Printable View
Does anyone else who co-sleeps wake up in pain?
I'm waking up every morning with super sore joins in my neck, shoulders and elbow from having my arm positioned up and around my baby (10wks) - think dingle-dangle scarecrow arms...
It's been a while since I've had a newbie in bed and I'd forgotten about this pain... I love co-sleeping, but im not waking up at all refreshed or rested. Not sure if anyone's found a way of sleeping that doesn't hurt...
i wake up ridiculosly sore evry single day and have done since ive co slwpt with DD, my arms and joints also hurt, i do find a quick stretch in the mornings helps, i also have carpel tunnel and co sleeping hasnt helped that i too love co sleeping but oh the pain,
hopefully someone else can pop in with some tips but i know how you feel
Yep yep yep has been 13 months straight of co sleeping with DS2, didnt co sleep much with DS1.
I wake up in agony every day in neck and sholders. DS2 is a very restless sleeper and has to be touching me!!!
DH sleeps with head at opposite end of bed to give me some more room with DS2 but I am still sore, but not as much as I was in early days or maybe I am just used to the agony now!
Good luck
Yup. I'm waiting until they invent detachable arms. Miss Miss likes to sleep with her face buried into my armpit (nice :rolleyes:), and between that, and DS joining us in the night and starting at the foot of the bed and working his way up, I'm turning into a pretzel. I've always had a dodgy neck and back, but it's at the point where I've had a headache / borderline migraine for the last couple of days. Need to see physio. Or encourage the Klingon that her cot, which is right next to the bed, is a wonderful place to hang out. Or invent detachable arms.
Other than that, I have no advice, except that a really hot shower first thing in the morning is a good depretzeliser, but lots of empathy. I'd give you one of these - :hug: - but my arms no longer work :p
Yup! I wake with this pain every morning after we co-sleep. these days though DH takes the girls in the morning and gives me the time I need in bed to relax, stretch and waht not. It works some days! :hug:
Yep! Still de-pretzelising now!! Love co sleeping, but get sore from staying in one posi! Sometimes I sleep on the opposite side of dd just to mix it up a little :)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I hear you! Lying in the most awkward position cause if I move DS2 will wake up...I love the snuggles but am hanging for the day when I can sleep how I want and not having a human attached to my breast or arm :P
Wow I have never co-slept because I found even short naps to be painful - I thought I was just doing it wrong and you'd all discovered something I hadn't LOL!
It's only been a few short months since we stopped co-sleeping but I had forgotten that hideous pain until this thread brought it all flooding back. The worst was when she insisted on sleeping on me and my knees would be agony the next day. These days she only sneaks in on the odd night when DH is away and I take the easy route, so we spread out and sleep in comfort.
Oh, I hear you!
But, I have found that from about 2 months my bubs could sleep with their heads in the crook of my arm. Sort of using my arm as a pillow. That way, I didn't have to raise my arm into an unnatural position and found it way more comfortable. It also made it possible for me to move a little (side or back). Cause if I sleep in the same position all night, my hips ache horribly.
To mix it up, I sometimes turn DS away from me so that I'm effectively spooning him, again with his head on my arm. This way I can have him quite low. I find this very comfortable.
Another thing I do when I get achy is that I turn onto my back and let DS sleep on his belly on my chest if that makes sense. in fact, this is how I co-slept with my babies for the first month or two of their lives. Somehow I felt safer this way. I felt like I couldn't roll onto them like this.
I'm a stomach sleeper. I miss sleeping on my stomach!! Sometimes in the mornings I hand DS over to DH for a cuddle and quickly turn onto my tummy - ahhhhh, bliss!
I'm pretty lucky. DS sleeps in his bed for large parts most nights these days...
When DS and I co slept he always lye next to me. Not on my arm or my arm near him at all. I faced him which was not my usual sleep position so I would get a pain in the neck. Now DS is sleeping in his cot and even he is now getting better sleep from what I can tell.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I too used to put dd on my chest to sleep, and then as she got older I used to wriggle down so my head was in line with hers and we were both under the covers (ie the covers wouldn't go over her face because they would then be over mind too). I had to ditch the pillow though, which was annoying, but even that has made a comeback in recent times as dd now prefers a pillow. I will bump this thread when I have my own newbie and I am mumma rotisserie...rolling from one child to the other!
Suse, that is hilarious. Depretzeliser.... lol.
Anyway, I too, had forgotten about that pain. I'm not sure there's a whole lot you can do during the night. Rhino would sleep with his head up on my shoulder and my arm would be around him. Occasionally I would wrap both arms around him if I felt like I really needed to turn over, and put him on my other shoulder, after turning over with him on my chest. I am sure I would often wake up with an entirely numb arm if I didn't roll over. Sometimes I would wriggle my fingers to get the blood moving again, but don't think I could do much else.
Yay, I'm not the only one to sleep like this! You have no idea how many fellow co-sleepers looked at me in confusion when I told them that I let my babies sleep ON me.:
And I had a giggle at your mumma rotisserie comment.
I suppose I was lucky - when DD1 was a newbie, DH worked a two weeks away/ one week home roster - so DD1 would sleep on her own side of the bed and I on the other... co-sleeping bliss! lol
We would feed and cuddle, then when I needed to move, I had the space to do it.
