up.

I also have a background in Anthropology. I knew that most people bedshared around the world, but I was like, Oh, well, the guidelines have changed, so I'm not going to do it. I'm going to follow the guidelines because that was my professional environment.

And so that's why we were bedsharing-but-not-bedsharing before we fully admitted that we were bedsharing, if that makes sense.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Do you have any memories of that time when you were bedsharing with your mom, can you remember what that felt like?

KIM HAWLEY:

I don't, but I do have memories… Well my mom is a pediatric nurse and she used to work nights when I was in early elementary school, and I do remember sneaking into her room when she would take a nap before work and falling asleep there, and then my parents would carry me back to my bed. Because I felt safer. I liked the idea of going in there before she went to work and getting to fall asleep in their room. And they were happy for me to do that.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's so sweet. One thing I wanted to ask was… You said you didn't have a floor bed because of your guide dog, which totally makes sense. When your kids started to get mobile, how did you protect them from rolling off the side of the bed?

KIM HAWLEY:

It's funny, we didn't feel comfortable relocating my guide dog, but we totally kicked the cat out of the bedroom! Right? Because we don't want the cat, I mean, even before we were bedsharing, crawling into the bassinet or anything like that.

By the time we were full-time bedsharing, he could roll both ways. He was four months and we just put him in-between the two of us, and I felt very comfortable with that. We created a good bit of space. We were very mindful about the covers, and he was in-between us.

Mind you, I knew my safe bedsharing guidelines, but it wasn't like it is now. You couldn't access quite as much. It wasn't as easy. So it didn't occur to me that some people might not think that was the safest thing, but I still, in hindsight, think that it was quite safe. We were being very safe about it, and he didn't move in his sleep. He was a snuggler. He just kind of snuggled into me. And it was not until he was much older that he would wiggle around some, but he never tried to get over someone's body, so he was just always in-between us.

My daughter was different because we had a family bed at that point, and we had set up a sidecar on her side to help her create a little bit more safety on that side. And then a mesh bed rail, which I know are a bit controversial, but I felt pretty safe troubleshooting that at that point to create a little bit more safety around the edge of the bed.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

I love mesh bed rails, and yeah — every parent's got to make their own decision.

So your kids are a little bit older now. Are they both sleeping in their own room at this point?

KIM HAWLEY:

(Laughing) We still do a lot of family cosleeping, to be honest. And that's what we want to do, not because we can't have them sleep elsewhere.

I mean, we're just really low-key about it. They have their own rooms, but we've never been like, “Go sleep in your room.” We didn't even try with my daughter because that's also our guest room. So it's easier for us that she stays with us because if we have to fully switch it over to her room, then we have to make some different choices about when we have family visiting.

And I mean, we can kick her out, but there are things that we have, like a TV, in there. If she's sleeping in there, we're not having a TV in there. So there's things that when it becomes fully her room that we would have to change.

And so I feel like it's just something that depends on the kiddo and depends on how you're feeling about bedsharing, and what that looks like. Because we're pretty content with how our sleep setup is, so don't put a lot of effort into anything else.

KIM HAWLEY:

Eye-masks, earplugs... Those don't really seem like safe things to have in the bed in case they come off of you. And! If you are used to seeing and hearing your baby, you should be able to see and hear your baby.

Like, I don't think that a deaf person shouldn't bedshare. A deaf person is going to have ways of being aware of their baby that are totally not on my radar!

It's not on my radar because that's not how I parent. But I would fully believe that deaf parents can bedshare safely because that's their reality. They're going to be used to being aware of their baby without hearing them.

But that's where I got feisty — I was like, “You don't have to see your baby to bedshare.” But I wasn't really thinking about the eye-mask piece. So yes, okay, you probably shouldn't have an eye-mask. Because that could be a strangulation risk.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Totally! And my roommate in college used to sleep in those foam earplugs from back in the day — they're like bright orange or something. And she woke up, and she was chewing on it. Somehow it had fallen out. She had a dream where she was eating a gummy bear and she woke up and it —

KIM HAWLEY:

What?! Seriously —

TIFFANY BELANGER:

I'm serious! They fall out all the time. Imagine your baby choking on that!

