Co-Sleeping good or bad?

[Ksmalls]

I need your help mums...

Throughout pregnancy my partner and I have had a different opinion about the baby sleeping in our bedroom in a next-to-me crib.
My midwife, and family members, friends and other mums have all told me this is encouraged and perhaps expected for the early weeks to months. For reasons such as safety, bonding and convenience especially for night feeds.

However my partner who is French has an extremely strong view that it is a bad thing and his reasons being that parent's need freedom to be a couple as before and he believes parent's will sleep better and therefore can cope better.

I am now 38w + 3 pregnant with my first and I just put the next-to-me crib up next to our bed and it caused quite a heated discussion and quite frankly has made me really upset.

I feel like just giving him what he wants so that we don't fight anymore because he even though he says he can accept my wishes he won't change his opinion.

Any advice on this topic would be really wonderful. Any French mums out there who can agree with this being a cultural thing?

Where does he think baby should sleep? Have you shown him the guidelines from the Lullaby Trust about safe sleep?

I wouldn't be giving in to him on something that is about baby safety, assuming he thinks baby should be in another room. Will he be doing the night feeds?

Also presumably you've had plenty of time 'being a couple' and will have again, so a few months while you have a tiny baby isn't really that big a deal.

Did he not realise what was going to happen with a new baby?

A baby is significantly better to suffer cot death if alone in its own room. Quite apart from this, it'll be much more exhausting for you to have to trek backwards and forwards in response to the baby's cries than if you can quickly offer comfort/fees without even getting up. Your partner is being entirely selfish.

Yes DLM

I'm as bemused as you are. He is also insisting that he shares night feeds from the start even though I'm breastfeeding. So I should express into a tiny cup which sounds a good idea but impractical.

The baby's room is ready but it's very small so actually no place to sit so he expects me to go into the baby's room and stand there or go downstairs until the feed is over and then he will do the next feed. 😣

Also please don't 'give in' to him because it's easier. Your baby has to be your number 1 priority now.

The only way I could get any sleep at all was co-sleeping. It was a lifesaver. Tell him if he's so adamant then he can get the baby out of the moses basket and bring it to you every time it wakes then settle it back down again afterwards. He'll change his tune. (I hope he's not proposing baby is in a different room entirely?)

Oh dear. I'm sorry, OP, but this sounds pretty worrying He can't insist on anything. He can help with the night feeds by changing baby, getting you a drink, etc. but not by expecting you to express into a cup at a time when you're getting breastfeeding established, so knock that one on the head right away.

As for the room thing, words fail me. You need to be somewhere comfortable. And you should not be putting a newborn baby into its own room for SIDs reasons.

Please put your foot down now and stand up for yourself before the baby arrives or it will get worse.

Baby needs to be in the same room as you for 6 months, not only for convenience but more importantly, safety.

What difference does it make to him whether baby is in a crib next to the bed or not? I'm assuming you'll be the one doing the majority if not all of the feeds and night time comforting so it makes sense to keep baby as close to you as possible. If he's expecting you to keep baby in a separate room and then get up every few hours and go to feed/comfort them in that other room as to not disturb him/your relationship he is very very wrong. If anything that will put such a strain on your relationship that's completely avoidable. Makes no sense to me

No no no no - baby needs to be in your room with you. No way in it's own bedroom. And fuck expressing into a cup - that's just extra work for you and baby will prob not be down for that anyway. Just tell him to pipe the fuck down.

My husband is French as well, we bought a snuzpod so we will be co-sleeping. I don’t think it’s a cultural thing, more like a personal attitude?

This is complete insane and I’d be pretty concerned! Forcing you to express to share feeds? Making the baby sleep in it’s own room when this goes against all the guidelines? I’d be horrified!

Just read your replies, it's discouraged to have baby on a bottle for the first 4-6 weeks while you establish breastfeeding so knock that one straight off. He's being completely unreasonable and ridiculous.

I would also be horrified. And if he 'insisted' on it he'd be shown the door.

He is in the wrong I'm afraid with his ideals. It's also much easier when you are breastfeeding to have them in with you. Is he happy for you to breastfeed even?

