Co sleeping

[EvadneRhodes]

My son is 13 weeks on Monday. He safely co sleeps with me in bed.

I have no idea when I should move him to his own room. I would happily have him in with me for the foreseeable future as I gave 9 months of maternity leave left, but want to do what's right for him.

I'm ebf so this works well as I feed him in bed.

Any advice? I'm genuinely lost and don't know what's best.

Can you fit a single bed in it or are you planning on moving when when your little one is 2?

The problem for us is we have older children around so sex in other areas of the house is difficult. They go to sleep so late that by the time we are sure they are asleep we are both too tired 🤣

We co slept, had a next to me that ds was in until 6 months (ebf) then into a cot next to our bed then into own room about 14 months. He’s now 2.5 and I love my cuddles in bed in the morning when he comes through. I never get a good sleep if he comes in at night as he starfishes over me 😂
Our relationship hasn’t suffered as my DH loves the cuddles too

You will get into your own routine and what makes you happy

Stressing about this now as our room is too small to fit a big cot in, no spare rooms just a little box room (and sofa of course) but I want to keep DS in with me as want to bf for at least 2 years if I can. I worry our double will be too small for all of us and I'll just end up getting up throughout the night and being exhausted before work the next day...

DD is nearly 7 months and usually ends up in our bed although is in her own room now. DH gets kicked it and I put up some pillows as I’m scared she’ll roll out the bed.

Those who co sleep- how do you stop your baby rolling out of the bed if there’s 3 of you in it? We have a king but don’t seem to have the space. I don’t mind DD in with us but don’t want DH to have to leave all the time!

@Jackshouse we are doing a loft conversion which will be finished in 18 months or so.

Still co sleeping with my near 3 year old. His dad loves it more than me, I think. Or at least, he prefers us all together than him sleeping alone.

Co-sleeping is great for kids. Obviously you have to weigh it up against your own sleep and need for space etc. If you're both happy co-sleeping there's definitely no need to stop. There is no advantage for a young baby to be independent. If at some point in the future it stops you being able to sleep well or you want more space you can reevaluate.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, you do whatever works for you and your husband.

My 18 month old co-sleeps and our 3 year old often joins us too, I’m desperate for them to sleep in their own beds! It’s impossible to have any kind of relationship with my husband if they are sleeping in our bed. I kind of wish I hadn’t started it with our second child. He still breastfeeds every couple of hours and to be honest I want to stop and have our bed back. Our 3 year old was great in her own room until our second child arrived when she was 18 months old. I guess she felt left out in her own room. We are decorating 2 of the bedrooms in the hope that it’ll tempt them out of our room, we are getting desperate!

I have a 3 year old, husband and 1 year old in our super king!
We still love it and I often fall asleep with both children cuddling me.

BUT if you want them in their room once your back at work I would do it before 8 months d which is usually when separation anxiety kicks in or older as they’ll be so used to sleeping with you they may struggle more.

Both of my kids do have their own beds and I remember when they were around 6/7 months trying them both for a few nights and both slept well. But when I tried him again when he was 15 months old it was a disaster... and here we are. I wouldn’t change it NOW but I definitely went through phases of “oh my god I need these kids out of our bed”

I won’t worry about it for now. Things will be different in 3 months and DH will probably change his mind when he realises it means getting more sleep. He can always get sofa bed for the living room. There are loads of different solutions.

@Evadne Could DH sleep on the sofa if it's disturbing his sleep? If you're all enjoying co-sleeping then no need to move DS out if you don't want to and if you don't have the space.

@PerfectPeony - DP still leaves (he can't sleep well with DD in the bed) but I'm on one side of DD and at the side of the bed we have her moses basket and I put a pillow in it. She doesn't roll yet but if she does she'll just roll on to a pillow. I'm not sure about what parents of older kids do though.

We have a king size bed dh is 6ft 4 and 16 stone we all fit and the dog too!

This is exactly what I do.
With my eldest I was very anxious about it so kept on putting him in the crib whenever he was asleep and eventually he got used to it (always picked him up again when he cried)
This time, I'm actually enjoying co sleeping and ebf this time soo so dunno when I'll start moving her into crib.