Be sure to connect with Kim on Instagram and let her know you appreciate her sharing her POV with us!

A quick note.

Thank you for the love and support after I shared about the LA wildfires’ unique impact on me. Like so many of us, you may want to help but feel overwhelmed by just how many people are in need right now.

So I wanted to share the two schools that I’m donating to: one was in Pasadena and the other was in the Palisades. They were home to children aged 3-14, and they are completely gone. My boys’ school has invited any of these children to join us here in northern California for the remainder of the school year, if they wish to relocate. I hope some will take us up on this offer, so I can support them in-person.

If you don’t have the means to donate to someone affected by the wildfires right now, please join me in sending love, prayers, or good thoughts to southern California whenever the fires cross your mind. I really believe that it helps.

I’m sending you love right now. I hope you’re doing okay. Xx

Hi! I’ve been thinking about you.

Did you know that you can fortify your baby’s mental health in your sleep, just by lying beside them?

It’s true.

My friend and neuroscientist Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum wrote the book on how nurture from the age 0-3 impacts long-term resilience and mental health.

I called and asked her a bunch of nighttime-nurture questions about this recently, and I recorded it for you!

I hope our conversation blows your mind, as it did mine. And I hope the broader context of what’s happening when you sleep beside your baby helps you on the hard nights.

Hit play above to listen to our 15-minute chat during your next contact nap.

Or you can read the transcript below, if that’s easier. 🫶

Afterwards be sure to connect with Greer on Instagram and dive deeper in her best-selling book The Nurture Revolution.

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

The person who gave birth will start to have brain changes during pregnancy, and then the dad, partner, or parents (with surrogacy or adoption) — their brain changes will happen in the first three or four months after the baby's born.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's crazy. But how? What about a grandparent who comes over every day and does contact naps and stuff, what's happening in their brain?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

That same thing changes. We see it in alloparents, people who are spending a lot of time with the baby. So grandparents, caregivers, anyone who holds babies and does contact naps.

And it happens, actually, in a dose-dependent relationship. So the more time we spend nurturing, cuddling, smelling, playing with babies, the more our brain changes.

And a lot of it's mediated through the hormone oxytocin. When we are interacting with babies, our brain and body will get tons of oxytocin. We sort talk about it like bathing our brain and bathing our body. And the baby does too. And when we are in this exchange, both of us are growing.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

But what do you mean by growing? What does the oxytocin actually do?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

It really influences how circuitry is changing in babies, because babies have about a million connections per second growing in their brain.

And so the oxytocin will influence that development to actually grow the brain to be more resilient to stress and mental health issues later on. And that works on an epigenetic level, on a brain connection level. It wires neurotransmitter systems, all kinds of things like that.

And in parents, we have major brain reorganization happening and oxytocin is actually a calming agent in our brains as parents.

So our fear-center is heightened because we need to be attending to things to take care of our baby. Are they eating enough, drinking enough? Are they breathing properly? We have to always be aware and scanning is there danger?

But the presence of the baby through oxytocin will actually quiet our amygdala and actually gives us that feedback of baby's safe. And then our amygdala grows with that safety signal. And so it's not necessarily growing towards more fear, more anxiety, which it might in the absence of close.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Okay. So I've heard from many parents who've said that once they started bedsharing their PPA or PPD lessened. So my question is do you have to be conscious in order for this to be happening to your brain? What if you're asleep next to your baby?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Yeah, no, absolutely not. I've heard that from so many parents — having one consult with a parent. They're like, instantly, it's all gone. Just the information sometimes that sleeping close, it can be safe and is actually beneficial... Some people just have worries even just about that.

Then the actual act of [bedsharing] will also impact their physiology, too — towards more health, away from more anxiety and depression.

And it can happen when you're unconscious because we still have our senses active to a degree when we're unconscious, when we're sleeping.

And so babies and parents are both receiving touch, smell, sound, and all of those signals go into our body to signal safety. And then you also have oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins, all these other things too.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

It just makes sense. If your baby's sleeping in a bassinet across the room or back in the day they were in a separate bedroom. Even when you're asleep, I feel like you still, unconsciously your brain might still be on that high alert, sort of hope they’re breathing in there, hope everything's okay.

