An exhausted father who dozed off cradling his newborn son woke the next morning to find the baby lying dead next to him.

An emotionally-charged inquest heard how Vincent Jones was just two days old when dad Luke Gower found him lying face down in his bed.

Mr Gower had told partner Poppy Jones to get an early night just hours earlier, offering to soothe their son to sleep himself.

“I gave him one feed when Poppy went to bed and then I was walking around with him patting his back,” said a heartbroken Mr Gower.

“I was sitting with him trying to get him to go to sleep. I sat in bed with him.”

A coroner heard the couple were living in Athelstan Road, Thanington, when Ms Jones went into premature labour.

Baby Vincent was delivered fit and healthy at 36 weeks in the QEQM Hospital, Margate, on November 11 last year.

Tragedy struck at home two days later. Having paced up and down to get Vincent off to sleep, Mr Gower had climbed into bed and cradled his son on his chest at about 10pm or 11pm.

He woke shortly after 7am the following morning to find the tot lying lifeless on his stomach beside him on the mattress.

Post-mortem tests conducted five days later showed no abnormalities, the court heard.

Pathologist Kio Palm said baby Vincent had suffered “a sudden unexpected death in infancy in an unsafe sleeping environment”.

Co-sleeping – the act of sleeping in close proximity with one’s baby – can have a number of fatal consequences.

But the post-mortem examinations had ruled out the usual causes of death in such cases, said Mrs Palm.

She said: “Nothing was found during the investigation about how he died. Co-sleeping is a dangerous situation for a baby who is sleeping.”

Assistant coroner Christine Freedman said: “He was a healthy, normally grown baby with no abnormalities in his development.”

Mrs Freedman recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Baby care experts warn against the dangers of "co-sleeping" with newborns.

Lucy Lyus, of The Lullaby Trust, says: “The safest place for a baby to sleep is in their own cot or moses basket in the same room as their parents for the first sixth months.”

Ms Lyus says it is known that some parents choose to sleep with their babies in bed.

“This can be planned or it can be an accident if they fall asleep while feeding, but the main thing is to be aware of the risks and when it shouldn’t happen,” she says.

“The death of a baby through co-sleeping is very rare.

“We do know that some circumstances might make it more likely for it to happen and those are if the parents have taken drugs or alcohol, smoke, or if the baby is low birth weight or premature.”