2 co-sleeping questions

[enigma]

When I was younger my mum co-slept with me, it resulted in me being petrified of sleeping alone until i was about 13 years old ...
This has been my #1 reason for avoiding co-sleeping , that and the fact that Aneta usually sleeps all night in her cot no problems.If she ever awoke during the night id just rock her back to sleep .
However lately instead of rocking ive been taking her into bed with me - and ive got to say that i love it. I love that i can have her so close to me , i love how i feel she is so safe , some nights i just lay there and watch her sleep - its really quite moving plus , she somehow manages to sleep an hour or 2 longer if its with me

My 1st question is : do you worry about the consequences of co-sleeping when the child is older? ( ie: they will become as attached as i did to my mum , and not want to sleep alone or in another bedroom )

2nd question - how do YOU co-sleep? I mean at the moment we have a single bed in Aneta's room and we taketurns sleeping in there. But as of next week the 3 of us will be living in one bedroom , there isnt exactly much room on a double bed for a baby aswell. Do you "get rid " ( lol ) of your partner , or do you manage to share the bed with partner and baby aswell ??

[MantaRay]

Enigma, you are lucky that your DD sleeps well when you co-sleep. I love having my boys in bed with me, but for some reason neither of them has ever slept well when in bed with us. I think co-sleeping is natural and the way nature intended so I am sad that it is just not for us.

If I was you I would do what feels right. If you enjoy co-sleeping, go for it. If you are worried that she will have the same anxiety you did, I am sure you can find ways to make her feel secure without you down the track. You could introduce other comforters and ease her out of your bed by starting with a matress on the floor, then moving her to another room and you stay with her while she falls asleep etc until she is secure by herself. Worry about that when the time comes.

As for how to make it work, I think everyone is different. I know of lots of people who's DHs sleep elsewhere. Others manage to fit into one bed with no worries. I know of one family who were renovating anyway, so they put matresses on the floor and all slept next to each other on the mattresses on the floor. I am sure you will figure out what works for you.

Enjoy your time sleeping with DD, I'm jealous!! And they grow up so quickly!!

[Astrid]

I am not worried about later at all, the most important thing for me it not only survive the now, but to enjoy it. I really love sleeping with Maggie. To start off with we just all shared our Queen size bed with Maggie in the middle. Recently I have set up the cot in side car mode and now she spend part of the night in there and sleeps on the side of the bed rather than the middle.

[Phteven]

We've got a king sized bed so there's plenty of room for 3 but DH kind of ends up getting squished into a corner so he prefers to sleep in Yasin's bed.
Yasin's room is the coolest in our house so last night after the 40c day Imran and I slept in there on a mattress on the floor - it was nice having my whole family in a room together - kind of like a slumber party lol.

[MeredithD]

My DS is 8 weeks and we have co-slept since day 1 in hospital when nothing would settle him and midwife suggested taking him into bed. It certainly worked and he has been there ever since. We only have double bed but we all 3 squeeze in somehow.
My boy is a very poor sleeper except with us at night so i haven't thought to hard about long term getting him out - doing what i have to atm to stay sane!
Must admit, i do enjoy him being with me- i know he is safe and i don't get up at all through night - just pop the BB in to feed and back to sleep! DH would probably prefer him out but not pushing at this stage. Just makes private time difficult.
Go with it if you all enjoy it- i am sure she will be on her own happily before 10yrs

[beckles]

enigma, welcome to the joys of baby staring and co-sleeping

re your questions : My 1st question is : do you worry about the consequences of co-sleeping when the child is older? i don't really because i have 2 older children 11 & 8 who both co-slept and happily moved to their own beds when they were about 3.

2nd question - how do YOU co-sleep? we just have a queen sized bed, oscar sleeps in the middle between our pillows. we have co-slept with all of our bubbas from when they were birthed. when the boys got older we have an extension that we put on the bed, that my husband made, which makes the bed bigger than a king size. we won't use this though until we need it. at the moment we don't feel cramped at all.
HTHs beckles

[christy]

We started co-sleeping with Matilda from birth & I didn't worry about consequences until she was around 3 months? By then I was so confused & lost and she didn't sleep or feed well so I felt really alone... I moved her into a cot at the foot of our bed for another few months & then into her room. After that I tried to get her to sleep in our room again & she flat out refused it was awful. Now she sleeps on a mattress next to our bed most of the night because she doesn't want to be left out. She loves it there... tries to get the dogs to climb in with her.

With Jovie we have co-slept from birth & will do so as long as we need/want too. Jovie starts the night in her hammock and comes into bed for her feeding & stays. I love our early morning cuddles.

We have a queen size bed. Not cramped at all She is generally inbetween us but sometimes I have to put her on the edge with a pillow behind her to feed if I need to empty that boob, but then we roll over to the middle again straight away after.

[BellyBelly]

I think it depends on the child's personality and how you go about it. We try our best to make sleep a special time and talk about how great it is to get a good sleep and sometimes it gets squishy so it's okay to be in our own beds. We make their beds and bedrooms special, Marisa has a rainbow bed (from Ikea, has a huge rainbow banner over the top of it, so it's like she's sleeping under a big rainbow and she loves it). They share a room now as we need an office but it's amazing how they have tuned into sleep. We transfer them into their own beds in the middle of the night and they have slept in their own beds during the day, so the transition has been easy. Elijah actually has been sleeping better the nights he happened to be in Marisa's bed (Marisa was with us, as Elijah's bed needed sheets washed) and I think having that space he slept better. There are nights I would kill for more space and no sore neck lol but there are far many more nights where I feel in heaven, cuddling my babies in bed as we go to sleep together. It's a special bonding time where we do our talking and there are lots of kisses and 'I love you's.' But there are also nights they sleep in their own beds, mostly Marisa will be in her own bed but sometimes ends up with us.

I think personality effects things too - some children are naturally anxious or secure or whatever and it all comes into play. Just because you were like that doesn't mean your bub will be, but bub may have a tendency to do so. Just do what YOU think is best for you and your bub right now That way you will have no regrets as you will oook back and know you did what was best at the time.

[Monabap]

The way I feel about it is co-sleeping helps a baby/child feel secure and safe sleeping in the early months years. I am co sleeping with my youngest (fourth) at the moment who is 16 months old. He can sleep alone through the night no problems, but I really like cuddling with him so I actually take him out of his cot and put him in bed with me - I know - bad mummy... probably because he's my last baby....
Anyway, I don't worry about him not being able to sleep alone. I already know he can. His cot is in my room. At some point, I will move it out into one of the sibling's rooms. None of my other kids have had a problem sleeping in their own beds. They don't even wake up and cry at night or anything. I attribute that partly to them having a secure co-sleeping experience.

As for how I co-sleep... I just cuddle my toddler while in bed lol

[lilprecious75]

DH and I have been co-sleeping with DS since he was about 7 weeks old and we started because I was so sleep deprived from frequent waking for feeds that I could barely see straight. DS is now nearly a year old and we still co-sleep part or all of each night. I admit I'm trying to wean him off some of the co-sleeping but I do what I feel he needs at the time so we just take it one night at a time and I know eventually he'll be in his own bed.