To think it's impossible not to cosleep while breastfeeding?

[tootiredtothinkofaclevername]

Has anyone done it? Tell me how - I'm desperate! With DS we had a cosleeper crib attached to the bed. He never went in it. Every time I fed him and transferred him across he woke up and screamed. I put it down to his reflux. I was so sleep deprived because I was constantly worried about smothering him with the duvet. Now I have DD and a similar set up only I've added a sleepyhead to the cot. While she doesn't scream it does wake her up and she just wants to feed again! She's only 4 days old but I just don't want to relive the sleep deprivation.

So tell me - is it possible? What the hell am I getting wrong?

[EC22]

I co slept with all mine, it just felt right and made breastfeeding so much easier x

[sycamore54321]

artandco sorry I only saw your question now. I don't have links to research at my finger tips but a couple of things I recall from reading is (1) Japanese bedding is typically far harder and lower than even firm western mattresses and bedding. Sleeping on a futon on the floor is not what Europeans would imagine is meant by this. The OP has no suggested that this is an option she wants to pursue. 2. There is huge variation in SIDS rates based on ethnicity, which suggests either or both cultural and genetic causes. US research shows that Asian-Americans have SIDS rates that are less than half of other ethnic groups. It is not known why. If we can presume that a large swathe of the Japanese population shares some of this Asian ethnicity, then it is not surprising that Japanese SIDS rates are low (but not non-existent). This tells us nothing though about whether it is safe for a family without predominately Asian genes to co-sleep using the type of bedding arrangements typical of Britain. 3. SIDS is not the only risk of co-sleeping. Lots of other risks like suffocation under an adult's body and falls from beds can equally cause devastating harm to babies and can be almost entirely eliminated by following the current guideline of baby in own cot/basket. It is ill-informed and dangerous to blithely throw about assertions like 'Japanese babies all co-sleep and they are all fine and don't suffer SIDS' when the causes are so poorly understood and the circumstances so complex that direct comparisons are possible.

OP I'm glad the heating the sheet trick is working for you, and I hope everyone in your family, baby included, is getting a little more rest and that you can yourself relax a little without the worry.

[Butterpuff]

I co-sleep more often now dd is 20 months and not BF than we did when she was BF. We had a side cot and I would put her back in that after a feed, put on some tunes for her to listen too and put a hand on her tummy till she was back to sleep, or I fell asleep. We used to tuck her in quite tightly with a blanket so she couldn't wriggle around too much, but not quite swaddled as her arms were always out.

[MuseumOfCurry]

Aw, congratulations OP - your baby is beautiful!

[SnowWhite33]

I personally would not be able to relax cosleeping with a newborn, even if its all set up according to safety standards etc etc.
So we just had a moses basket on a stand next to our bed for the first 3 months or so. Worked out perfectly, first feeding on demand then from about 8 weeks settled into a more predictable schedule.
This way didnt get into a habbit of cosleeping into toddlerhood which i know some of my friends had lots of trouble.
P.s my LO also had reflux

[tootiredtothinkofaclevername]

Thank you to whomever suggested the heating pad - it's done the trick! Last night I warmed the sleepyhead every time I was feeding her and then popped her back in no problem. I slept soooo much better not worrying about her all night. Cheers MN!

[Ketsby]

Baby in own room.

Woke. Went in. Breastfed. Walked out. She slept.

Not 'impossible'. That said, co-sleeping was absolutely not an option as I had no desire to do it. On a few occasions if she did not settle and cried I would go back into the room and shush, settle, whatever, but the very idea of coming into my bed was never planted in her head, so it was never an option.

I found both babies slept a lot better in their own rooms. Their snuffles didn't wake us and ours didn't wake them. Both immediately dropped one of their night wakings upon going into their own room.

[LightDrizzle]

I used a Moses basket at the foot of the bed (only becuase there wasn't enough space by th side). I think swaddling helped a lot with mine, it made them a relatively firm, warm bundle to place back in the basket, got around any cool spot issue, and prevented them waking themselves with their like twitches and jerks. My eldest was a spluttery, windy feeder by day but our night feeds were calm and relatively speedy, I think she was only ever half awake as I used to wake up as her breathing changed and she made pre-feed snuffles and grunts so she got to the breast without winding herself up to crying.

[Matchingbluesocks]

Artandco a Japanese friend told me its a myth that there is no cot death in Japan.

[Matchingbluesocks]

When DD cried I picked her up from the cot and BF her. She dropped night feeds at 4 months. Nothing like impossible. I didn't think of doing it any other way although when she was older and had stopped BF'ing we did co
Sleep for a long time

[Artandco]

Sycamore - what about in places like Japan? Almost 100% co sleep on futons on the floor. They don't even have a word in Japanese a for cot death

[sycamore54321]

Co- sleeping threads on here drive me mad. The OP has said she prefers not to co-sleep, has named one if not two possible risk factors (possible low birth weight and heavily sleeping partner) and asks for advice on how not to do it. Yet she gets a stream of "just co-sleep" responses as if she were irrationally making a big deal over nothing.

This also made me wince - "Cosleeping is only made hazardous by other modern inventions - bedding..." Humans have been using bedding at least since they lost their fur/hair covering. It is nothing new. Nor is 'natural' any guarantee of anything. Just ask any sheep farmer about lambs being smothered or look at mortality rates of newborns in any species. People blithely describing what we know to be unsafe practices like babies sleeping prone on your chest makes me really hope that their luck continues to hold out.

