Question for co-sleeping parents

[Newmummy080808]

I wondered whether those who had decided to cosleep with their baby found it more difficult to get them to sleep through the night? Also, did you find it really difficult to eventually get them to sleep in their own cot and in their own room when the time came. At what age did you do this too?

Thank you!

We coslept because she literally wouldn’t sleep any other way. I don’t think I found it more difficult to get her to sleep through the night - she goes through phases and we have good nights and not so great ones, but when cosleeping she didn’t often need more more than a shush and a cuddle to go back off - once she’d stopped feeding in the night which I can’t honestly remember when that was sorry! Around 6 or 7 months maybe?

She went into her own cot around 12 months for the first part of the night - it was a bit of a transition and took a week or so, and she still now often ends up in bed with me part way through the night or in the early hours. She’s nearly 18 months. I honestly don’t mind this though so haven’t attempted to break the habit - I’d say maybe 1/3 of the time she sleeps in her cot all night, 1/3 she will want to come in to me about 5am ish and the other 1/3 she will wake up earlier than that. She goes down at 7.30pm.

She’s still in our room - partly because we only have a 2 bed house currently and the second bedroom has ended up being used for DH’s work - he needs more than just a desk and laptop so it just hasn’t been practical to turn it back into a bedroom yet but we are looking to extend in the next few months so hopefully when that’s done we can look at moving rooms.

I’m pretty relaxed about it all and have had spells eg when ill or teeth were bad of reverting back to cosleeping full time. It doesn’t set us back too much and usually only takes a night or two to go back to the cot, but other babies/ toddlers will be different on that I’m sure.

Thank you AliasGrape, that's really helpful.

AliasGrape what do you do for naps? We have a similar nighttime schedule to you but have a nanny starting and struggling to get her to nap well on her own. Previously I have laid in the bed with her and she naps well, on her own usually only about 20 or 30 minutes. I really need to figure it out as am starting a new job next week!!

@BookFiend4Life

AliasGrape what do you do for naps? We have a similar nighttime schedule to you but have a nanny starting and struggling to get her to nap well on her own. Previously I have laid in the bed with her and she naps well, on her own usually only about 20 or 30 minutes. I really need to figure it out as am starting a new job next week!!

Naps are a whole other story. She is not a great napper in the main - not for me anyway. Contact naps usually, but mostly she will just fight and fight them so it’s a struggle - very occasionally lying in the bed with her works, sometimes I can rock/ cuddle her to sleep if I time it just right. More often than not though I time it so we’re in the car around the time I’m hoping she will nap and she will fall asleep (then it’s either a long drive, sit in the car till she wakes up or manage to transfer her inside for a contact nap on me without waking her fully in between). Sometimes the pram works too.

HOWEVER - the days she goes to the childminder she naps alone and to a pretty set schedule and for between 90 minutes to 2 hours. Childminder insists she doesn’t do anything special and DD goes down with barely a murmur. I bet your DD will be the same for the nanny - they’re magic these people I swear!