why is co-sleeping supposed to be easier for bfing??

[CamperFan]

By this I mean baby sleeping in the bed, not in the room. I would much prefer DS2 settled in his cot next to my bed, which he does during the first half of the night, not so much the second part of the night and often comes in my bed. What I don't understand is why people recommend sharing a bed to make bfing easier - you still need to wind baby, get up and change nappies, go to loo, swap sides, mop up copious amounts of sick all over the bedding, clothes etc (he is particularly pukey which is another issue entirely). So why is it better to share a bed, rather than feed in bed and transfer back to cot??

I don't know about better but I think it was easier for me and also my two just went to sleep more quickly if I was near.

I think everyone has to listen to advice and then adapt it to suit themselves. You have to find something that suits you which works..

I'm another one whose baby definitely does need winding. Like the OP i put DD in a cot next to my bed at the start of the night and then move her in with me when she wakes.

If I don't wind her after she feeds she will fall to sleep for about 30 mins then wake up writhing and grunting until she is winded. Once she has burped or farted she goes back to sleep.

It annoys me hugely when people say BF babies don't get wind because some obviously do!

I also sleep with a towel under the sheet to stop the baby sick soaking through to the mattress because she is almost always sick at least once during the night.

Fortunately she never poos in the night so thats something :).

Like the OP I find co-sleeping for the second half of the night a means to an end because it's hard to settle her back into her cot when she wakes up but I would love her to stay in her cot all night.

Why would co-sleeping stop you going to the loo?

Its such a pleasure reading this thread. Have been co sleeping with DD who is 20weeks from birth but have felt really guilty about it as hardly anyone i know does it.It has made nights so much easier as have not needed to wind her or change nappies until the morning and have been able to get some much needed sleep. Was nervous at first as people advise against it but it has worked for us although DP may disagree slightly Am also a little worried about moving her into her own room as have a feeling this might be difficult!

Does no one change their baby's nappy at all during the night even when it's full of urine?? I find that although DS2 doesn't always poo during the night, he needs usually one change of nappy around 3am, because he's done a lot of peeing! I'd feel bad leaving him with a huge swollen nappy, and there's always the chance it will leak out of the sleepsuit, sleeping bag, onto the sheet etc. Then I'd have a whole load more work to do rather than just simply changing a nappy to begin with.

Where do you put the baby when you're in the toilet? That's my question.

If I need the loo at night, I either leave DD asleep in the bed or, if she is awake (more likely as she is probably the one who has woken me), I latch her on and then carry her to the loo and wee whilst she feeds. Not v. elegant but works ok. She is 10months and crawling now so couldn't risk leaving her in the bed awake as she would be over the edge like a streak of lightening LOL

I never winded DS at night (nor during the day most of the time).

Although your baby poos when fed now, that might change with time. Many BF babies don't poo for days on end.

One of the great things about co-sleeping for me was that I found if I fed DS as soon as he woke up next to me, we'd both drift back off to sleep for another precious hour

Why not keep a bottle of water by your bed? Sleep is precious and anything that might help you get more is worth a shot!

lovechoc, when DD was tiny, say up to 6 weeks, I used to change her nappy at night. But now she never poos overnight and normally in the morning her nappy is wet but not bursting IYSWIM.
I found the nappy changing woke her up even more. When I stopped changing her it went from her being up for 45 mins or so to taking only 5-10 minutes to feed her and get her back down.

I just leave ds in bed if I'm going to the loo. He's not crawling though and can't fall out.

I also found that after the first month or so ds almost never pooed at night. I just put a couple of extra boosters and a fleece wrap on his nappy and it lasts til morning with no wee leaking.

I guess it depends on the baby.

DD never needed burping and didn't puke until she went to nursery and caught vomiting bugs. She also stopped pooing in the night around 6-7 weeks (now 22 months). If she isn't pooey, I wouldn't want to wake her by changing her and she very rarely gets nappy rash.

So for us cosleeping and BFing has been very easy. DD just latches on in her sleep (often in my sleep too...) and drops off when she's had enough. No mess, no fuss, no waking.

Yes, I'd just leave DD in the bed to go to the loo on the rare occasions I need to. We have bed guards so I wasn't too worried about being gone for 2 mins.

DS also goes to bed at 7pm, so has 3-4 hours on his own before we go to bed - so nipping to the loo or to get a drink isn't too much of an issue.

reshape

cos sooner or later he will need to go in a cot, and he wont like it!!! but dp wants to come back to bed and its not safe with 3 of us

We live in a country where co-sleeping is the norm. The whole family sleeps on several futons laid out on the floor (you can guess my country now!). The children sleep between the parents and usually graduate to their own room from about 5-6 yrs.

I get a lot of questions at mother and toddler group about sleeping conditions in the West and am sometimes shocked by the barbaric way in which European child-rearing practices are viewed. One mother even asked me "Is it true that you shut your children in another room at night?". Other mothers have commented how saintly Western mothers must be to get up in the middle of the night and go to the baby's room so many times.