This time around, DH is on a one/one roster, but hasn't gone back to work yet, but DD2 doesn't wake as frequently overnight and settles much quicker after a night feed than DD1 did, so is only coming to our bed (from her bassinet next to our bed) at around 4.30-5am. So I only have to pretzel for 2-3 hours before her mid-morning nap... lol
You can get those sleeper things though for the bed, so they can sleep in the middle of the bed safely - also means you can be free to sleep how you like too... Doesn't help with the dream or night feeds though, so I never bothered buying one - seemed more hassle than they were worth.
I dont seem to get this pain, maybe its because I switch sides that bubs sleeps on at each feed.. were are still having 3-4 night time feeds so i get this opportuniy, i guess it would b different if bubs was not feeding so much at night, i also sometimes sleep him in the crook of my arm and its much more comfy,,,, dont know about 4 bubs though
my solution to same thing (in my situation)
dh (at the time) slept on the couch (for years) - his sleep apoena (CPAP machine) stopped me from sleeping
so bilby and i slept on the queen sized bed together.
a full body pillow also helped me deal with the sore back thang. you get them for about $30 from kmart. looks like a human sized sausage LOL but it was brilliant to sleep with, pregnant and then with a nb.
I only co-sleep for part of the night and I have a cradle for my baby in our room. I couldn't do it all night because of the pain, and I was the same as Rory and thought I was doing it all wrong. I feed my baby in our bed and sleep with him for a little while after but once I wake up a bit stiff, I wake up DH and he comes and moves DS2 into the cradle. The cradle is quite large (though not as big as a cot so it fits well in our room) and our babies have all stayed in it until they were 9 months old. I do continue to co-sleep for part of the night once they weren't in our room anymore but DH would take them back to their own cot in the middle of the night. It was the only way I could make it all work for me and have a settled bub and still get a decent night sleep.
Getting DH to move our baby, rather than moving him myself seems to be less disruptive to him than if I try and get up while he is lying on my arms. It wakes him up if I try and get up with him. It only takes DH a second to put him in bed. I kind of feel like it is the best of both worlds for us :)
I'm glad others experience this. I thought I was doing it wrong. When DD was little, DH would sleep in the spare room to give us more room. If he was in with us it was because DD was having reflux/wind issues and was sleeping on his chest. It got better once DD was able to roll over and sit up from lying down.
I've found that having my arm up under my pillow and head is much more comfortable. I lie on my side and rest my head on the inside of my arm, rather than on top of my shoulder, and then adjust the pillow to better my neck and keep my head off of my shoulder (sorry not sure how to really describe it this early in the morning). It doesn't require rotating my shoulder as far and doesn't interfere with blood flow. It also allows a little more freedom of movement. I also have upper back and neck issues but they are no worse than usual while sleeping like this.
Yep, i jumped in bed with DD at 5am this morning andsleptin there till 6.30am and woke up in agony....i am 39 weeks pregnant but idoalways wake up with a crick in my neck and pain in my legs....DD on the other hand has a lovely sleep! :rolleyes:
I kind of do the same thing as Tuesday's child..with my hand resting under my head and my pillow propped a little to support my head.. except I also put a small pillow behind my back so am lying half on my back/half on my side, and then a pillow between my knees too.. its quite comfy actually.
Both DDs slept on my chest to, then moved to the arms as they got bigger.:
DS is a restless sleeper in the mornings and when we pop him in with us he will roll around and somehow get his feet in my face and pull my hair because he holds on to it with his scrunched up toes :dunno: I sometimes put up with this for up to an hour because I am simply too tired to get out of bed - LMAO
When we were co-sleeping all or most of the night though, it was great as we all liked our own little patch of (king size) bed. As a newborn though, I would often sleep with him curled up on my belly and chest - he and I would sleep so soundly :)
I need another newborn to snuggle with :cosleep2:
Oh man, I'm jealous. DH would be ropable if I woke him up just to move DS...
i'm getting a King Size bed for this exact problem!
Nope. I wrap baby and place him high in the bed between our pillows (which we move to the outside edges) then I sleep like normal. I couldn't sleep in painful positions without moving. It would kill me. When he wakes I unwrap him, feed sitting up then re-wrap and put him back down. Means I don't get to feed while sleeping but he feeds so quickly it works better for me as it means I can sleep comfortably but still have him close by.
That would have never worked for me as DD always fed to sleep and then even the slightest bump woke her up. If she then realised I was not right there, she'd scream bloody murder. So I would feed to sleep, then try and crawl away.
The only way DD would sleep without immediate contact with me was when she could sleep on her belly. I was not comfortable enough to let her do that when she was a newborn, hence why she slept on my chest.
Those snuggle beds also wouldn't have worked for us.
She HATED to be wrapped from about 2 weeks onwards.
WOW! I never thought this topic would get so many responses... Nice to hear I'm not alone, but I'm also sorry that the joy of co-sleeping seems to be marred by the pain of it for so many of us... Some good ideas though. For my firstborn I used a hammock for some of the night, but haven't tried that this time round. DD is different, and I think she'd wake more being in the hammock.
We have a KS bed too and I try and roll DD over before each feed to swap sides. ATM she doesn't seem to be waking much to feed so I'm going to try and make the conscious effort to move my arm from around her and move my head down to her level.
How do they do this in countries where co-sleeping is the norm!?