AIBU to think cosleeping leads to bad sleepers?

[Mrsharper88]

The mums I have chatted to who promote cosleeping seem to complain about their children being bad sleepers. This seems to be until their children are at least toddlers if not even older. This leads me to believe that cosleeping makes bad sleep patterns in babies and toddlers, and does not promote sleeping through. Am I wrong?

For context I am currently cosleeping with my 12week old out of necessity as I can't get him to settle any other way. My older child did not need to cosleep but did need rocking to sleep, this was something he grew out of naturally. My understanding is that children don't grow out of the need to cosleep naturally and I am creating bad habits and should persevere with helping baby to sleep on his own

So Aibu to think that cosleeping leads to a bad sleeper?

I don't drink much so that didn't bother me a lot personally. If I did want to drink I made sure DS was completely in the bedside cot and that I woke up fully for night feeds. This was a pain so I didn't do it very often.

When the babies were tiny I kept them with us in the evenings and I'd/we'd cuddle them, I'd let them cluster feed etc while we watched TV or did whatever evening things we felt like. They are no trouble when they are little. Then from about 8 months with DS1 he started crawling and pulling up and wanting more attention than simply being happy in a bouncy chair or on my lap, so I started putting him to bed early and sneaking away once he was asleep, leaving a monitor. With DS2 he started to be disturbed by our noise etc in the evenings at about 3 months so we started to put him to bed early at about that time.

I did share a bed with XP and I now share a bed with DH, baby is on my side using bedside cot as a guard so they don't fall out. I didn't have sex with XP but that was because he was a nobber, nothing to do with co-sleeping. DH and I probably manage it once every 1-2 weeks (which I think is pretty good going with a 4mo?) either in bed or occasionally on sofa etc. If baby is asleep then it doesn't bother him.

Once both babies were a little older they would be happy to be scooted away from me after they were in a deep sleep which enabled me to choose another sleeping position but yes there were nights I spent uncomfortably on my side.

I did go away with the bab(ies) multiple times, we either used a travel cot or I just put him in the middle between both of us, was always fine. I didn't want to leave mine overnight until they were much older. But from about 8 months I did leave DS1 with a babysitter, just left bottles of expressed milk, he did OK - wasn't always asleep when I got home, even until he was about 3 or so, but that was OK. DS2 I went out on my own and left him with DH from about 4 weeks old! It worked much better and I'm happy to have that flexibility.

It sounds like some of your problems with co-sleeping could be solved by a bedside cot if your baby will settle in one. If you'd prefer to stop altogether there are some good techniques in the books The No Cry Sleep Solution and the Sarah Ockwell-Smith books.

Those of you who have/do cosleep how do you maintain a decent life balance? I am struggling with not being able to drink, not having any evening with DP, not being able to sleep in same bed as DP (let alone anything else!)

At 12 weeks it was just hard in general. I didn't really get adult evenings until a good few months after that, but the baby stayed with us (usually sleeping in someone's arms), I didn't typically go to bed as soon as she did and I think that helped. Also getting a 3-sided cot strapped to the bed helped, that way the baby had her own sleep surface (and we all had a bit more room) but she was still sleeping right next to me.

You aren't 'creating bad habits'. Having a shit sleeper is hard enough without beating yourself up for it!

My friend once said to me, as someone who had her 3 kids have a bed in her room in turn, "she/he won't want to be in my room at 15" and she's been completely right. My 4 year old can now settle in her own bed and I bring her into my room on a spare mattress when I go to bed, most nights she sleeps through til the morning now since being 4. I never thought I'd teach this point with her!! Until she was about 1 she would only sleep on me for naps and would only do a few hours in her cot at a time at night.

I co-slept because I had a bad sleeper and it was the only way to get any sleep!

Most people end up co sleeping because their baby is a terrible sleeper...

This!

We tried every few months for around a month/ 6 weeks each time to stop cosleeping and we just ended up worse than before. He's now 3 and goes down in his own bed but comes in with us at first wake up if not easily put back down. It's resulted in better sleep all round.

We co slept until about 18 months, then did first part of night in cot in own room and in with us from 2am wake up until just under 2, when I stopped bfing. She now sleeps beautifully in her own room with the occasional night with us if she's poorly (she's 2.3).

It is hard with a 12 week old, once they are bigger you can slip away when they are asleep to get your evening back. It's also easier to bf lying down once they are bigger.

To facilitate escapes I managed to slide her into the zip up sidecar crib when she was little, and pillow obstacles, something soft below the drop and monitor vigilance worked when she was bigger.

We also had a sleepyhead, though I think they stopped recommending them soon after.

I also didn't evict DH, instead made my edge of the bed safe (attached crib, then cot or bed rail), and I slept between them.

