Co sleeping, is it really a bad thing?

[Bensmum76]

I have always been against sleeping but now ds2 has cone along things have changed.he's just turned 7 weeks old and for the last few weeks I have been napping with him in bed once a day. This has turned into me getting him into bed with me when he starts stirring at 5/6am, and tonight I've had him in with me since 1.30am when he started crying but I knew he want hungry as dh dreamed him at 11pm. He's just taken small feed now so iwas right that he wasnt hungry earlier.
My heart is telling me to go with it and enjoy the closeness but my head is telling me that its a bad habit to get into and that I'll only have to sleep train him to sleep in his cot at a later date.
He also sleeps on me for all naps during the day so at times it can be quite overwhelming.
Advice anyone?

i dont understand how the safety tips for cosleepin work, if a baby is used to co sleepin,hes not oin to suddenly sleep on his own coz his mums taken a paracetamol?

Nailak - Presumably you're talking about the safety guideline about drugs/alcohol? I don't think a paracetamol would be a problem, since that doesn't make you unnaturally drowsy. While co-sleeping, I didn't drink alcohol or take any kind of drugs (I was breastfeeding so wouldn't have taken them anyway). If for some reason I had needed to have medical drugs that made me drowsy then I'd have done the same thing that I did when I needed to be away for a night - have DH co-sleep with DS (on a futon mattress on the floor). The other safety guidelines are about things like making sure the baby can't fall out of bed, or get trapped in bedding etc.

Last week I told an educational psychologist that I co-slept with dd2.
(ed psych school assessment as dd2 is hearing impaired).

Her response was to reassure me that she had some stategies to "deal with that".

Me: "er, no, because it's not a problem...and ofcourse dd1 co-sleeps with me as well..."
EP (looks uncomfortable): "umm, but surely you can foresee problems?"
Me: (serious face): "Yes, I expect I'll have to upgrade to a superking."

The general attitude is that co-sleeping is somehow wrong, not natural, not wanted, a problem etc etc. How is that?

I choose to co-sleep. My dcs choose to co-sleep. I love it. They love it.

I co-slept a lot in the early months in the early hours of the morning with the Moses basket beside my bed. When he outgrew it I moved him to his cot in the next room and bought a single bed to put beside it (he was waking a lot in the night still and I slept much more that way). I slept in there a few months then last week moved out to encourage him to sleep more and wake less in the night (he's 10 months now and it lets him cry a min or 2 and go back to sleep before I sleepily drag him out and feed him waking him more in the process). He's only waking 1 or 2 (or 3) times now. This has all been very painless for us (though I won't pretend I've not been tired for a year! but that's babies I guess..)

Anyway sorry I meant to reply to your question about making him more comfortable because I spent ages wondering about this then found a "lambskin" which I think is actually a lamb-skin (!) in John Lewis for £40 and my baby loves it and goes down much easier on it. So if your not squeemish it could be good and has been worth the money for us. If you decide to try it get it out in the shop to make sure you feel comfortable that your baby could breath if goes face down against it since he's littler than mine. They also sell padded mattress toppers which you could cut to moses basket size which are less fluffy.

He1enMc, thanx for the tips!

I loved co-cleeping with DS, and never regretted it for a minute. DS just gradually migrated to his own bed, over a nubmer of years, once he turned two. It was never an issue, it was never a struggle, and it didn't take ages to train him to sleep in his own bed. Much like the nappies really, babies are pretty good at growing up and growing out of things they do as babies.

DS is now 8 and occasionally sleeps with me if he's ill, which is lovely and comforting for him (but means I get no sleep as he's a wriggler!)

Decent parenting for me only started when I learnt to listen to my baby, after a week of listening to the professionals. He wanted to be be fed, so he got fed whenever he wanted, he wanted to be with me, so he was, 24 hours a day, and we were both happy - deliriously happy. He slept right next to me for, must have been a good three years, and then moved to a bed next to ours, own room not until about 7 years old - I am guessing. All possible as we had the space and I had the time. This is just my experience, but if you need some encouragement, you know how to listen to your child, better than anyone else in the world - listen to him.