I have a few questions following my post natal group and chat with my health visitor about co sleeping......feeling abit confused!!

[McDreamy]

My HV thinks I'm a fool to co sleep - it will lead to sleep problems later, she will be in my bed until she is 3 or 4 and I need to get her to fall asleep independently. (DD is currently 9 weeks). I just don't know what to do. Do I continue to co sleep? I don't really want her to sleep with me for years I was thinking in terms of a weeks/months.

So I asked her how to approach independent sleeping and she told me to allow her to cry and better to try this now rather than when she is older as it will be harder. I have tried this this evening but have given up and she is currently fast asleep in my arms. If I put her down now she will wake up and scream, I have been using a sling until now.

Just say I was to use this crying approach, apart from it being unbearable listening to your baby crying does it affect them long term?

I bet I sound like a right wimp but I don't want to be bullied into something I don't want to do

I got HV off my neck by telling her that co-sleeping was part of my culture. They're not allowed to be culturally insensitive so that was that, job done

the whole rod-for-your-back thing is a bit bonkers anyway

if that really applied, then you wouldn't be able to use a buggy for your toddler "in case he'll refuse to walk when he's 19", or wipe your 2yo's bum "you'll regret it when he's 33"

bringing up children means constantly having to change and adapt the rules as they grow

if the HV you can't cope with that
she you shouldn't be working with having children

besides, it's not going to kill you if a 9yo climbs into your bed for the occasional cuddle (hasn't killed me anyway)

you go with what you feel comfortable with

My thread's a bit similar. FWIW I'm really glad I co-slept in the early days, it was by far the best thing for us - it just stopped being good a couple of months ago and I should have addressed it sooner. 9 weeks is still soooo tiny though. Enjoy it!

I have been reading your thread bohemian - hope you get sorted.

If you ever go back to this dangerous loon again - and I can't say I would recommend it - then ask her where she had her training on sleep and how long it took. I imagine the answer will be that she has little or NO TRAINING on it. It will just be her random, under informed, off the top of her head personal opinion.

In my own personal opinion asking or even volunteering information to a HV anything about sleep or feeding is likely to produce nothing but their own views. You are much better off discussing these things with your friends and on MN because at least then you get a balance of opinions from which you can then make your own mind up. And my last word on the subject is never to do anything that goes against your own instinct just because someone tells you to.

With DS we semi-coslept from about 3 months (he'd go down in his cot for the night but then come in with us when he woke up and would co-sleep the rest of the night). At about 9 months he started sleeping better on his own and so just transitioned seamlessly into sleeping in his cot all night. When he'd transitioned into a bed, at around 18 months (may have been older as it took him a while to figure it out) he took to coming in with us again, normally just for the last few hours of the night (we had it down to a fine art where he would turn up and bed down without waking us. Then from about... umm... 2.6, 2.8 or so? it tailed off again. Now (at just 4) he may turn up perhaps once every three months or so.

With DD we coslept and then semi-coslept from the start. She started to get off to sleep semi-independently (i.e. with a bit of patting and shushing) from around 6 months. Now (at 12 months) she lies down in her cot and is asleep within two minutes. She does wake up at around 1 or 2 am and come in with us, but to be honest I suspect with a little effort I could get her to sleep through in her own cot if I wanted. As it happens I enjoy the cosleeping for the moment, especially now I'm back at work full-time, so I don't intent to push the issue unless it becomes a problem for us.

Neither DC has "sleep problems"; indeed, nursery staff consistently commented on what a fantastic napper DS was and how they wished all the children would sleep as well as him. And DD also naps absolutely fine at nursery. So I am, naturally, inclined to think that your HV is takling out of her arse.

Have you read Three In A Bed, by Deborah Jackson?

Oh I wish ill-informed HVs would just keep their mouths shut instead of giving out such awful advice. I agree completely with TheProvincialLady. Good thing mumsnet is here, eh? I hope you carry on co-sleeping for as long as it feels right for both you and your dd.

Three in a Bed is definitely recommended in this situation. It is Deborah Jackson's take on the matter, but also has real results from actual research on co-sleeping rather than purely opinion. And will make you feel far better about what you are doing. Also if you have time for more reading try "What Mothers Do (especially when it feels like Nothing". I found it very reassuring about how much work I was really doing nurturing and bonding with my children even though it was hard to put it into words when talking to dp at the end of the day.

And fwiw I had a very similar experience as FunnyPeculiar with my ds1. I really wish I'd let him come into my bed more often, rather than wasting hours of my precious sleep time trying to comfort him through the bars of the cot. With ds2 and ds3 I gave up any stupid notions of forcing them to 'learn to sleep on their own'. Go for it

CC at 9 weeks? I'd report the HV. Not even the experts who propose CC advise that it be done at 9 weeks. Who knows what sort of advice she's dishing out in other areas as well?

My opinion is that later is almost ALWAYS easier when it comes to sleep things! Although I think there might be a happy medium sort of age when they're old enough to know that you're always there for them, but not old enough to be frightened of monsters etc., and that that is the time to be getting them to sleep in their own room.

FWIW we put DD in her own room at 7 months, and then at 14 months - when we finally realised it had been the wrong move! or it was certainly the wrong place at that point, anyway - started having her sleeping on a mattress in our room with me next to her. A month or two later she went back into her cot (still in our room) and then at 22 months went into a big bed in her own room again with 0 problems. Basically I think you have to do what works at the time.

I co-slept with dd until she was about 4 months old and then she decided she wanted to start sleeping on her own...she went into her cot at the side of my bed and into her own room at 6 months. The "rod for your own back" thing makes me want to smash things, it's nonsense! Co-sleeping was the ONLY way she would sleep and it meant I also got lots of sleep too because I could feed her easily. It was also the loveliest feeling to wake up next to my baby! She's now 13 months and sleeps 6.30pm-6.30am in her cot in her own room. I'm pg with the next and can't wait to do the co-sleeping thing again! FWIW I didn't bother with seeing the HV from about 4 weeks. She was RUBBISH. Trust your own feelings (and Mumsnet) instead!!!

Hi McDreamy - long time no see on the Feb 09 thread. Ignore your HV - she's talking rubbish (as other posters have said) and do what works for you and your family. If you want to cut back on the co-sleeping then swaddling and shush pat while she's in her cot is a good way to go - and try to get her to nap in her cot first before tryng to shift her out of the bed at night times (which is what I did with DS2 who now sleeps in his cot most of the night - and only stays in the bed for a couple of hours in the early morning as I cant be bothered to take him back to his cot again - rather than cosleeping all the time with me). Controlled crying is absolutely not the way to go with a baby that little - she clearly needs the comfort and warmth that co-sleeping brings still.