My husband and mother in law were persuading me to give co-sleeping a go before I was even pregnant and that is what we are now doing.

On the whole it has been great. I can bf without even waking up and dd often wakes up for a second only to snuggle up to us and go back to sleep. However, dd is now 13m and sometimes she can't just bf back to sleep. At these times she is wandering around the bed trying to wake us up, talking, pulling our noses, etc. I usually try and pretend to be asleep (it is difficult to go to the toilet at this time!) and she eventually gives up or I feed her to sleep. At these times, I have sometimes wished for a traditional 'cage' style cot in order to mark out the boundaries a bit .

On balance though, I'm glad I chose to co-sleep becaue of the closeness I can feel with my baby, especially after going back to work full time.

Co-sleeping is very, very dangerous. It is one of the commonest causes of SIDS. I got in trouble on another site for suggesting that parents who co-sleep should be put in jail. But then I lost my daughter to SIDS, so this is something I am passionate about.

Before you consider co-sleeping, please, please DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!

How do you feed from both sides if you are co-sleeping as I thought the advice was to not have baby between you and partner?

I co-slept with DS for the first 5.5 months. It was easier, as we had had to start off bf'ing lying down anyway, he had a tonguetie so found it hard to latch any other way and fed for up to 2h at a time until it was separated at ~2w.

DS was never a pukey baby, very rarely even posseted. So no probs there. I had him on a muslin in the bed anyway, just in case he did, then anything went on that, not my sheets. If he poo'd, I'd change him of course, but if he didn't then we just went back to sleep. Initially I tried to wind him, but it used to make him fretful and wakeful, so after a while I stopped bothering and it never caused a problem! Often as not, he'd burp while lying down anyway.

DH slept in the spare room while I co-slept - his choice - so I had the entire bed to cope with small baby. I used pillows on the edges of the bed like bolsters, so he couldn't roll out (he never even got close to them initially, he barely moved) - so going to the loo in the middle of the night wasn't really an issue of safety, I'd just leave him there and go. He never went under the duvet, just under a sheet, with or without blanket, and his own baby blanket.

Once he was in his cot after 5.5m, I used to mostly feed him in his room, sitting in a chair - but as often as not, I would find that I was dozing off and then I would take him back to bed with me, for safety and comfort for both of us.

FullaDoll - I am sorry for your loss - how awful for you. However, co-sleeping is NOT a caused for SIDS. Deaths as a result of co-sleeping (baby being squashed, baby suffocating under duvets, baby falling out of bed) are not, and should not be classified as, SIDS.

Done properly, co-sleeping is as safe as other methods.

Oh fulladoll - so very sorry for your loss but the research doesn't go along with your assessment. In fact a co sleeping bf baby is at lower risk of SIDS than a ff baby in a cot if the co sleeping is done safely - plenty of space, not under covers, no alcohol or smoking etc. Safe co sleeping is great and removes the risk of falling asleep in a chair/ sofa etc during a feed where SIDS risk or overlying is a real possibility. As ayamama says whole countries/cultures co sleep and they have consistently lower SIDS rates than here in UK.

I haven't read the whole thread, just the OP, but I found it far, far easier because there is a masssive difference between waking up and actually getting up. That shift when you have to stand on your feet and move, even to another part of the same room, is far more disturbing to sleep than just waking a bit, turning over, and drowsing while your baby feeds.

Winding is just a case of propping up on pillows a bit, while you hold them against you...changing nappies I found unusual at night. Swapping sides is easy when baby is small. It only gets hard when they are massive 3yos and hard to physically lift over yourself while staying still.

I had one who was sick a lot, just covered top of bed in towels and blankets etc, to be removed as soiled...

Going to the loo never really disturbed mine!
You get that feeling, when they're gone, they're gone.

Sex is a bit of an issue.

Saying that I did 'lose' one of mine under the duvet briefly, one time which scared me silly.

So you have to be really careful with duvets, remember to keep them separate and just cover your baby with a blanket or sheet. Keep the duvet on yourself only.

Actually, the research DOES suggest a link between co-sleeping and SIDS.

Sorry Fulladoll. How awful for you. Would you be kind enough to link to the research you mention, so we can have a look? I'd be interested to see what they say.

I had both of mine in bed with me when we first got home from hospital (I had a c-section, so moving was difficult) but then moved them to their crib and fairly quickly out of the bedroom because I simply could not sleep with them there. They were way too noisy, and I found it quite stressful. I never managed to feed lying down - it just resulted in milk going everywhere, and then I couldn't sleep because the bed was smelly and sticky.

I found that for me, getting up and feeding them in my very comfortable armchair worked best, and getting back into bed with warm and snuggly dh I fell back to sleep very fast, having not been very awake in the first place (one great advantage of BF - not much conscious thought required).

The research is out there, although it is not easy to find. The most well-known study focused on mothers who abuse alcohol and drugs, which is not that helpful.

There was a lot of research going on into the dangers of co-sleeping a few years ago. Sadly, most of those research projects were abandoned due to pressure from the co-sleeping lobby, but also because they were deemed 'culturally insensitive'.