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!

Fed DS1 for 10 months, co-slept.
Feeding DS2 & co-sleeping

co-sleep occaisionally. Bfed both my other two and bfeeding DD2 at present.

I have a crib next to the bed- don't need to get out of my own bed to pick them up.

dd co-slept / bedside cot combo excl BF and extended BF but she never took to being fed lying down which at first was hard work

Tried a bit of co-sleeping with dd and hated it. I couldn't sleep and she learned to prefer to sleep on her side. She then became hysterical when on her back. I bf her exclusively for 5 months and continued til 12 months.

DS, I fed exclusively for 8 months and carried on til 12 months. Never co-slept.

With both dcs I found it better to get up and wake them up a bit more for them to feed. Otherwise both would only feed for about 5 - 10 mins, fall asleep and then wake yelling for food 2 hours later. Oh, and they both threw up a lot as well, which is obviously not great when co-sleeping.

DD2 has co-slept since birth (20 months). Still BF.

DD1 BF until 15 mo occasionally co-slept but mainly didn't.

DS1 and DS2 BF to 15 mo and never co-slept.

DS3 BF to 13 mo and co-slept occasionally until he was almost 12 years old

Am ex BF, apart from a little 'hiccup' in the first week due to jaundice and paed's orders to top-up with formula. After initially having a sleepy DS in the moses basket that needed to be woken up we had a clingy DS that would wake as soon as I moved him after a feed. Discovered the easiest way to keep him asleep after a feed was to feed lying down - was also the best way for all of us to get the most amount of sleep. Didn't last long though, only co-slept from 2 weeks to 8 weeks when we moved him into a bedside cot, after I got backache from lying on my side too much.

He's only 12 weeks now and I love the bedside cot. I sometimes feed him lying down, half in half out of his cot. But mainly sit up in bed to feed as he seems to get a proper feed that way and I can practically do it in my sleep. Lying down he just snacks on and off waking me up with his 'still hungry' snuffles whenever I roll onto my back.

Brought him onto my part of the bed this morning for a lazy lying down feed (in an effort to stretch my lie-in a bit further), but he wanted to go back to his cot after he finished .

Only co slept occasionally, when ds was tiny, up to about the age of 8 weeks or so. He would start off in the moses basket next to my side of the bed, but when he woke in the night, after a feed he would be reluctant to go back in there, so he'd spend the rest of the night asleep on my chest. He pretty much stopped needing this when he was about 8 weeks old, with the occasional relapse. At 6 months he went in to his cot in his room without a whimper (couldn't say the same about me!) and he's slept there since. From about 10 weeks he was only having one feed a night (plus a dream feed before I went to bed) so I didn't really need to co-sleep and from about 7 months he was going through the night completely from 7 to 7. I never had any problems bfing, though my supply was sometimes not great, which is why I kept the 10.30pm dream feed until ds was 1. He self weaned a week later - I guess giving up that late feed killed off my supply (I was back at work full time by then, only feeding twice a day)

I only started co sleeping at around 9 months. DS was exclusively bf for 23 weeks.

Am still co sleeping with both - ds1 is 5 and ds2 is 18mo.
It gets crowded...
Ds2 still bf and I have been trying to stop for about 4 months but failing...

Co slept with DS1 till he was about 6 months or so and b-fed him till he was 2.
Co sleeping with DS2 who is 18 months (starts in his cot but wakes up every night and comes in with us), is still b-fed.

Think co sleeping makes it much easier to feed and sleep at night...

dd1 - V rarely co-slept, too worried about squashing her. She slept in a moses basket then went into big cot in her own room at 12 weeks. She was a good sleeper, fell asleep without help from me, woke up twice a night for a feed but was quick and back to sleep really quickly.

dd2 - Sort of half co-slept. Slept in an Amby hammock was a great sleeper when tiny, it all went pear shaped between about 9 and 13 months and I co-slept with her a lot in that phase. Didn't really suit either of though, she ended up getting fed up with me and slept better on her own in the cot. She's a great sleeper now.

