Co sleeping experiences

[Namechangegardens]

Hello

I'd love to hear some cosleeping experiences.

Our boy is only 6 weeks and is very happy sleeping in his crib so we would be in no rush to cosleep, but it is playing on my mind as a possibility for the future (we love having him for cuddles in the bed and also live in a one bedroom flat for at least the next 2 years)

What were your motivations?
Was it worth it, did you enjoy it?
Did it have any long term positive/negative effects?
Did baby become totally reliant on it e.g. could they still stay occasional nights with grandparents?

TIA

Just to clarify I'm talking about bedsharing

If he’s happy in his own sleep space- stick with that!
DD is 3.5 and sleeps with me. The amount of wiggling, kicking etc! Co sleeping is great if it gets everyone more sleep but it does have down sides!

Keep him in his own space if he is happy there. The main reason people co-sleep is because they get more sleep that way & are forced into it rather than actually wanting to sleep with a baby.

I coslept in the beginning because it was easier for me. EBF so no getting up to the cot whenever baby was due a feed and could get a decent stretch of sleep during the early days.

Now I'm currently awake and have been for the last few hours due to being rolled into, kicked, pulled, used as a climbing frame etc etc etc.

When it's good it's good, nice bonding time, good stretches of sleep, feeding easily. But when you have bad nights, they don't just resettle themselves.

My DD is almost 10 MO and I'm literally looking at cots to buy because I can't take it anymore and somethings got to give.

In relation to the occasional nights with grandparents thing. I haven't even tried because I don't think she will manage.

Part of that I guess is because she's so young but I think because she is so close and basically has access to milk 24/7 she still feeds throughout the night. More out of habit than hunger.

So that's something to bare in mind too.

My 2 year old did a mix of sleeping in our bed and in his next 2 me, just depended on whether he slept or not! I breastfeed so it makes it easier to just feed in bed too.
2 year old is now in his own room but will occasionally wake and come in to our bed, we have a three month old who is in our bed and is a fab sleeper (wakes once for milk in the night) but we put ourselves between both kids so it’s safe. If your baby is happy to sleep in their own space I’d let them, co sleeping is lovely but… at some point you have to teach them to sleep in their own bed and if they are already doing that I’d be reluctant to change it! You could always just have cuddles in the morning in your bed

I would keep him in his own sleep space for as long as you can and only bed share if it’s necessary.

The reality is, bed sharing is not as safe as having the baby in their own cot. I’m absolutely not strictly opposed to bed sharing, I did it myself for several months. But it was a necessity for us, as we couldn’t get our baby to sleep any other way. The alternative was one of us holding him all night which was obviously less safe, so we chose bed sharing as the less risky alternative. If you don’t need to take that risk (albeit it is a small one) I wouldn’t.

I also hated it in all honesty. It wasn’t the joyful fantasy of a sweet, snuggly baby tucked beside me that I had hoped for. I could barely sleep for anxiety about squashing him, he managed to take up a disproportionate amount of bed, and I was perpetually scratched, pinched, poked, grabbed etc. I was always cold and uncomfortable due to not have normal bedding. Now that he’s more mobile I wouldn’t dare do it unless we had a mattress on the floor instead of a bed, as he could easily crawl off the edge in the space of a couple of seconds.

We had to do a lot of work over several weeks to acclimatise him to sleeping in the cot, and I could have wept with relief when he did. If you don’t have to go through that consider yourselves lucky!

If you do decide to bed share, just make sure to follow the safe sleep rules. That means:

You’re breastfeeding

You don’t smoke (that means ever - not just that you don’t smoke in the bedroom or house)

Your partner doesn’t smoke (same as above)

You don’t bed share after drinking or doing drugs

Your baby wasn’t premature or of a low birth weight

You won’t have blankets or pillows near the baby

No pets on the bed

@User527294627 can I just ask what you did to get baby used to the cot?