It also gets easier in terms of positioning, in a couple of months you'll feel more able to sleep in different positions without worrying. After 1 year when she was sturdier and more physically able we would sleep with her in the middle if we needed to.

For us, she woke multiple times a night until after 18 months no matter what, and we coslept so we didn't have to get out of bed all those times. If she'd slept through earlier we'd have moved her earlier. We did try a few times to check it wasn't the cosleeping causing the waking.

I co slept with my eldest til she was 3.5 (by choice) until she announced she wanted to sleep all night in her own room and then she did. She’s nearly 6 and does occasionally wake at night if she’s sick or has a nightmare, but has genuinely been a good enough sleeper.

2nd one is 10 months, bf, normally wakes 1-2 times a night (except for now when he has a chest infection and is getting his molars!). With the exception of teething or sickness (like winter vomiting bug when I had to change the bedding 3 times in one night) I’ve never really been desperately bone tired with either of them, so it’s worked well for us.

I think it's probably the chicken and egg scenario! Our first child never slept with us and slept through at 8 weeks. She is a brilliant sleeper and at 10 yrs old has probably slept with us a handful of times over the yrs. my son didn't settle and we co-slept as he would feed and sleep then and I got some rest. He is now 5 and has always been a poor sleeper. He goes to bed every night in our bed and we move him when we go to bed although he would happily sleep with us every night. I figure this will not continue into his teens so whatever works!

And just to add, co sleeping has never really impinged on life (any more than having a baby does!).

I still drink, just limit my drinking to lunch and pre-dinner/dinner time. I’m fine by the time I co sleep. I love a drink but I don’t need to get hammered just before bed (I do it at lunch if necessary ). Both of mine have, past 3-4 months, always gone to bed upstairs without me either in the bed (before they were mobile) or in a cot. I collect them at first wake up once we’ve gone to bed so I don’t have to get up again. My dh sleeps with us. With our first, he slept on a mattress on the floor but now we have a big family bed with a single and double pushed together. So he’s with us all night and can be hands on as needed for anything other than feeds. It’s also no harder to have, ehem, quality time together, well no harder than for anyone who is touched out and trying to squeeze it in between feeds. But co sleeping isn’t the issue there, more just lack of free time alone when you have small children.

Most parents of a 12wk old baby don’t have a life balance regardless of where they sleep. Are you BFing I found that made me feel more trapped than the co sleeping. If you’re not BF then it doesn’t have to be you in the bed with the baby and you get your space by taking turns with your DP.

I'm not trying to start a feeding argument, which this might, but my understanding is that no one but a breastfeeding mother should be cosleeping with a twelve week old? Obviously DP can be in bed too, but should be on the other side of the mother. My local NHS trust is actually quite pro-cosleeping (which we've tried on and off but doesn't really work for us), but is very clear that it's only safe with a small baby in certain circumstances, one of which is that you breastfeed.

I chose to co-sleep from birth as I feel it’s best for them. By two they were sleeping in their own bed and going through the night. Most people I know who co-sleep say the same. Plus if they did wake in the night it didn’t really disturb me, as they’d quickly settle back to sleep because I was there.

Co-slept with both of ours, both super sleepers now. Totally different children, totally different sleeping styles, the only thing they had in common was being breastfed. DD1 had a rocky start with time in HDU, slow growth, teeny tiny, nursed constantly, was like the princess and the pea as you just couldn't put her down, horrendous teething. At one point she woke every 45mins every night. We'd intended to just have her in the cot next to the bed, but at 8mo I was dangerously exhausted (as was DH as he did the pacing up and down with teething!). So we dropped the side of the cot, attached it to our bed and co-slept. It was a revelation for us all. At two she asked to go into her own bedroom, and it took her some time to settle, but eventually she asked us to let her drop off by herself as we were "breathing too loud" 🤣 She is now 13 and just learning to have a long lie in like any teenager.

DD2 was an easy birth, great feeder, no health problems, napped easily. We co-slept from birth and again at about two she moved easily to sharing a room with her sister. Now they have seperate rooms and although she's a lark in a family of owls, she doesn't affect anyone else with her slightly earlier body clock. She's 8 now and still likes us to tuck her in with a song, and will happily read or watch TV while the rest of us have another hour or so first thing.

In short, anecdata is anecdata and cosleeping worked superbly for us; it very much depends on your expectations, though. Not drinking or going out weren't issues for us because we could see it wasn't forever, and the benefits of good sleep for us all far outweighed anything else.

I would also not be expecting a 12 week old to sleep through either. Human babies are designed to wake frequently.

