A Columbia, South Carolina mother has been arrested because she put her three month old to sleep on a couch cushion. The police said she is charged with unlawful neglect of a child. There was a crib in the home.
Investigators also reported that another child in the home told the mother the baby was not breathing, but was ignored by his mother. There are no more details except that the baby was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. Her other children are in protective custody with social services.
No matter what, a child’s death is a horrific event. I’m not going to defend the mother because I don’t know the details. However, I sometimes put my children to sleep on the sofa when they were infants. They couldn’t roll over so there was no harm. I was always close by and could check on them. Obviously, I can’t say what state of mind the mother was in, but letting an infant sleep on the sofa is not bad parenting.
Infants die of SIDS in the their cribs. It happens more than we realize. Sometimes, infants just die. Could this be one of those cases? Could this be a SIDS case, but now the mother is being punished because of where the infant was sleeping?
Yes, there are guidelines for how infants should sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Back to Sleep” when my boys were little. However, I co-slept with both of mine, until they were about three-years-old. I don’t feel that I was putting them in danger or being an unfit mother. My sister was super strict about the crib and “back to sleep.” All of our children are healthy and happy and in their tweens now.
There is not one entirely safe sleeping position for infants. Before people start judging this mother, maybe they need to check out the details. We shouldn’t punish parents who do parenting a little different than we would.