Best of luck OP, I think your concerns are legitimate and you should only cosleep if you reduce all possible risk factors as far as possible and you actually want to do it. It's definitely not for me but please don't feel overwhelmed by the chorus of voices that can make it seem like following the current medical advice is somehow foolish.

[tootiredtothinkofaclevername]

She has been happily asleep in her Moses basket for over 2 hours. It has a thick blanket thing in it that I think she prefers but I worry about overheating. It's similar to this: m..co.uk/ppdp/prod-324490285?docid=221816. She also seems like she could easily wriggle down under it. She seems to prefer to be very warm.

[Ginseng1]

I ebf for 6 months - first 6 weeks r so babies slept on me (colic) only way they'd sleep. DH in spare room. But soon as they got through their wind issues 6-8 weeks they went into the cot in our room I could never get good sleep with them in with me. DD 3.5 mths now n just wakes once a night for feed which is pretty quick.

[foxessocks]

I breastfed my dd and never co slept apart from maybe an hour in the morning after dh had got up. I didn't want to cosleep with dh in the bed and I wanted dh to stay! My dd used to go back in her Moses basket or her cot between feeds without too much trouble . I found a sleeping bag helpful as she stayed in it for her feed and was all warm and cosy when she went back into her bed. Obviously there were periods of time when nothing worked to settle her and I got no sleep. I think that's fairly normal though. I now have a 7 week old who is exactly the same we have good night's and bad nights but not cosleeping.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Actually - swaddle might not be the right term - but I wrapped the baby in a blanket (not too tight) before feeding - so they stayed warm when I put them back in the basket. I imagine that the blanket would have smelled of me, which might also have helped.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Tootired - I didn't manage to breastfeed any of mine for long, but when I was, I didn't co-sleep. What I found helped was swaddling the baby in a blanket before I started feeding them, then they stayed warm and sleepy when I put them back in to the moses basket, instead of being woken up by the cold mattress.

Actually - I carried on doing that when we went over to formula, and it did work.

[ToffeeForEveryone]

Oh she is gorgeous!!

She's so little, if you are managing to get her to lie down in the Sleepyhead you are doing better than I did! DS would wake up instantly and cry if he wasn't being held for the first 5 weeks, wouldn't even let us put him down when he was awake ... drove us nuts. We had to sleep in shifts in the very early days. Just keep trying with the Sleepyhead and she will eventually settle, but it would be completely normal if it takes a few weeks to get to that point. Have you read anything about the fourth trimester? Basically it's a theory that babies all want to stay as close as possible to your body for a couple of months after birth.

I don't know if formula would make a difference at this point, she will still need to feed every hour or so as her stomach is still tiny. I think from week 2 I started expressing a bit though so that DH could give DS a bottle and let me get a brief rest (still had to express that feed though to maintain supply in the early days).

Helps get them used to a bottle too if you are planning to mixed feed - everyone talks about nipple confusion etc and babies refusing breast, but seeing my sister with her bottle refusing baby makes me very glad we introduced one bottle a day early.

This too shall pass! Good luck

[GraceGrape]

I imagine a lot depends on the baby, but I wasn't able to successfully breastfeed without co-sleeping. I was very anti co-sleeping with DD1 but just could not cope with the tiredness (we had weight gain and reflux issues which meant feeding had to be done regularly but also took a long time). I felt like I made a total mess of things and ended up doing bottles at night from about 3 weeks.

DD2 I sat up to feed her. She also took ages to feed and after I fell asleep holding her while sitting up several times, I decided it would be safer to co-sleep. I did as others have done and lay on my side with her in the crook of my arm facing me. No duvet or pillow, dp in the spare room.

As parents, we can only do what we hope is best. We are told breast is best but co-sleeping dangerous. For me personally, that advice was impossible to follow. First time I went with not co-sleeping and bottle-feeding. Second time I did breastfeeding and co-sleeping.

[autumnintheair]

re co sleeping, my baby was literaly by my head but in her own space - with her own bedding and I got proper sleeps next to her without that worry of smothering. It was a god send to me.

[autumnintheair]

I had co sleeper a big one called arms reach it was the best thing ever.

HOwever the original mattress was a bit hard so we purchased another. It was so much easier to transfer baby even with c section than into a moses basket.
must be the transfer!

[OreoHeaven]

She's so new that it's the full on feeding marathons. It will get easier. I had a Bed Nest and waited til the baby was in full on deep sleep before attempting a transfer.

Have you got a Ewan Dream Sheep or a nightie that you've worn that smells of you that you could put on the SleepyHead (assuming it won't move or the baby won't get caught up in it)?

White noise also worth a try. Couple of free phone apps and one noise sounds like a heartbeat/womb noise that worked for us.

[soloula]

Ebf both my two but never coslept. Dd2 went straight into her Moses basket then later crib with no bother. Dd1 we used to put a hot water bottle in her basket/crib when she had a night feed (day feeds were fine) and this helped her settle as she hated getting put back in her cold bed. Just filled it from the hot tap in the ensuite so took a minute before getting her up and just warm enough to take the chill of her mattress.

[Artandco]

All - swaddling is very safe, why not? The only issue years ago was some people swaddles babies hips too tight. You should allow space they can move hips and legs. It's safer than loose blankets also