lyn,
for bb to sleep between mum and dad... gotta consider a few things ... in attachment parenting, that is advocated and it give mummy and bb easy access to each other to breastfeed on demand.
However, need to consider the size of your bed, and your sleeping habit.
Newborn are fragile and if u or hb are v deep sleeper, then may accidentally suffocate or injure bb.... MAY happen... though most of the time when we become parents, having a newborn next to us, we tend to be extra careful even when sleeping
Another thing is, some school of thought say it may cultivate overdependence.... dunno how true.
We took a mixture.... by placing our bb in the cot right next to us beside the bed till now. The bed and the cot is physically only separated by the cot's wooden rail
If u want, at first u can even lowered the cot to the same level as your bed and lowered/removed the side rail near the bed. So that the cot become an extension of the bed lor
Bb can even see us when he turn.... when my bb do not wanna sleep in the middle of the night after feeds or if he wake up ... then i place him in between us to sleep so that its safer and we can still watch over him easily without even sitting up... We do not want that to become a habit though, so we put him in the cot most of the time right next to us. So it still give access to the bb and vice versa.
My gynae told me his eldest son in primary school right now still refuse to sleep alone.... only wanna sleep with him and his wife. I hope my boy has the right mix of attachment and independence leh.... but i also am a supporter of most of the attachment parenting concept (like feed on demand, carrying the bb as and when he demand etc this is opposed to things like controlled crying method)... but modified it to suit our parenting goals.
re: putting bb on mattress since birth
frankly I wanted to do that for my 2nd bb... cos glenn doman recommend that we let our newborn bb sleep on a crawling track on tummy right from birth. This way, by 1 month the bb would be able to crawl quite a distance liao.... part of the brain development program.... my concern is i am worried that when i still have my stitches and pain in the teething first 2 weeks, it may be painful to keep benting down to carry/attend to the bb every 2 hour or less.... so maybe a mattress in subsequent month when we become more mobile would be great too