Co-sleeping breastfeeders - how much sleep do you get?

[Jenkeywoo]

DD is nearly one and co-sleeps. She breastfeeds to sleep (I feed her lying down in our bed) by about 8.30pm. She's normally up crying at least once before bedtime and usually dH can settle her but sometimes I inevitably end up popping a boob into her mouth for a few minutes. She then wakes up around midnight which is our cue to go to bed and I feed her then. Some nights she sneaks in another feed about 4am but if I'm lucky she goes through till about 6.30am. I don't think this is too bad. She's not yet mobile so doesn't really roll over and help herself and I certainly don't feel that she's feeding all night - TBH it's the waking up all evening that is most disruptive. Is this fairly standard for co-sleeping breastfeeders? I seem to be surrounded by non-breastfeeding friends babies who sleep 7 till 7 in a nice pretty cot and I think they look at me like I'm a fool!

[emkana]

It was pretty much like that with both my dd's who are now nearly six and three, and seems to be similar with ds who is nine months.

With both dd's things changed very slowly over time, as they became more understanding and at more and more solid food they fed less and less at night, gently encouraged by me, and eventually I didn't feed them at bedtime anymore.

Stopped altogether around age 2 and a bit with both.

I liked it and will go the same way with ds, if he wants to.

[DaisyMOO]

Ds3 is 17 months and is the first of my children with whom I've co-slept on a regular basis. I would say his pattern was fairly similar to your dd's and yes, the evening waking was far more disruptive than the night ones where I just stuff a boob in his mouth and go back to sleep. A few months ago we made a decision that dh would settle him to sleep if he woke during the evening and he now (usually) sleeps until we come to bed. Dh also puts him to bed if I'm out at a meeting or something and on those nights he generally sleeps more or less through the nights I reckon if I ever get fed up with the night feeds it should be pretty easy to fix if dh takes a more active role

[hugeheadofhair]

My DS3 is 21 months and 5 out of 7 nights he wakes before we go to bed. Usually (unless ill or having a cold or so) he settles quickly with a boob in his mouth, and then wakes again when we go to bed and once more around 6am. So pretty similar really. As Daisymoo says, nights where he doesn't get a boob he sleeps better, and with DS1 and DS3 it took about 4 nights to completely wean them off the nightfeeding, after which they slept through the night. Did this around 16 months with both DS1 and DS2, but don't feel the need so much with DS3 yet.

[moogyboobles]

My youngest is 10 months. At the moment I feed him to sleep about 8ish, I stay in the room anyway (thank goodness for wifi and laptops). He usually wakes again whenever dh gets to bed so about 11/12. After that it's all a blur. At a guess we are continuously feeding from about 5am til 7 when he wakes up properly.
Pretty much the same as mmy middle son was at this age. Doesn't bother me at all.

[serenity]

Sounds pretty similar to mine as well, except we only semi coslept. DC would go down in their own cot at the beginning and would come into our bed later in the night.