Although I’ve never been “ready” to move them and even now I can’t imagine my 3 year old being the other end of the house - we have a bungalow and bedrooms are opposite ends :(

Whatever works for you.

Cosleeping is awesome for us. It’s when my DD talks to me about everything and it’s her favourite part of the day. I’m so glad I didn’t try to stop it when she was smaller.

Yea me and dh bought a superking bed when giant ds was still co sleeping at 18m and we weren’t ready to stop but couldn’t stand the wriggling all night! Best thing we did and has seen us through with DD and another on the way who will cosleep!

I truly cannot express how beautiful an experience it has been, or how grateful I am to have bucked convention and allowed it.

I agree- although it wasn;t planned and not something I gave too much thought to.
At one point there were 4 of us all sleeping in a huge bed.
My kids were around 3 or 4 when they moved to their own beds, a gradual easy transition.
Bedtimes have always been happy times, no tears no tantrums ever,

Our bed has DHs side against the wall then me in the middle and baby on the side with a bed guard so no rolling out.

We absolutely love co-sleeping. DD is two and a half and I can't see her moving into her own bed any time soon. She still breastfeeds to sleep and if she wakes in the night she can help herself without disturbing me too much. I get a lot of judgemental people raising their eyebrows (only ever after they've asked about our sleeping arrangements as I never volunteer the information) but really it's the norm across vast swathes of the population of our planet. It's modern western society that's the "odd one out" with very young babies in their own rooms etc.

Do whatever suits you and your family, OP. Don't be swayed by what is the norm or what your friends think you should do. But remind your husband that it's you who will be up and down like a yoyo breastfeeding a baby in another room all night and he might like to consider your wellbeing as well as his own when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Good luck with it all!

@PerfectPeony Can't speak for anyone else but I have a bed rail on my side of the bed, I got it in Asda - it sits under the mattress and has anchors that go all the way through to the other side.

@EvadneRhodes my dd dropped her last night feed at 7 months so you won't have to keep getting up through the night necessarily.

@speakout : we didn't plan this arrangement, either; just seemed to us that closeness and calm (for our child and for us) trumped separation and stress.

This, of course, was made an easy choice by the fact that we were all sleeping well and happy with the arrangement.

We did attempt to have our child sleep in her own room at some point (because our maternity nurse insisted it was "correct"), but sleeping with one ear open for a baby monitor was, for me, far more difficult than just having our DC close by.

For us, parenthood during her first year meant an increased level of vigilance during the nighttime hours that we could not control, and couldn't have anticipated pre-the arrival of our dc.

DC was also EBF, so sleeping together was simpler, easier and more restful for me.

Later, post-weaning, the decision to continue co-sleeping was not about a failure to enforce boundaries, or ceding control of our nights to the whims of a child.

Instead it was about our realisation that we loved having our DC close, and that the DC loved it as well. With that understanding it was clear that since our wants and those of our DC were in sync, forcing our child to sleep away from us would, in our case, have offered us nothing but the approval of others.

I might not be much help as we had space for dh to sleep in a different room but...
I had a Moses basket beside my bed. After every feed I would try and put her down in it. If she didn’t go down, I’d cuddle her to calm her down. If she didn’t go down that time then we co-slept and we both got some sleep. I reckon around 4 months, she was in the basket more often than not. By 7 months she was in a cot in her own room. By a year she was sleeping through. By 18 months (3 months ago), sleep was for losers and I was cuddling her back to sleep 3 times a night.
In short, if it means you get sleep, do it!xx

We coslept from the beginning, DH used to sleep elsewhere while DS was tiny and we put barriers on both sides of the bed. It gets a bit hot all together, and he started trying to climb over the barriers, plus will only try to get out of bed feet first about half the time. So we've set up a den at the side with a mattress then thick pillows to the wall. He sleeps by himself (barring fussing and late feeds) until some point and then one of us will join him (me if he wants a feed). Crack on as long as you like, it's lovely.