Exclusive breastfeeders past & present...a little poll for you.

[vlc]

A dear friend of mine is expecting her first baby soon. She is very committed to exclusive breastfeeding. She (as I did) bought a cot, moses basket, carrycot etc in the very reasonable expectation that the baby will sleep peacefully in one of them.

My own experience is that after only a few days of concerted effort trying and failing to persuade dd to sleep in her amby hammock, I gave in and co-slept out of desperation, and never looked back. I personally would not have succeeded in excl bf for 6 months if I has persevered in seperate sleeping arrangements. For me, the one enabled the other.

I was just wondering, though, what the MN experience has been. If you successfully bf exclusively, did you co-sleep occasionally, regularly, or never?

Just curious, really!

[Aitch]

re-hijacks. thanks witchandchips. i do just want it to click into place now, though, and it REALLY doesn't seem to be. i should start a thread but it's SO boring and depressing.

[gokwancarr]

ocassionally co-slept......by that i mean for a couple of hours a night a few times a week. only ever done whole night twice, and that was due to dd being very unsettled.....excl bf after first 4 weeks of dd life till weaning started at 5 n half months.

[MissusH]

I am exclusively bfing dd2. She co-slept for the first 3wks or so, now she is in her cot in our room (mainly due to lack of room in the bed!)

the night feeds are not so bad even though I haven't mastered the art of feeding lying down...

[FiveDollarShake]

I ExBF for the first 6 months and Im still bf at 9 months.....we've never co-slept.
DD was happy in her cot from the start. I still feed in the night but just feed her sat up in bed and then put her down in her cot when she's finished. I think I've been lucky in that she never really woke more than twice a night for a feed from the beginning. She now wakes once a night and feeds very quickly....10 mins tops.

If I'd had a baby that wanted to feed constantly then I probably would have co-slept out of desperation. Im not sure DP would have been happy with this though he has a morbid fear of rolling over and squashing DC which is probably why DS and DD never co-slept.

[youknownothingofthecrunch]

I took the side off the cot and had it right up to my bed so that all I had to do was reach over to him, but he was "safe" (before he could move at all of course) and I could get to him without having to leave bed.

[belgo]

DD1: ex bf, never co-slept - maybe she would have been easier if we had?
DD2: ex bf, sometimes co-slept, sometimes she slept in the cot.
DS: ex bf, co-sleeping from day 1. Very calm baby.

[EachPeachPearMum]

I exclusively bf for 17mo with DD- we never co-slept- she would never have gone to sleep with us next to her- too stimulating for her.
On the odd occasions we tried when she was older... she would lie next to us, stroking our faces and giggling saying 'Mama'... 'Papa'... she found it hilarious.

She was in a moses basket, then a cotbed next to our bed for 5.5 mo, then went in her own room, where she started sleeping much better- she was such a noisy sleeper!

[Gemzooks]

I exclusively bf for 1 year (DS started solid food at 5 months and I gradually wound down the breastmilk so he went straight onto cows milk at 1 year.

Never co slept, followed GF routine more or less. He was a glugger who took full feeds and then slept happily. Depends on the baby, if they are a fitful feeder it might be different. It's good to learn techniques for getting them to take a good feed and also keep your milk supply up by trying to nap yourself and eat a lot of regular food, as when you get tired you can produce a lot less..

[MegBusset]

DS slept well in his crib until he was 13 weeks, when it all went tits up. So then we co-slept (he would start in his crib/cot then come into bed when he woke) until he was about 9mo. He was exclusively BF to 6mo and self-weaned at 20mo.

[SamJamsmum]

Exclusive breastfeeding.
Always co-slept.
With baby #2 I actually gave away my cot beforehand.
If I was having a third baby I would also set out to co-sleep having heard Dr Helen Ball from the Uni of Durham speak about her research into co-sleeping and its benefits for breastfeeding.
More here:

www.dur.ac.uk/sleep.lab/presentations/

The 2005 infant feeding survey found 61% of bfing mothers co-sleep in some form. And it was recommended 'mothers need to be encouraged to adopt safe co-sleeping practices.'
Now that the FSID folks have come in on the UNICEF co-sleeping leaflet I think co-sleeping is more acknowledged and appreciated than it has been for a while.

[Joolyjoolyjoo]

With dd1 I also, like a previous poster, believed all the stuff about forming bad habits, so I sat in a chair by her bed, almost nodding off on top of her while she fed- it was awful , but bf her exclusively until she was about 8 mths, when she lost interest

With dd2, I used to bring her into bed to feed her, and often dropped off with her still feeding- and sometimes woke back up hours later to find she had latched herself on again!! I was so exhausted with a toddler and a baby that it was the only way I could have done it. She was exclusively bf until about 7 mths

With ds, I was far more confident with the whole co-sleeping thing. He started the night in his cot/ moses basket, but usually ended up in ours after the first night feed- so much easier! He is still bf at 13 mths- and still sometimes comes in around 6.30 am for a feed and a cuddle, although he no longer really feeds during the day.