Adults will have more uninterrupted sleep if baby is in the spare room; because it takes more for baby to wake you. Plus you're less aware of what's going on, hence the higher risk of cot death.

I'd tell him to accept that baby is sleeping in the same room as you, and if he doesn't like it then he can sleep in the baby's room alone.

Your partner is being unreasonable, don't give in to him.
You need to do what's best for you and your baby, not what your DP dictates to you.
Put your baby first and tell your DP to deal with it.

I’m French and we did cosleeping (baby cot in our bedroom) for first three months until they slept most of the night.
After that, I did have a comfortable rocking chair in their bedroom that I nursed them in. It was my G Grandmothers rocking chair so has been used for four generations of babies.

I think your DH may be afraid if you start with baby in your bedroom, that it will be that way for years! Just reassure him that you will revisit sleeping arrangements as soon as baby can sleep most of the night through.

With breastfeeding you must feed your baby overnight as that is when your body prolactin, this the hormone responsible for milk production. Babies feed frequently/all the bloody time at the beginning as they need to so your body produces milk for them. It’s essential to establishing your milk supply.

I've just taken a huge breath out...
thank you for all your advice. I really needed some support with this one.
I didn't expect to disagree so severely and especially so close to dday but your comments have reassured me to dig my heels in with this one and do what's right for me 🙏🏻❤️

I don't think that this is about him being french, I think he's got unrealistic expectations about looking after a newborn and the impact that will have on your life. The safe sleeping guidelines will be used internationally, they're based on very strong evidence collected internationally.
Stick to your guns, its only a few months.

For me personally I would not have coped if I was having to get up and go to another room. My experience of my partner sharing those early months was that it appeared to be much easier for me to do all the feeding and so he quickly gave up. Sharing night feeds when one partner returns to work is also tricky.

I don't think he realises what it means to have a newborn. Even if you have the baby in his/her own room from day 1 he is massively delusional if he thinks that it means you will be a couple as before.
You will be too exhausted to even care what it means to be a couple and frankly having your baby in the next room will exhaust you even further especially if you are breastfeeding.

I had a next to me crib and it was very convenient especially since I breastfed. All i had to do was lift baby, on the boob he went and then back down and of course it's the safest option to have your baby in same room as you.

I woke once during the night and as I was changing sides I had a quick look in the crib and to my horror the baby blanket had gone over my baby's face. Baby was fine but if he was in a separate room i wouldn't have bothered getting up to check, I would have just continued my sleep.

He sounds like a dick.

Baby needs to sleep in your room.

It's unusual to share night feeds if you are BFing. Night feeds tell your body that baby wants milk so feeding at night is important for your supply.

I think your DH is in for a major disappointment, your lives won't go on the way they did before regardless of whether dc is in your room on in their nursery.
Current guidelines are that dc should sleep in the same room as carers for the first six months to reduce sids risk.
Leaving that to one side it simply isn't practical to be feeding in a room with no chair!
You can't be doing feeding standing up in the middle of the night!
Also cup feeding is possible if breast feeding but expressing is difficult and time consuming (I did it for three months). I can't imagine why you would do this if breastfeeding was possible.
He also needs to understand that babies won't feed a set amount to schedule, particularly for the first couple of months.
Try and give him some books to read, it doesn't sound as though he has much information at present.

Good for you OP, yes definitely have a crib in your bedroom, it doesn't have to be a next to me one unless you want one though, there are plenty of different ones available, but I would 100% not budge on that. Also there is plenty he can do overnight such as change nappies if needed, but only express if you want to when BFing, don't feel pressured.

Dig your heels as hard as you like!
SIDS guidelines aren’t there for a giggle, it’s 6 months in your room. You also don’t need a super high watt led white light to feed the baby, so there’s no reason he’d be overly disturbed. We were also told not to express unless exclusively pumping for 6 weeks if I remember rightly. Don’t know if he’s worked out that a newborn won’t be too keen on a tiny cup vs fresh warm boob.

He could however get up and change the nappy at every feed to half the load?

Or co sleep with the door mat?

Dp said “I need to sleep” once.. he was told to shut his fucking eyes