Co-sleeping is a bad idea. Filmed research has demonstrated the number of times one sleeper disturbs the other. It is also dangerous for a baby under six months. Modern mattresses, duvets etc are an overheating risk (not to mention central heating) why on at night? Despite what parents say there is a very real risk of an overlay. Have you ever watched a time-lapse film of a sleeping adult

I started safe co sleeping with DD when I would be feeding her at night and would find myself literally falling asleep sitting bolt upright in a hard chair with all lights on holding her because I could not keep my eyes open. She was an appalling sleeper as a baby. Co sleeping was very much not the plan, but it was much safer and more restful than dropping or squashing her. Her brother co slept a little because I had a bad leg injury and c section, so I couldn't physically get out of bed and lift him up in the night, but he was happy enough to go into his cot quite early on. He is just fundamentally a better sleeper.

I agree with the pp who said that the baby disturbs your sleep a bit, but that is no bad thing - it means you are aware of the baby's position. I wore a dressing gown and layered pyjamas and just had a cellular blanket, no duvet.

My parents didn't co sleep with my sister (Which is just as well as they are smokers and she was ff), and my early memories are all of her waking the whole house up screaming her head off for hours in the night.

Research actually states co-sleeping mums get more sleep and there is no clear evidence to suggest that co-sleeping causes any risks if safe co-sleeping guidelines are followed.

I agree that the causation is more likely to go 'bad sleeper so cosleep' than the other way - but I also think it's relevant that people willing to contemplate cosleeping are probably on average parenting a bit differently to those who think of it as a line that must not be crossed. In general they're probably less routine driven, and much less likely to be willing to sleep train. They're also more likely to be breastfeeding and so feeding to sleep. All these things probably do affect sleep to some degree (if sleep training didn't 'work' it would be a lot less controversial) but the cosleeping is a correlation there, not a causation.

Co-slept with both of mine more or less from birth. Now DD1 (10) has just moved into her own room properly. She sometimes comes in early in the morning. DD2 (6) is mostly still in with me with occasional nights in her own room. Both girls have had their own rooms for years and the choice was always theirs.

I can't say whether they would have been any better if I hadn't co-slept. All I know is that I couldn't cope with sleep issues when they were little and it suited us all. We're a family of early nighters anyway so there wouldn't be much 'evening with DH' to be had. It works well for all of us and won't last forever.

My wonderful sleeper for the first three years was diagnosed with autism at age 5 and now at age 12 rarely sleeps in her own bed due to high anxiety 🤷‍♀️. You just never know really.

We coslept until our son was nearly 3 - he’s always struggled getting to sleep and he’ll regularly wake around 5am still. It helped to be next to him! We definitely got more sleep this way, even if this was 12 months of him crawling from boob to boob from 4.40 am to 6am when I gave up and got out of bed!

When we finally moved him, we made him a nice room with stuff he liked in it, and he loved it! He hopped straight into bed and has been there ever since.

He still takes a while to drop off. We read him The Rabbit Who Wanted To Go To Sleep which basically hypnotises him to sleep. He will stir once or twice a night most nights but it’s usually a case of putting his duvet back on are lying next to him for 10 minutes or so. He’ll still wake anytime from 4.:0 - 5.45 though. 5.45 is a lie in for us. Last night he slept from 7 - 5.45 which is a good long sleep for him.

When he was a baby we coslept as a three - the un-used coslesper, baby, me, DP so if he rolled into the cot! He didn’t really move much though. When he was bigger he slept between us. I breastfed for a long time so I wasn’t getting drunk unless I stayed with a friend but I’d still have a glass of wine or a beer. If we wanted to have sex we just did it somewhere else!

I let dd2 co sleep from 10 weeks out of sheer exhaustion. At 18 months old we’re averaging 3 hours unbroken sleep on a good night, dh sleeps in the conservatory and I bitterly regret bringing her into my bed. She’s showing no signs of wanting her own bed and I’m absolutely exhausted. All babies are different but co sleeping is my biggest parenting regret

Have you ever watched a time-lapse film of a sleeping adult

I don't think you can compare a normal sleeping adult with a breastfeeding, bedsharing mother and baby. The biology is different!

Ourmaud
Don't beat yourself up. You're doing the best you can! Who knows what would have happened if you'd continued as you were. Exhaustion is really tough to deal with.

I bedshare with my 20 month old and have right from the beginning. We have a super king size bed, which I highly recommend! And I'm quite confident that we won't be sharing with a teenager!

OP, I would relax and try to take it easy. I know it seems like time is standing still when they're so small and like things will be this way forever! But it will get easier.

The first time I coslept for more than a short while I woke up in bloody agony because I'd slept so long in the same position. It's nothing like normal sleep and takes some getting used to.

First one co slept (in co sleeper) because EBF and DD wouldn’t settle.

Second DD had a co sleeper on bed as a sort of pre-empt.
She went into her own bed at 5 months and slept through from 3 months. Depends on the baby.

So IMO YABU to think it leads to bad sleepers.

I co slept and DS was never a bad sleeper.