Totally resonate with your post especially about them taking up disproportionate amounts of the bed or being scooted right into your side. Mine has a habit of always having to have one limb on me. Leg/arm or a combo of both. Also the pinching/scratching/grabbing is not fun.

Sick of being touched 24/7 to be quite frank. Just want to stretch out and have my own space :(

Thanks so much everyone, seems unanimous opinions about continuing him in his own space so happy to take that advice! Appreciate you all helping and sharing experiences

If he is sleeping well in his own bed keep him there!!!

Dd1 I was absolutely petrified of co-sleeping because of all the negative connotations, so used to sit up holding her all night doing crosswords on my phone so I didn't fall asleep, because she would wake every 15 minutes if I put her down. DH would take over about 4 am and take her in the living room until he went to work. It was hoorendousd. However, she slept in her own bed (not all night long) from about 6 weeks, moved into her own room about 7 months, abs started sleeping through about 9 months.

Dd2, I coslept with from about week 2, I was too tired for anything else and just gave in. Felt SO much better for it and was a much better parent to both kids. She transitioned into her own bed about 6 months, own room about 1, but didn't reliably sleep through Until 2. I did bf her for much longer though.

Dd3 is 15 months. She sleeps in my walk in but invariably comes in with me at some point in the might, or she just won't go back to sleep. worst sleeper of the 3 by far. She coslept with me fully until around 11months when I gradually started weaning her off. At her worst, around 9-10 months she would be awake and wanting bf every hour. Currently Can't move into her own room as it's right next to the other 2 and she'll wake them up in the night, so need her to be reliably sleeping through so she won't disturb them. DH sleeps in her room so he gets decent sleep, and because he's huge (6fy5) and worried about rolling on her in his sleep. It is bloody miserable. I love her so much and love snuggling her, but wish she would sleep on her own. I am absolutely exhausted by it all. I don't sleep deeply when she's in bed with me, always half awake, and she's only slept through fully (until about 6 am) 6 times.

So in summary, whilst dd1 was by far the hardest initially, it was best Long term. If your LO will sleep independently, do it! You will sleep better and feel better for it, and morning cuddles are just lovely too. Good luck!

DD is 15 months. We coslept till around 1 year, now she goes in her cot for the first part of the night but most nights (say 8 out of 10) will end up in with me - sometimes not till 4/5am sometimes more like around midnight. I could possibly put more effort into keeping her in her cot but have to admit I’m lazy and as I know she’s likely to sleep if I bring her in with me I tend to just do it.

Initial motivation when she was tiny was that she wouldn’t sleep any other way basically. She was a proper Velcro baby (still is in lots of ways) who only ever contact napped and would scream if we put her down at all, definitely until the 12 week mark and I think beyond although it’s all blurred in my memory now. Once we’d exhausted ourselves sitting up holding her in shifts all night and just couldn’t do it any more we gave in and went with cosleeping.

It’s had great benefits in terms of bonding I think, as well as actually getting us some sleep.

It got harder over time as I did get a bit fed up with needing to go to bed at 7.30 and I wanted my evenings back. Now that we’ve transitioned to her going into her cot for the first part of the night and I have some time to myself in the evenings I can cope much better with the nights where she does end up in with me.

She’s never been left overnight with grandparents etc, I don’t honestly think she’d cope very well. I’ve left her overnight with DH when I had to for work, which went ok, but she coslept with him for part of the night.

If your little one is sleeping happily on his own I wouldn’t change it for the time being. Do read up on safe cosleeping though just in case you do end up needing it!

If he’s happy where he is, I’d take it as a blessing and leave him be.

When we brought our first home we were up every 10 minutes comforting him and we would bring him in with us so we could all get some sleep. He was born 6lbs3 and dropped to about 5lbs9 so having this tiny thing in bed with me really terrified me.

Around 6 months we attempted a “sleep course” which are (despite what they say) all based on letting your child cry, although with some you go in repeatedly to comfort them etc.

