What to Know
Is there a more polarizing topic online for new parents than safe sleep? And, honestly, yes—it should be a no-brainer, and everyone should be educated on the topic at this point. But even if they are, some parents don’t care. Or some care but want to do what they want to do more. Take this viral TikTok about co-sleeping and anxiety—it should be relatable, right? It sounds like it would be. But it’s either meant to be relatable and slightly funny, or it’s meant as rage-bait. There is no in-between when it comes to co-sleeping.
TikTok user @alli.beth shared a video of her infant in a bassinet earlier this month. Sure, your first thought is probably something along the lines of, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Surely a bassinet is safe! And you would be right. Except for one tiny detail in this particular video.
The baby is in the bassinet, yes. But the bassinet is on the bed.
A vast majority of commenters were aghast at even the mere suggestion of this bassinet-on-the-bed thing.
What happens when you piss off the entire internet about safe sleep?
“I will never understand taking the risk. The Halo bassinet is perfect and achieves closeness safely,” one of the top comments reads. And when someone asked what was unsafe about this video, the commenter pointed out that the baby is now on an uneven sleeping surface, which isn’t safe. And a Halo bassinet has a swivel option that allows parents to bring the baby as close to them as possible.
“The problem with cosleeping is the extreme survivor bias. The moms whose babies ended up fine will endlessly advocate for it, while the moms whose lost their babies will stay silent due to shame/fear/sadness,” another commenter shared.
“I work in an ER,” shares another. “I will never forget the 7w old baby who passed from co sleeping. I’d be lying if I said I never put my baby in my bed but that was more than enough to encourage me to never risk it again.”
And the thing is, a lot of us can relate to being so tired we will do just about anything to get some rest when we can. It’s also not wrong to instinctively want to sleep with or near your baby. But those things simply cannot be more important than ensuring your baby sleeps in the safest way possible.
What the experts say
“We’ve made great strides in learning what keeps infants safe during sleep but much work still needs to be done,” said Rachel Moon, MD, FAAP, lead author of a 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) technical report, generated by the AAP Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the AAP Committee on Fetus and Newborn.
“A baby’s death is tragic, heartbreaking and often preventable. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that simple is best: babies should always sleep in a crib or bassinet, on their back, without soft toys, pillows, blankets or other bedding,” said Dr. Moon, professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
According to the AAP, approximately 3,500 infants die from sleep-related infant deaths annually in the United States. Research indicates that sleep-related death can occur when an infant with an intrinsic vulnerability to SIDS is placed in an unsafe sleep environment. The annual number of deaths has remained about the same since 2000 following a substantial decline in deaths in the 1990s as the result of a national educational campaign to put babies on their backs to sleep.
“You want to cosleep but you’re *a good parent that isn’t going to let your baby die because of your anxiety* fixed it for you,” says another commenter on the video.
In a follow-up video, @alli.beth clarifies that the bassinet-on-the-bed thing was just a joke, because even though she’d love to co-sleep (as many of us probably would if it were risk-free), she doesn’t. She also mentions that the small bassinet she originally showed is just one she’ll use for travel.
“Hey so this is where he actually sleeps,” she captioned the video.
It’s great that the OG video wasn’t serious, but whew—rage-baiting the new parent/safe sleep internet community? That takes some serious bravado!
