Co sleeping from birth advice

[LuckyAugust]

DS3 is 6 weeks old. Having heard very mixed stories about letting your child sleep in your bed I'm after some advice / reassurance. DS1 was a terrible sleeper. We rarely out him in the bed with us to settle him as we were advised this was the wrong thing to do. He was about 3 before he slept right through. DS2 wasn't a bad sleeper but would occasionally have wind pains which clearly made him uncomfortable and because I didn't want his crying waking his brother I used to put him in the bed with me which settled him instantly. DS3 is waking every night from 2am (ish!). He's not interested in milk but he is pulling his knees to his chest and looking very uncomfortable. Baby massage and gripe water help him pump some of it out but not enough to settle him. The only thing that does settle him is being next to me in the bed......... So thats where he stays sleeping happily until morning. He's quite safe and I personally love my little one next to me but DH isn't quite as happy and thinks we're setting him up for bad habits way to early and that he will never start to sleep in his own cot all night. My opinion though is that if it helps him sleep and keeps him happy...... What do you think, is it too early to have this 'routine' already? At some point I'm sure he'll sleep right through but DH convinced thats him in our bed until he's 3 now! Not helped by MIL who also thinks I'm doing the wrong thing!

DD was in our bed from birth. From 10mo we put her to bed in her cot but brought her in when she woke up. She's 21mo now and this weekend slept through, in her bed, 2 out of 3 nights. I think they all get the eventually.

It depends when you want the sleep deprivation - you'll have to be a bit firm at some point if you follow the same pattern we did, but at 10mo I was far better equipped to deal with less sleep than I was at 6w!

DS1 was mostly in our bed from birth, we did have a co-sleeper crib but he wasn't mad keen on it. From 6 months we put the full size cot by our bed and got him to spend part of the night in it. Moved the cot into his own room from 10 months and I slept in there with him for a few weeks. From 13 months he was sleeping full night through - 7-7.30pm to 6.30-7am. From about the age of two we've actually had to wake him up in the morning! I guess I'm telling you this as, from our experience, co-sleeping from the start didn't cause any long term issues. He's now 2.8 years and I can't imagine a better sleeper.
Now we have DS2, he's pretty much in our bed all night, no fighting or stressing that he won't stay in the co-sleeper crib. We're all getting a lot more rest this way.
It all depends on what you're comfortable with doing.

DS is 7 months and has slept with me since the first week. It was instinctive and tbh the only way I was able to get any sleep. Now he's a fantastic sleeper and snores away beside me in the bed .

DP has decamped to the spare room. Not ideal but it's only temporary and as we are all (inc older DD) sleeping brilliantly he doesn't mind.

It has made these first months incredibly calm and relaxed. Go for it, I say.

Our (1 week old) likes to sleep in our bed. Terrified of SIDS. Those who had your LOs just in your bed (not bednest) did you sleep then at the edge, remove pillows etc?

Ds would only sleep on my chest when small - he also suffered badly from wind pains. From about 4mo his digestive system improved and he became a great sleeper. Although he will still wake in night if teething/ill.
With dd (dc1) we did everything "correctly" (no cosleeping, taught to self-settle etc) and she still wakes at 3yrs.

I personally wouldn't put baby in bed with me especially a newborn baby purely for safety reasons. I'd never be able to forgive myself If anything happened all.just because I wanted a bit of extra sleep. I'm a big believer in routine especially bedtime routine early on. With all 3 ds I've started a bedtime routine more or less from day 1 if you persist with it they quickly learn to follow the routine and will know when it's bedtime etc. My older 2 ds both slept through the night from around 6-8 weeks. My youngest ds is 2.5 weeks he's just settled into a routine bathed at 8 every night then bottle and settled in moses basket by 9, he wakes once in the night around 2ish and goes back to sleep til around 7. A tip I got told was put a t shirt you've worn over the moses basket mattress so the baby can smell you and is comforted by this. Also it may be harder down the line to get baby to sleep in the cot instead of your bed. How would you like it if suddenly you was told you couldn't sleep in the bed you've been used to anymore? Why would a baby feel any different, they're not going to suddenly 1 day think I know I'll sleep in my cot on my own tonight instead of in mum's bed with her, it isn't going to happen. Bite the bullet and persevere & get him used to his own bed early on.

Thanks ladies, good to know I'm not the only one. Thanks also to Lexy although I will say having DS in my bed is nothing to do with me getting more sleep, it genuinely is that it seems to help settle him if he's windy; I actually get less sleep when he's next to me as I then spend the rest of the night looking at this little bundle of joy marvelling that he's mine .

I would go for co-sleeping. We had a Bednest until 6 months which was great- when DD was unsettled, I would sleep right at the edge of our bed so could have an arm round her in her Bednest. She was a very unhappy colicky refluxy baby so after the first month or so sometimes would just put her in our bed to relax her, with no pillows and duvet no higher than waist height. From 6 months onwards she slept in her own cot in own room but at times that meant us getting up to resettle her in the middle of the night. When I went back to work, we started co-sleeping again as she wanted more of my time as not seeing me so much in the day and I would rather that time was with both of us snuggled up in the big bed asleep than us pacing her room awake! It was actually DH who suggested we move her back to our bed as he would rather we all slept somewhere, anywhere than in the 'right' places. Think we will carry on this way until she is old enough to 'talk' about where to sleep.

If we had another, I would not stress in the slightest about co-sleeping with the baby- probably would Bednest again for the tiny stage though as they seem so fragile when they first come out.

If you have a sleeper, it doesn't matter too much but if you have an unsettled or wakeful baby, sleeping together can help a lot I think!

lexys techniques sound great and absolutely spot on if you have a baby that sleeps well. My DS had horrible reflux and simply would not sleep lay down or alone. No amount of routine would have fixed it and both my DP and I were running on empty. Obviously safety is important but looking after a baby when you are drop down exhausted can be dangerous too. Moving him into the bed with us (at around 4 weeks) was the best thing we could have possibly done. We stuck rigidly to co-sleeping safety rules, so no pillows/duvet, I was BF and found that if he stirred even slightly I woke and was able to settle him. He is in a toddler bed pressed up to ours now he's 15 months and he sleeps well most nights (he's just recently stopped waking for a night feed)

I'm very glad we co-slept as it changed what was a horrible, draining time in to a much more enjoyable experience. I'm expecting DC2 now and we are going to get a bednest I think.

I think it's a really personal thing and what works for one person might not work for another. Either way , I really don't think a few years of co-sleeping will ruin a child's sleeping habits for life.

I don't think your ds will still be in bed with you when he's 3 if you co-sleep now. But still in your bed at 1 is a distinct possibility. Of my friends who have co slept most are still doing it or have had a nightmare getting them into their own beds, this is it at 15 months. So I suppose it depends what you're happy with, TBH the ones who are still co sleeping seem quite happy with it. When ds was little I simply could not relax at all with him in with us (terrified of SIDS) so it didn't work for us. When ds's sleep really deteriorated at 6 months I would have done it if it had actually meant we all got some sleep but it seemed to disturb him even more.