It lasted a week and he was straight back in with us. We’ve co slept ever since and he’s 20 months now. Dad has been banished to a pull out bed next to us as our toddler moans and groans unless he has his dads spot in the bed, so there’s just not enough space.

We are now thinking of the best way to gently get him back in to his own bed, because this setup isn’t exactly great for our own relationship.

I do love having him in bed with me, but It would be nice for him to be able to sleep in his own bed, for all of our sake.

[quote Tee20x]@User527294627 can I just ask what you did to get baby used to the cot?

Totally resonate with your post especially about them taking up disproportionate amounts of the bed or being scooted right into your side. Mine has a habit of always having to have one limb on me. Leg/arm or a combo of both. Also the pinching/scratching/grabbing is not fun.

Sick of being touched 24/7 to be quite frank. Just want to stretch out and have my own space :([/quote]
Of course!

I was basically very keen not to sleep train in a way which involved him crying or being forced into anything that made him uncomfortable, so we took it really slow and made it as gentle a process as possible.

The first thing I did was break the feed to sleep association because that was making it impossible to transfer him to the cot. I started unlatching him a little earlier each time, and then when he was used to still being awake at the end of the feed I moved the whole feed to about an hour before bedtime. I kept that schedule up for a couple of months to really break the link. Now that he doesn’t need to feed to sleep I’ve moved back to feeding him just before bed, but we had a good long break from it first.

I then started working on him falling asleep in the cot. It took about six weeks in total and involved a combination of rocking, cuddling, stroking his back in the cot, singing, shushing etc. Basically lots of soothing behaviours so that he was always supported while he got used to sleeping in there.

We then gradually started reducing the amount of input we gave him as he needed less and less help from us to fall asleep. Now, I feed him in the nursery then turn out the lights and cuddle him for a few minutes. When he’s just fallen asleep or is just about to, I move him into the cot and stay there for a couple of minutes with one hand on his back and one hand holding his. Then I can gently detach myself and he stays asleep.

We worked on naps in the cot at the same time, and I think that consistency helped.

It made such a difference to his sleep. When we co-slept he was waking 6 or 7 times a night and I was on my knees. He now usually only wakes once, and sometimes he even sleeps through. And my husband and I can once more share a bed, without a baby poking us in the nostril during the night!

What were your motivations?
Sheer desperation.

Was it worth it, did you enjoy it?
Absolutely, I loved it. Nothing better than baby snuggles in the morning!

Did it have any long term positive/negative effects?
No negative effects that I have observed. As for positive, it's hard to say because who is to know what dd would have been like if we had done things differently. I can say that she is is exceptionally confident for her age, and very secure/emotionally stable. We have a significantly better relationship with her as a teenager than many of her friends have with their parents. I do think that a secure attachment in the early years helped to promote these things, but I can't say what specific role, if any, co-sleeping may have had in that.

Did baby become totally reliant on it e.g. could they still stay occasional nights with grandparents?

I didn't feel comfortable leaving dd overnight until she was around 3 anyway, and I didn't have any need to leave her, so not sure as a baby. DD could and did stay overnight with grandparents from around 3 onwards, and she quite happily went off for sleepovers with friends, Rainbows etc. (We allowed her to co-sleep until she decided to move into her own room.) She did struggle a bit to sleep on those occasions, but I think that's partly because she has the type of brain that takes a long time to wind down at night, and the overstimulation from being in a different environment was hard for her to manage. I only ever remember her getting upset about it on one occasion, though, when she couldn't go to sleep at my mum's house. My mum sat with her for a while and she eventually dropped off.

My ds always used to sleep in his cot but I’ve been co-sleeping for the past week because he’s really struggling with teething.

The one major downside with co-sleeping is that it isn’t safe to leave a sleeping baby on the bed while you go to the loo (my OH sleeps in a separate room because he’s on the road 12 hours a day so we can’t risk disturbing his sleep).

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences- definitely doesn't sound like the cute fantasy we were imagining! Will try and continue the separate sleeping for foreseeable future.