But if they're right next to you and you're hearing them breathing in and out or feeling their little touches every now and then, even though you're asleep, that means your brain is being flooded with the oxytocin. Right?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Yeah. You think about James McKenna sharing in his book about parents who have been alerted to their baby having breathing issues in the middle of the night. That shows us that when we are sleeping, we're still monitoring our baby and our baby's health.

I mean, I've heard from so many people easing of anxiety and depression postpartum. I've heard some people say they've gone off different psychiatric medications after becoming a parent. And so much of it is from some of that brain wiring.

The areas that are involved in mental health are rewired through nurture.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's crazy. That's mind-blowing to me.

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Yes. And traumatic brain injury, people get healed through becoming a parent again, because you have all of these mechanisms that are really helpful, and we usually hear the opposite. We usually hear, “Oh, you can't remember anything. You are useless.” All these derogatory things about moms especially, but also all parents.

But it's actually, no, our brains are just different. We can do certain things really, really well. Take care of our baby, empathy, theory of mind, all these incredible skills.

And the brain changes, and other things aren't as strong.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

But I wonder if there was a mom who didn't want to cosleep or bedshare, and she had her baby and did everything according to the guidelines. And so she had her baby in a crib across the room for the first six months, and she was up every few hours or more trying to nurse feed them, get them back to sleep, do all the sleep associations or whatever works to get them to go back to sleep on their back in the crib.

She's going to be very sleep-deprived. And maybe it's true that she won't remember anything and all the things you just listed, maybe that is true for her, but maybe if she slept as humans have been sleeping for so much of our history and she slept nearby or within arm's reach of her baby, maybe she would benefit so much more.

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

That's true because there's such a big difference between fully waking up. I always say, and someone said it before me, it's not my thing, but if your feet don't touch the floor at night, there’s a huge difference in the amount of rest you're going to get.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Wow, I've never heard that. That is so true.

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

I think I must've heard it in one of my doula trainings to help parents. If you can have the baby right beside you, either bedsharing or right next to you, attend to them without getting up, walking to the other end of the room or the other end of the house or whatever it is, then it’s going to be.

And that's a huge part of [what I do] when I work with parents. Sometimes if we don't, a baby's still waking up the normal amount of times… But if we're changing the way the whole sleep setup is, it's a completely different story.

If a mom isn't fully waking up, feeding a baby, getting them calm, getting them back in their crib, and then going back to sleep and then being woken up again, right?

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Yeah. I'm just so fascinated by human evolution or just how maybe our brains have become what they are through however many years of sleeping beside our babies. So if in recent, let's say the last 500 years it's been separate crib sleep, that's just not what we've always done. Our brains aren't wired or evolved to succeed and thrive under those circumstances.

Do you talk about that in your book at all? Our history and how our brains have become what they are now?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

I mean, think I do a little bit. I really talk about how so much of modern baby care is about one or 200 years old in a history of 200,000 years of taking care of babies. And I think the point you make is so true. We're probably not made to be sleeping far apart. Look at any other animal on the entire planet with anyone else do that.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Well, I think if we were doing crib sleep and we were reaping some sort of benefits, then we could say, “Oh, this is beneficial,” or “We've evolved to be able to thrive under these circumstances.” But clearly we're not getting the oxytocin or anything else.

It seems like it's increasing anxiety and it's making us more tired physically getting up out of bed and doing all these things, all the benefits we're receiving in our bodies as parents. Doesn't that happen when we're close by, as you talk about, within an arm's reach?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Absolutely. Yeah. It's true. Even though I never thought about it that way. Even though you'd still call that responsive to be going to the baby every time they woke up, maybe the baby would get the benefit of that responsiveness.

But neither are getting the benefit of being within arm's reach where we need to be to be getting all those safety signals from each other.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

Because it's only when we're touching or are within sensory proximity. So we go to their crib, we get them to sleep, they might have had those benefits, but then we go back to our bedroom and nothing, no oxytocin as we sleep.