I BF my ds for 10 months without co-sleeping - I was far too paranoid about squashing him and wouldn't have slept at all.
He started in moses basket at the side of the bed, then cot in our room, then cot in his own room.
My biggest problem was not getting up to feed him but the middle of the night nappy changes...I have always been curious as to how co-sleepers who claim to roll over, feed then go back to sleep cope with this aspect.

I am still bfding my 2.11 ds at bedtime. We co-slept from 5 months, and it was so much easier after that!

DS bf until nearly 2, co-slept for most of first 15 mo. Less to do with bfing and more to do with his horrendous sleeping patterns though!

Regularly part time (ie he started in his cot and then came into bed with us). Exc bf to 6 months and then bf until 2. Stopped regularly cosleeping at 18 months

ds - excl bf to 6 months, bf up to 1 yr - never/very very rarely co-slept - moses basket then cot
dd - excl bf to about 4 mths, bf up to 9 mths - coslept regularly from about 2 months onwards.

I found the whole sleeping thing (>feeding) much easier with co-sleeping. But don't think I would have had the confidence to do that with my first.

Bf three boys for 13/12/17 months.
All were in same room as me for first 6-8months in basket/cot but only
co-slept "informally" i.e. when i fell asleep while feeding.

I am still feeding my 14 month old and we have never co-slept. She was in the moses basket next to my bed for the first 4 1/2 months. I wouldn't have minded cosleeping but she would never settle in my bed.

Actually just realised we did for the first week but not after that as she slept better in the basket. She is an awful sleeper though I still get woken up now...but if I bring her into our bed she just wants to play.

Haven't read all of the posts, but doesn't it seem that far more girls than boys seem to settle happily in their own cots? Though I love co-sleeping.

ds1 - bf and co-slept until 3 years old, although I couldn't feed him lying down, when he was tiny - painful latch - so dutifully sat on my chair in the bedroom 3 or 4 times a night!

ds2 - bf and co-slept from birth until 3.5 years old (and still do at 5.5) "It is one of the loveliest things in the world to sleep curled around your sleeping baby. It's like having a warm teddy" That's me too, Prettycandles. DS2 is a brilliant sleeper, and the snuggliest thing in the world! He usually wakes once a night to turn over, smile at me, and sometimes say "I love you, Mummy" before going back to sleep.

Never co-slept, have exclusively breast fed two babies.

3 x exclusive bf for 12/12/16 months.

None of them regularly co-slept, DS (the youngest) would occasionally - he was a heat seeking baby who would hang off my neck hence I got no sleep. He was soon chucked back into his own bed.

No feeding lying down for me - huge boobs just didn't allow. And none of this baby helping themself lark either, generally sat-up fed and popped back into either crib or cot depending on age. Two girls slept 8-6 ish from 10 weeks and 12 weeks so no real need to be honest. DS again was a different but fed in about 10 minutes and was happy to be popped back into bed afterwards. He didn't really sleep throught until about a year so was a marginal pain in the butt but much less than sleeping with him.

Ex bfed all my 3 boys. Didn't co-sleep at all with ds1 and ds2 but this time round I did it out of necessity in those 1st few weeks when he fed sooo often, then gradually he got more used to his moses basket and now cot. He's 5 months now and I bring him in bed with me for the early morning feed which is about 5am ish, then I can have a cuddle and he'll sleep. I even get a lie in at the weekends!

All three of mine where breast fed but we never co-slept. Did do night feeds in bed but hubby stayed awake and put babies back in there bed.

exclusively bf dd1 to 5 months ish
co-slept hardly at all, perhaps one or two occasions. was willing but dd1 did not sleep well in bed with us, so slept beside us in a moses basket then cot.
excl bf dd2 to 6/7 months. coslept a little more often but dd2 in separate cot (by side of our bed) after a few weeks.