Hi all,
Sorry I've been so totally absent for about a week - I'm finding life with a newborn and an almost-three year old pretty full on!
Good stuff so far... S is feeding like a little monster (even though he's FF and four weeks old I'm still sometimes having to persuade him to wait 2 hours between feeds
), so he's getting pretty chubby. I thought maybe I should try to stretch him out a bit, but the one day I tried, he then woke up constantly in the night (normally he has one long sleep, about 4-5 hours between about 9pm and 2am), so we're now back to filling him up in the day so he won't feed so much at night. Other good stuff - he seems perfectly happy in his Moses basket (at night anyway), and sleeps very peacefully between feeds at night.
Less good stuff... DS1 is being seriously naughty at the moment (though still wonderful with S, thank god). I'm trying extremely hard to be patient and indulgent, but it's tough sometimes. Also, he now has a streaming cold, which is making him even grumpier. Other bad things - we're increasingly reliant on a dummy for S, which I didn't really want to do. Frankly, how anyone manages without a dummy when they've got an older child as well (unless their newborn is a total angel) is beyond me. Also, S may be very good at night but he sleeps very little in the day - yesterday he was basically awake from 11am until 9pm, with maybe an hour or two of sleep on and off between those times. The other slightly challenging thing is that DS1 has suddenly decided that now is the moment he wants to start potty training (having resisted it fiercely up until now). Sigh. I could really do without it, but given what a stubborn little boy he is, I think I'd be mad to refuse when he's finally showing an interest. So that's pencilled in for a couple of weeks' time, when DS is taking a week's paternity.
Phew! That's my news. Big hugs to everyone who's having a tough time of things. I have read everyone's posts, but no time to reply individually (DS1 is meant to be napping but is currently spelling in bed 
. He tends not to sleep when he's ill.)
Re co-sleeping, I think it's fine as long as you do it safely. And it can be much better than the alternative, if that means falling asleep holding your baby because you're struggling to get them to go down in their basket. I don't want to upset anyone, but when my HV came for the home visit the other day, she was laying it on quite thick about not falling asleep holding your baby. She then explained that the reason was that one of the mums under her care had lost her baby last week 
. She'd been bf'ing her 3 week old in bed, fallen asleep with the baby in her arms, and the little girl had suffocated. I hope you don't mind me posting that, but it really upset me, and has made me extra extra careful about not falling asleep while burping and cuddling S after feeds at night.
Oh, and as for separate beds being bad for your marriage, I don't think it's a problem in the short term. DH and I have separate rooms during the week (and I'm not even co-sleeping!), and it definitely helps his (and therefore my) sanity if he gets enough sleep. We did the same with DS1, and started sharing a room full time again once DS was sleeping most of the night, at about 8-12 weeks IIRC.
Sorry for the monster post - it's feast or famine around here!!