Inertia, it makes me so angry to think that any mother should feel that they have to hide in the shadows when doing what they instinctively feel is right for their children and their instincts are backed up with research, understanding and proof!!!

Mumiloo, I am glad you found renewed sense of faith in your parenting decisions after posting here and I hope that you have seen the benefits of this since you originally posted.

It is such a pity that so many people will give advice and have such strong opinions without researching what they are talking about or without having any understanding that there can be two sides to every story. On the other hand, I have found it to be quite heartening here that a few people who do not co-sleep or do not necessarily believe in co-sleeping have posted their support for you Mumiloo and for your decision as parents. This is exactly what I love about BB and what I think we need a whole lot more of as parents, tolerance for others opinions and parenting approaches.

Inertia, with regard to info leaflets, perhaps you might be interested in some research from Mckenna who has done a great deal of research into co-sleeping. He has written a number of papers, and I found them to be really informative. I googled "McKenna sleep alone SIDS" and came up with a good article Why babies should never sleep alone: A review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS,bedsharing and breast feeding, here is the abstract:

Summary There has been much controversy over whether infants should co-sleep or bedshare with an adult caregiver and over whether such practises increase the risk of SIDS or fatal accident. However, despite opposition from medical authorities or the police, many western parents are increasingly adopting night-time infant caregiving patterns that include some co-sleeping, especially by those mothers who choose to breast feed. This review will show that the relationships between infant sleep patterns, infant sleeping arrangements and development both in the short and long term, whether having positive or negative outcomes, is anything but simple and the traditional habit of labelling one sleeping arrangement as being superior to another without an awareness of family, social and ethnic context is not only wrong but possibly harmful. We will show that there are many good reasons to insist that the definitions of different types of co-sleeping and bedsharing be recognised and distinguished. We will examine the conceptual issues related to the biological functions of mother?infant co-sleeping, bedsharing and what relationship each has to SIDS. At very least, we hope that the studies and data described in this paper, which show that co-sleeping at least in the form of roomsharing especially with an actively breast feeding mother saves lives, is a powerful reason why the simplistic, scientifically inaccurate and misleading statement ?never sleep with your baby? needs to be rescinded, wherever and whenever it is published.
It is also worth nothing that statistics are often thrown around regarding the number of babies who die when co-sleeping. These numbers rarely take into consideration the conditions under which the co-sleeping is taking place ie risk factors such as whether the parents are under the influence of drugs etc as you have been careful to avoid mumiloo. The numbers are also very rarely compared to the numbers of babies who die when sleeping alone in cots. If these numbers were compared side by side it would help to paint a much clearer picture about the 'dangers' of co-sleeping.