Co-sleep with back pain or be sleep deprived from sleeping her in the cot??

[attc]

Hi All,

DD has started waking up every 2 hours or so after hitting the 4 month mark, so I started bringing her into our bed after her first wake up (she starts out the night in a cot in her own room after growing out of the bassinet which we had next to our bed).

DH and I are both happy to co-sleep (we did with DS when he was waking constantly at 9 months or so and continued from there until he was about 2.5 and started sleeping longer in his own bed).

The problem is that i am getting bad back pain co-sleeping with her. I'm falling asleep whilst she's feeding and it must be twisting my back and/or neck in a strange way. I've tried a cushion behind my back, but it doesn't make much difference (and makes it very crowded in our queen size bed). She seems to need a nipple in her mouth to fall asleep - so if I do stay awake long enough to try and detach her, she wakes up. The same if I try and move away from her - she tends to wake up.

Last night I decided I'd try her back in the cot again - but after she woke twice within two hours, I relented and just brought her back into bed with me.

I can't decide which is the lesser of two evils - get more sleep (I think, although still not wonderfully rested) but have back pain next day or be sleep deprived from getting up and down to her in the cot??

Has anyone else experienced this and have any tips or suggestions??

Is there any secret to co-sleeping to make it more comfortable and pain free the next day??

Thanks ladies!

[HotI]

Can you put the cot in your room as a side cart to your bed? you may be able to feed bub laying down, with her in the cot, and then move away into your space.

The no cry sleep solution has some ideas for stopping the all night sucking, i didn't try them til my DD was older, but worth trying.

[onthefly]

any luck? sounds like a pretty sucky situation. I found osteo really helped my neck pain - largely caused by weird sleeping positions. i can move away from dd, but end up falling asleep up next to her very often. reminds me I need to go again.

[Kmn]

Can you try sharing a big mattress on the floor with bub - that way there is more room for you.

[willow5]

Can you put the cot in your room as a side cart to your bed? you may be able to feed bub laying down, with her in the cot, and then move away into your space.

I did this for a while, but DS was too much of a restless sleeper and would wake more often when he'd bang himself on the cot.

Can you try sharing a big mattress on the floor with bub - that way there is more room for you.

This is what I ended up doing and it worked the best. DS couldn't fall out of bed, well he could but it wouldn't hurt him. DS and I moved into his room with 2 single mattresses on the floor. I still had some back pain but not as bad as 3 in the bed. We've just recently moved a double bed in. The gap in the mattresses if they came apart a bit was making me sleep funny too and getting sore.

I still get a bit of a sore back sometimes but not as bad or as often as before.