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Unless your partner might give you oxytocin…

TIFFANY BELANGER:

[Laughing] Oh man… We’re way too tired for that. Are you serious?!

That's so fascinating. Okay, so I've been curious about how did you stop at age three or how do we know that's sort of where these benefits end?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that's where the benefits end. I still bedshare with my son. He's five, and he knows he can choose when he wants to have his own sleep space. And now he says he's going to do it when he's a teenager! But we'll see.

I chose to leave my parents' bed when I was around six years old. Other members of my family, cousins, they've chosen around say age seven, age eight, and around the world, that's typical too.

It is certainly beneficial in the first three years of life. And the reason why I talk about those first three years are based on how the infant brain is developing, and more specifically how the emotional systems in brain are developing in the first three years of life.

And so that's sort of what we would call a sensitive window for building a lot of the parts of the brain that underlie lifelong health, both mental health, physical health, relationship health — all of the important parts of health!

So I would say I would wish for every baby to have close sleep for those first three years to sort of be maximizing that sensitive time.

Babies are sleeping sometimes 70% of their life, and that's a massive amount of their experience in those first three years. And so if we are able to provide that closeness and proximity, they massively benefit. And so do we, as parents.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's so amazing. So I've been bedsharing for five and a half, almost six years now. How do you think that that's changed me?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

I don't know. Yeah, I mean it's definitely changed you, right? You're getting that full dose of neuroplasticity and in combination with neuroplasticity, we also need to have practice to rewire our brain. And so the combination of being close, but also being empathetic and supportive and responsive, I would bet your brain has changed to to have really good empathy, really strong empathy for your own family and others.

You probably get a lot of joy and reward from being with your children and having fun with them. That part of your brain develops as well. I'm trying to go through all the parts right now. I'm thinking your hippocampus, your memory center and your stress regulation center gets enriched as well, so your stress regulation could be better.

And same with your prefrontal cortex too, is also going to get a lot of exercise in regulation and strengthening there too. So your stress system is probably stronger too, in terms of being able to shut off stress and regulate stress.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's really cool. So what's going to happen? What do you think happens when both of my boys finally leave the bed and go off into their own space? Will I have a changed brain for the rest of my life?

DR. GREER KIRSHENBAUM:

We think so. Yeah. So we see changes. I'm thinking of one study that looked at 70 year olds of people who had been parents and people who had not been parents, and there were changes at 70.

TIFFANY BELANGER:

That's amazing. This is so encouraging for those who are cosleeping kind of begrudgingly, just because it can be really difficult. And I understand why some people just don't enjoy it, but this is encouraging to know that at least there are real benefits that we know about.

Science tells us that there are benefits for both us and our children. And so the longer that we have to get through it, over time, maybe we'll look back and be thankful that we did it.

No one tells you that your newborn will expect to sleep with you. Nobody warns you ahead of time that cosleeping is likely.

So it's up to you to educate yourself on the two ways to do it safely.

Show notes (sources, links, etc.)

Chest Sleeping FAQ Guide

Cuddle Curl FAQ Guide

Both FAQ Guides bundled

Many parents believe it's safer to bedshare with their baby using a plush baby lounger. That's not the case!

The safest way to bedshare is by cuddle curling around your baby on a firm, flat, level and clear surface.

Show notes (sources, links, etc.)

Safe Bedsharing Guidelines

The Cuddle Curl FAQ Guide

Tracy Gillett, founder of Raised Good, asserts that social sleep is the norm for mammals like us. She shares how our biology put her on the "natural" path as a new mum.

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By listening to this podcast, you agree and acknowledge that Tiffany Belanger is in no way responsible for the safety or well-being of your child -- that remains your responsibility at all times.

Welcome! This little show is gonna be a place for you to learn how to bedshare safely and comfortably and to figure out all the logistics. I know your confidence will grow, and I hope you'll come to enjoy this season of life. ♥

Find one way to connect with me before you click out:

• Follow this show


• Sign up for my email list


• Join our Instagram community


• Send me a voice note


• Give this show 5 stars, so it'll reach more struggling parents.

(If you're one of them, I'm sending you the biggest hug from my closet here in northern California. xo)