Actually a question about co-sleeping...

[willowstar]

I have noticed quite a few people on here co-sleep so thought i would post on here.

We co-sleep with our 8 month old daughter. we never really meant to (before I had her I actually said something like no way would i ever sleep with my baby, babies should be in their own rooms etc!)...but of course reality is different and because of the breastfeeding and one thing and another we have ended up sleeping with her.

my husband has adapted our bed so that I have one side of the king, she has the other and he sleeps on a single that is attached at the same level.

now as I am terrified of smothering her, I usually put her quite far up the bed and lower my pillow to her feet level so that there is no way she can end up under the quilt. however in the last few weeks she is getting increasingly active and I am not sure what to do. she has started rolling onto her front to sleep and ending up pretty far down the bed and I am waking up with her next to me face down.

I am so worried about her smothering that I am not sleeping...you know how it is, you wake up and have to touch her to make sure she is still alive! So...any tips on how to keep her contained a bit or is that impossible?

oh and the other thing is that she is almost crawling and will be able to get out of the bed soon...what do you do? Do you put the mattress on the floor or have you managed to put some kind of barriers around the bed?

this is totally unchartered territory for us, we can't talk about it to other people due to universal dissaproval so I have no idea what to do.

I'm thinking that you can buy co-sleeping 'areas' that sit onto your mattress.......something like this perhaps?
here?

I did once wake up and DS was lying with his face head down against my arm. I was petrified. That was when DH wasn't even in the bed with us. I think if I had another baby, I wouldn't co-sleep, unless I used something like the snuggle nest but tbh, when you've got one of those in your bed, you might as well put baby in a cot.
Have you thought about putting side rails onto the single bed so rather than you and baby sleeping in the bed and DH next to you in single, baby sleeps in converted single as long as the baby can't get stuck/crushed etc and then you and DH can sleep next to each other.

Surely at 8 months she would wake up/move if she got covered?

not necessarily.

this little cartoon shows safe bedsharing positions. see how the pillows are above the baby the mother's arm is also above the baby. many times when she is on her side, her knees will also be bent which creates a 'nest' which keeps the baby from wiggling down the bed. My daughters never really wiggled down the bed, they wiggled up so the arm above was more useful.

hope it helps.

here

that cartoon is lovely I often wonder why people are so obsessed with getting the baby in its own bed then being woken up constantly - I much prefer having DD in the bed with us, as least I don't have to get cold to get her out of the cot !

And I love bunkering down in bed with my little family

Fab cartoon foxytocin, my nights are exactly like the non cosleeping version of that at the moment

In the last few weeks I have tried bringing DS into my bed but he kicks me, pokes me, and throws himself at the headboard, pinches my nipples, very wriggly.

He's nearly 18m so I'm going to try him in a bed next as the cot works fine for the first spell of sleep but he strongly objects to getting back in it after a waking.

Have had a hellish night last night, teething/molars on top of his usual rubbish sleeping (awake from 11.50 til 2am, up for the day 5.30)

"They've" done studies that show breastfeeding mothers who cosleep have totally different sleep - you become hyper-aware of baby even in your sleep.

Personally, we have me, dad and (7m) baby in our standard double. We have a sideless cotbed on my side but that is only for storing books/spare pillow/a toy to distract tiddler in the mornings while I get dressed. We bought a new firm mattress because our old one was buggered but that's the only change we've made. None of this moving pillows / baby on top of duvet malarkey.

That said, we're not having to worry about her moving about yet, because although she's sort-of-crawling in the day she's quite good when she's asleep. Most she does is roll over, but I sleep right next to her to stop her rolling onto her belly (not because I object to her sleeping that way, because she can roll back and forth, but because it always wakes her up!)

thank you everyone...I am not normally panicy but her suddenly moving all over has freaked me out!

I think we are going to do as someone above suggested and put her in the single bed, me in the middle and OH on the outside. He is going to put wooden slats around the single on three sides so that she is safer and we are going to have to come up with something else for the other side for when she is napping.

life would be a lot easier in a way if she would sleep in her cot but there is simply no way she will entertain the notion and I don't let her cry, I just can't.

the snuggle nests look great but she is too old I think, plus I am not sure how they would work with breastfeeding lying down etc...

thanks for your replies. as I said I don't know anyone who co-sleeps so just no idea what to do..

Hi willowstar, what we did was take a side off DSs cot and push it up against our standard double bed. DH rigged the cot on planks of wood so the matresses were at the same height.
He also made sure the cot couldn't fall off the planks of wood. (Looked soooo attractive!)

When DS slept in it during the day, I shoved the other cot side down in between the cot matress and the big mattress, iyswim, and used bungee cords to lash it to the three cot sides that were permanantly attached to the cot. Bit difficult to describe, but for naps, the cot looked like a cot but the side onto the big bed wasn't screwed in just bungee'd (very tightly) on, and at night it was like a side car cot.

This gave everyone more space and when I bf DS, I would roll into his cot and then either conk out and remain there, or roll back to DH. DS was in his grobag until he decided he hated it (grrr!) and then had his own small duvet.

As a bf mum you are more aware of your baby sleeping and your sleep cycles synchronise so you rouse at similar points and you are subconsciously checking on them more often than you realise, so try not to panic! This is not meant as a slight on ff mums of course, but this is what the research suggests.

HTH

I also do the three sided cot with matresses at the same height.

thank you again. we have brought the cot into our room to see if we can do anything with it - maybe something with bungee cords as described above!

even though I have paniced a bit because o f her suddenly moving around all over the place, I have to say...it was LOVELY this morning waking up with her snuggled next to me.

good suggestion to child proof the room and be done with it, we have a very high bed but it can be lowered (my OH made it so that we had plenty of storage under it) so that might be an option.

thanks again

oh yes willowstar I forgot to add DH lowered our bed and even then the cot had to be raised up on the planks- very high bed. When co-sleeping is working for you (stopped for us eventually!) it is lovely, very snuggly and, well, probably the way human babies and their mothers are supposed to sleep...

We have a bedside cot so normal cot with one side that flips underneath IYSWIM rammed up against one side of the bed at same height as the mattress. Half the time my bum is in the cot DS in the middle of the bed loads of room.

I think we rolled up the duvet to creat a barrier once they were rolling.

Oh, just wanted to say, foxytocin- that cartoon is brilliant! Think I'll show it to my Mum who subtlely asked the other day if LO was still sleeping in our bed!