[TreeTrunkThighs]

If you count passing out through exhaustion and waking up with baby in bed next to me as co-sleeping then we did it once. She slept in moses basket next to my bed for 8 weeks then went into her own room in the cot. Pram carry cot was used lots in the day indoors for naps and out walking. We bf exclusively for 22 weeks. No bottles of ebm in there either. We are still bf now at 13 months. So your friend may well get use out of her purchases

[MrsTittleMouse]

DD1 - exclusively breastfed - I didn't cosleep (and was still paranoid about cotdeath). Otherwise I coped with DD1 screaming because she didn't want to be in the Moses basket (or rather, I spent a lot of time picking her up, rocking her etc. etc.).

DD2 - exclusively breastfed - we cosleep pretty much every night. I still worry about cotdeath, but need to sleep or I'd never deal with both of them during the day. I keep thinking that there will be a good time to move her out, but it doesn't happen, and I'm really worried that I've conditioned her to cosleep now.

I'm so of people with babies who sleep! The Moses basket has always been positioned so that I don't have to go to bed, so it doesn't benefit me that they cosleep (except that they will actually sleep, of course).

[Bainmarie]

Dd sometimes co-slept.
DS1 sometimes co-slept.
DS2 always co-sleep (planned though).

[Bainmarie]

Dd sometimes co-slept.
DS1 sometimes co-slept.
DS2 always co-sleep (planned though).

[artichokes]

I exclusively BFed DD until she was 14 months but we never co-slept.

I jcould not sleep with DD in the bed and she wanted to suckle the whole time if she was lying next to me.

For the first 6 months she was in a moses basket at the end of the bed. Then she started to sleep through so I moved her down to her own cot in her own room.

[MrsFogi]

Co-slept and bf for 9 mths with both dds - best way to get as much sleep as possible!

[alipalli]

Not read all the posts but I had no idea that co-sleeping went hand in hand with excl-bf to such and extent.

DS now 5 months. Exc- bf and should get to 6 months barring a crisis. Only co-sleep when really struggling to settle DS. I don't find it especially comfortable and we only have a double bed so find it a bit squashed for all three of us. Another factor was that following a c/s I could not roll onto my side for the first 3 or 4 weeks, so it was impossible.

DS was in a carrycot for the first 5 weeks but got too big for it so then went into his cot in his own room. When he wakes in the night I feed him in his room, but now it's winter I am finding it a bit chilly!

[Habbibu]

Excl bf for 6 months - carried on bf until dd was 20 mo. She slept beside our bed - I'm not a great sleeper anyway, and was very twitchy with her beside me. But - she was a great feeder - had longish feeds, but then long sleeps in between. She slept in her big silver cross pram in our bedroom(!) - she quite liked the motion if we leaned out and tapped it a bit.

If I have another one I might try a sidecar type arrangement.

[Habbibu]

Excl bf for 6 months - carried on bf until dd was 20 mo. She slept beside our bed - I'm not a great sleeper anyway, and was very twitchy with her beside me. But - she was a great feeder - had longish feeds, but then long sleeps in between. She slept in her big silver cross pram in our bedroom(!) - she quite liked the motion if we leaned out and tapped it a bit.

If I have another one I might try a sidecar type arrangement.

[PrettyCandles]

I have co-slept to one degree or another with all of my babies, fed in all ways (mix-fed, and breastfed). The more confident I grew, the more I co-slept, until, with dc3, we didn't even bother building the cot until he was nearly 3m.

[thirdname]

always

[marge2]

BF DS1 for 1 year and DS2 for 18 months. Never co-slept apart from if they were ill and needed propping up on my chest. DS1 in Moses basket by bed for 2 weeks - then into his own room. DS 2 in moses basket by bed for 3 months as I was worried he would wake DS1 up - then into his own room. Swaddled both. I just used to get up and trog upstairs in the dark in a dream, feed, and put them straight back down and go back to my own bed.

I just could NOT co sleep - I found I would just lie awake uncomfy as they rolled in further and further towards me.

[francagoestohollywood]

I exclusively breast fed mine for the first 6 months and we co-slept occasionally. It happened mainly in the first few months, when I was too knackered to actually leave the bed to reposition baby in the cot. Both mine slept in a cot in our bedroom. Ds until he was 2 (he was a bad sleeper, I preferred to have him close and not risking to fall down the stairs every time he woke up), dd until she was 8 or 9 months.

[MrsBadger]

started cosleeping when dd's sleep went haywire at 4m

stopped at about 8m when I had to go back to work - the disturbed sleep and constant feeding was fine when we could doze together all morning but I couldn;t cope with it once I had to get up at 6.30 again

still bf at 15m though