This is often a topic I see debated: bed sharing. Some people call it "co-sleeping" but co-sleeping could also mean that the child just sleeps in the same room as the parent, in their own bed. We practiced "co-sleeping" for the first few months of Vera's life. She slept in our room, in a pack and play. On her back. NO stuffed animals/blankets/pillows. We are dead set against bed sharing for safety reasons. This is one parenting decision we will not budge on. To us, our daughter's safety is worth much more than the convenience of more sleep/easier access to breast feeding.
I often hear that "if done correctly, bed sharing can be just as safe." And while your child MAY survive this (I hear that excuse a lot), it's not recommended. I understand that there are studies everywhere and that nearly everything you do as a parent, can be debatable. However, I personally think the three most important parenting topics (again, this is my personal opinion)... are: bedsharing, breastfeeding, and feeding your infants cereal/solids before the age of 6 months.
For now, I will just stick with an article I just read on bedsharing because I will need a new page to talk about the others due to the amount of knowledge there is to learn.
Bed sharing substantially raises risk of SIDS
Sharing the bed with young children is a common practice among some parents, but new research suggests it could be putting kids at risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The findings, published recently in BMJ Open, suggest that bed sharing raises the chances of SIDS regardless of other risk factors such as alcohol consumption or side effects from certain drugs.
To measure the risk of SIDS - when children less than 1 year old die from no obvious cause - researchers looked at more than 1,470 cases from the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. They found that 88 percent of SIDS cases where infants were sharing a bed with their parents could have been prevented. Researchers believe this should make people re-think the safety of bed sharing.
"We do not suggest that babies should not be brought into the parent's bed for comfort and feeding," they wrote. "This has been investigated in previous studies and has not been found to be a risk factor, provided the infant is returned to his or her own cot for sleep."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, SIDS is the leading cause of death among infants under 12 months old.
I found this article on the Once Upon a Child website and found it very interesting. This is only one of the VERY many articles I have read that have stated the same thing.
So please, PLEASE think about this before you take your infant (usually children 1 and under) into bed with you to catch more sleep or make it more convenient for breast feeding. I have a personal friend who has come in contact, through her job, with babies who have passed away due to bed sharing and no other reason. It's terribly sad and preventable, if you know the correct information.
I'm sure I will get a lot of differing opinions on this subject but I am literally stating facts. ALL of my child developmental classes I took stated the same thing as well as the classes I must continue to take to keep my state license.
Some days just seem like an endless battle against life. Of course, this is no way to look at it...since you will never get this day back again. So what can we do? 
