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?

I formula fed from birth. I still co sleep with my 2 year old sometimes. At that stage she was feeding every two hours for 40 minutes. Then she had to be held upright to avoid waking herself up being sick for 20 minutes. I got 4 x 1 hour blocks of sleep a night because my husband worked away alot. Formula isn't some magic bullet for making babies sleep, some babies just love lots of cuddles hard as that is.

Use a light blanket or cellular blanket over you and baby up to your waist, you can stick your legs under the duvet.

Wear a jumper to bed so you stay warm too. Keep the heating on if you need to and can afford it.
Read up on consleeping- Meg Nagel "the milk Meg" has fine great articles about co sleeping and a book out too that's supposed to be excellent.
Good luck- Co sleeping saved my sanity!

Both mine slept in with me for the first 3 months. When they were falling asleep quickly after feeds they went in their own room because I was knackered by their wriggling and snuffling by then. At this point DH did a late night formula feed so I could get a longer stretch of sleep. This was because I didn't get on with expressing. They woke just as much with formula.

Lots if older mums admitted to having the baby in with the them but they never admitted to it. Some babies need more cuddles and disturbed 'co-sleeping' sleep is better than no sleep in the early days. No idea how parents can tolerate it long term. Didn't help that DH had to sleep in the spare room due to pain meds. Wouldn't have been safe to have him in with us.

Haven't read the whole thread.

Currently co-sleeping with a 9-day-old baby. DH is in a different room. All covers and pillows are off my bed. I sleep in a fleece and fluffy socks. I wouldn't get any sleep otherwise as DD2 will not be put down at night time. She cluster feeds 8pm til 1ish so I stay up until then then we both go to sleep side by side for the rest of the night. I discussed it with my midwife first and she is supportive and encouraging.

I didn't co-sleep with DD1 and she refused to go into her cot/basket until she was 3 weeks old. I was so sleep deprived by that point that I'd started to hallucinate. I'm not doing that again.

We had a Moses basket next to the bed. Feed then straight back in the basket once baby was dozing off. Went into own room quite early and supplemented with formula when I needed sleep or wanted to leave baby with dad so I could go out. During the day I had a big coach pram and baby slept in there between feeds. I imagine I would have become terribly depressed if I had carried the baby all day and co-slept. Horses for courses.

I breastfed four babies. I didn't Co sleep with the first two, did with the second two.

It can be done but it nearly destroyed my sanity. I wouldn't do it again.

I'd be more worried about swaddling than Co sleeping tbh from a safety point of view.

Baby on the outside so she's not next to dh. You sleep in a c shape around her so she can't go near the pillow. Tuck the duvet between your legs so it's not near her.

Op re block feeding do not try this until baby is over six weeks old and your supply is established. An over supply is normal as your milk comes in and will settle, if you block feed now you risk ending up with an under supply.

The foremilk /hindmilk thing is a bit of a myth. There us fat in all the feed but it progressively gets fattier the longer baby feeds.

This stage is exhausting but normal.

I have Co slept with all the madthings, number six is six months old and sleeps in my arm. I follow safe Co sleep guidelines re covers etc.

It so very much depends on your baby. I hated, loathed, the idea of cosleeping and tried every trick in the book to get DD to sleep in her moses basket. After months, when I was bursting into tears for no reason and feeling sick with tiredness I eventually gave in and finally got some sleep. Little bugger just didn't want to sleep without some physical contact. FWIW she's 2.3 now, still fed to sleep (only breastfeed of the day) and does 11 hours in her cot most nights now. DC2 is due soon, I'd prefer to not cosleep with him but if he's the same as his sister I'll give in and get some sleep a hell of a lot sooner.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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