co sleeping and breastfeeding its convenient but i'm not sure if this is what i want!!!

[rainbow83]

Ds 1 was a textbook 'contented baby' who followed a routine from day one,slept in her own cot in her own room, through the night until now atage 2, and never needed to be sloe to me and was not clingy etc. she was also bottlefed. i said i would NEVERA co sleep but now i have a 3month old who i am breastfeeding and well it is impossible sometimes for me to stay awake for her nightfeeds sitting up in bed when it would be so much COSIER and easier to drift off and feed her lying down next to me. this way i hardly even realise i've woekn to feed her. however i am not used to being needed so much night and day and i have visions of her being a big toddler who will always want to sleep with me and not give me my own space, and to be frank i miss cudling up to dh at night. but if i dont co sleep she wakes up a million times and sometimes not for feeding, just to be cuddled. during the day she naps alone and is an angel. what should i do. i dont feel like myself with her in my bed butttt its giving me more rest. am i perpetuating a bad habit, sorry to ramble

[Olihan]

Dc1 and 2 were both very independent ff babies and, while I wasn't anti co sleeping, it wasn't in my parenting plan, iyswim.

Dc3 is bf and, like you, I found that co sleeping was SO much easier. I had all the same worries about never getting him out of my bed, but he's now 17 weeks and prefers being in his cot. If I try and feed him in bed he kicks and wriggles until I move him then he settles straight away.

I used to put him in his cot in the day and that probably helped too, so I honestly wouldn't worry too much at them moment. Once dc3 got over the early evening cluster feeding I used to put him in his cot until he woke for the first feed and he just extended that himself to going back down after night feeds.

Goo luck, I'm sure it will be fine!

[PrettyCandles]

I've been in a similar place to you, except that the more I let ds2 feed while we slept (you know how easy that is when you co-sleep), the worse his daytime sleep became because he looked for the boob to get him to sleep. The only thing I found that helped was to play musical beds. I slept in another room and dh brought ds2 to me to feed, I fed him sitting up (in a chair if I couldn't stay awake in bed) and brought him back to his cot. Dh would keep resettling ds2 until a reasonable time had passed between feeds - say 2-3h - before bringing him back to me. After a week or 10 days, when ds2 went from 8+ feeds a night to 2 or 3, we swopped places, so that dh got into my bed when he brought ds2 to me, and I got into our proper bed when I returned ds2 to his cot in our room. HTH - though we're still far from cracked it with ds2 (he's 6m), it's much better than it was!

[KnayedFrot]

At 3 months DS was starting the night off in his own room but by midnight he was invariably in bed with me, DH was sleeping in the spare room.

At 12 months I still fed DS at night but I had a bed made up in his room for night feeds, sometimes I would just feed on the bed, and sometimes sleep in it. This at least meant that DH & I had regained our bed & space, and DS didn;t intrude into it (more important for DH than me, tbh).

By 14 months I had stopped feeding him at night (decided he didn;t really need it anymore) and ever since he has slept in his own room 12 hours solid every night, has never come into our bed at night since he was about 6 months.

I really don;t think you need to worry at all, just do what you need to get through these first few months

[PrettyCandles]

And I know co-sleep with dh - though ds2 still ends up with us if he wakes too early.

[sniff]

I bf all my three 1 & 3 co slept 3 still does no2 would not

I think its hard to do either so you have to go whats best for you I need my sleep more than anything so it works for me

saying that sometimes I would like my bed back !!!

others easily went into there beds but dont know about DD she is very clingy so we will have to see