To wonder why people are so often against co sleeping?

[pigluscious]

Maybe I'm a silly lentil weaving hippy, but I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with getting little babies to sleep on their own, and to settle themselves. What on earth is wrong with rocking/feeding to sleep and then tucking your child in (following all the safety advice) next to you?
AIBU?

Good point, MrsWolowitz. I always imaged that co-sleeping also required either a spare bed for someone, or one big bed and a partner who didn't work funny shifts and would then climb into bed at 3am, half-asleep and trying to miss the baby

I can completely see why co-sleeping is fantastic for some parents, particularly if they are breast-feeding or their baby wakes several times a night. But other people will have good reasons not to have the baby in bed with them.

Sorry, should've proof read for typos before posting.

It amazes me the different ways some seek to be superior. On internet boards you will get responses but in RL where we alll live nobody much gives a shit. Its each to their own isn't it. I was disinterested in the whole co-sleeping thing, cot in the same room was enough, but why on earth would I even concern myself with whether another mother did it? or not? Do what makes you happiest, leave others to do the same, and mind your own business or find a distraction for the need to validate who you are, would seem among the best options

Its the hormones that make it feel good was why I did it. Not to feel superior whats it called again? oxysomething and its what keeps you breeding I suppose.

Apologies bob , am not so much on a wind up, but find that by being less than moderate you get opinions out of people a lot more easily! As I said, I am coming at this as someone who has very recently started cosleeping, and whilst it is working for me so far, I thought it would be useful to find out how people who have experienced far more than me feel about the whole thing.

freckled am also one of those god awful attatchment parenting types that lots of mumsnetters seem to dislike! Hello!

Cuddles in bed and bf lying down are lovely, but I have to be utterly, utterly exhausted to actually sleep in a bedwith my baby.

Kind of wish I could have, when they were newborns. Nevermind, eh?

trice were your babies in the cot next to the bed or in your bed?

DD was in a cot next to me, but I didn't class that as co-sleeping. I couldn't feed lying down either as my boobs were too small.

"I would think it weird if dd doesn't Co sleep if and when she has a baby"

Why? Just because it worked for you doesn't mean to say it would for her.

I agree with you OP. I can't fathom why cot sleeping is the norm when it seems like it requires so much effort. Yet people seem to assume that having the baby sleep independently will allow them to have the most sleep.

I don't want this to come across as criticism of individuals, BTW, because I really couldn't care less what a particular person chooses to do to get sleep - if you're happy and it's working then go for it! I am interested more in the sociological angle, why it's considered the "ideal" for a parent to be able to put their baby in their cot, awake, walk away and the baby fall asleep by themselves (crying or not seems irrelevant in the "ideal" view, I suppose not crying is probably more ideal though) and sleep through the night at the earliest possible age.

To me it seems really roundabout. Small babies wake in the night, they all do. You're likely to get more sleep by trying to make sure that the night feeds/night time parenting is as un-disruptive to everyone as possible, than by having to get up, possibly even go into another room, feed them while trying to stay awake, make sure they don't fall asleep while feeding, try to persuade them to go to sleep without any kind of external help at all, go back to bed, repeat in 2-4 hours' time!

From what I can gather the overall goal seems to be to get them sleeping through which means that you can go to bed, stay asleep for the whole night and wake up in the morning refreshed, and that the intense getting up in the night only lasts a few months. Which would be great, if it was guaranteed to work - the problem is that it's not! And you can minimise the disruption in the first place and then it doesn't really make a difference how long it happens for.

Maybe personal choice but I loved feeding my baby to sleep and cuddling up to him at night and seeing his little gummy smile in the morning (to whoever else said this - yes!). He's 5 now and it makes no difference at all. In fact we now have the "holy grail" of being able to kiss goodnight, turn out the light and leave It just happened when he was ready to drop all of the other stuff and it was no trouble at all. I think it's really sad that this is seen as bad or "lazy parenting".

Bunbaker - When they were small I put them back in the cot. When they were bigger I didn't bother.

If dd chooses to have a baby and put it in its own room from day one I would feel sad that she was missing out, but I wouldn't go round and carry the cot into her room! She might have a partner who objects for one thing.

I never seriously considered it due to SIDS concerns. Even a tiny risk was too much for me but tbh, I wasn't coming from a pt of view of wanting to do it iyswim.

Ds slept in a moses basket beside the bed for 3-4m I think and for dd I had a co-sleeping cot which I loved. It felt safe yet she was right there. Brilliant.

But would never have had either of them actually in the bed as small babies. The anxiety would have been too much, plus am rather fond of my dh, pillow and winter weight down duvet!

Also I guess there was no question of me ever becoming a sahm so getting the dc to sleep well was a priority not that it worked with dd

Bertie please read some of the responses.

Bertie, I agree with everything you've said - but the one thing I always believed was that putting your baby down awake and leaving them to fall asleep by themselves is wanted because the suggestion, or hope, is that if they learn to fall asleep by themselves then they can settle themselves in the middle of the night too, once food isn't what they're looking for. Of course it's not an exact science, but I always understood that was the theory behind it.

Agreed Bertie, to me it just seems like the loveliest way of doing things. For what it's worth though, I definately get less sleep with DD in bed with me, she's really picked up the night feeding since we started!

trice DD stayed in our room for over three years as she had a tracheostomy from nine weeks. Having her in bed with us with a trachy was a complete no-no as she was wired up to various monitors to check her breathing.

I hate the term "attachment parenting" It comes across as being superior and the rest of us who don't attachment parent aren't good parents.

What is attachment parenting anyway?

Yes Thurlow, I do think that's where it comes from. I just wonder how well it really works when every parenting forum I've ever seen is plagued with anxious parents worrying that they've "ruined" their DC's sleep or are doing something terribly wrong or are failing because their baby won't sleep and they're 8 months/a year/2 years old. Some children just don't. I'm sure that encouraging self settling does make a difference with some but it won't help with all and I think it's a shame it's presented as the only way.

Bunbaker I did and it's all about cot death worries and people's personal preferences/experiences/situations which is fine, that's not what I was posting about. If you can't sleep with the baby in the bed, then co sleeping isn't going to maximise anybody's sleep so it's not a good solution for that family.

Oh not this again, I'm going to bed. AP isn't a label that people use to feel superior, it's just a label for a set of beliefs on the internet. Made up by the Americans because they like branding things. That's all. Seriously!

When dd was a tiny little newborn I was too scared to co sleep with her. She was premature so this was probably right. She was also a great sleeper and happily slept in her Moses basket.

Then the four month sleep regression hit and she refused to sleep unless she had a nipple in her mouth. A dummy wouldn't do, she could tell the difference. We had no choice but to co sleep, it was either that or not sleep at all. By that time she was a bit bigger and it felt a lot safer.

She's now 16 months and usually sleeps in a cot in her own room, unless she is ill or teething.

Not sure what we'll do when we have another baby, probably wait and see what kind of sleeper he or she is.

And it's nice to remember that the OP has a four month old. Weren't we all a little anxious and ever convinced that the decisions we made about what to do with our PFBs were all encompassing and likely to affect their entire lives when our first babies were small? ALL mothers of small babies believe that their way is the best way, because you have all the answers, babies will respond to 99% of what you throw at them in the way that you expect, which means you feel like you know what you're doing. Yes, when they get older you look back and realise it wouldn't have made any difference but cut her some slack for just being in that lovely, simple, happy stage.

I don't understand either why others that choose a different style seem hell bent on making the other options sound like they are sooooo much trouble.

Making a bottle, really not that hard work. And how big are your bed rooms /houses where putting them back in their basket/cot is akin to trekking up Everest.

That's another think, the times a had ds4 in bed with me he just fed more and fussed about, on off on off.

Co sleeping is probably the norm in the world. I coslept from 1 years old because he had a shite cold and it carried on from there.

No issues - people make a freaking huge fuss about it.My ds 7 stills holds my hand in the streat and it's not because he's a freak but because he's so secure in himself he'll grab my hand. Similar co sleeping for those who do it

So glad I was in the majority motherhood on this one.

Don't you think people co sleep because they have bad sleepers? Rather than their DC being bad sleepers because they co slept? Most people I know who have co slept did it because their baby won't sleep in a cot.