Co sleeping questions

[Honeybear30]

DS is only two days old but I'm about to cry because of the sleep deprivation as he will only sleep on either me or DH. I have researched co sleeping but have some questions.

1. A duvet is a no, do you each have a lighter blanket or just wear more layers? How does this work?
2. Our bed is in the middle of the room so there is no wall to put DS against. Where in the bed should I put him? In between us? If I put him on one side surely there is a risk he will roll out.
3. I've got a bednest arriving tomorrow but I'm now conscious this is t a proper co sleeper, any advice on how best to use the bednest will be greatly received.

Please help me with my Velcro baby :(

Oh, I remember this well!
Firstly, it's going to get easier quite soon. Do keep trying to put him down in moses basket / crib and you'll probably find that he'll take to it soon. I didn't want to co sleep, (hollow laugh) so seem to remember sitting up with him on the couch for a few hours till he next needed fed, then DH would take over and I'd sleep. It didn't last very long, a few nights at most.
It may not be official advice, but when we Co sleep with DS (14 weeks), he usually sleeps in between us on top of the duvet. Or DH sleeps in the spare room, and DS sleeps on his side of the bed in his sleeping bag.
Don't worry about where he is in your bed for now either - he can't roll over yet so he'll be fine.

Good luck!

I'm pretty sure the advice is that he should sleep on your side of the bed, not between you and DH because mothers instinctively know where their baby is, and sleep much lighter whereas with fathers there is a much higher risk they could roll over and not wake up, and sleep more heavily. So between you and the edge of the bed is safer. Something like that - I probably haven't explained very well. Someone else will be along with much better advice

To be honest I didn't use a blanket for either of mine since a baby grow and vest was always enough. Mainly because my dh radiates heat at a nuclear level . I would wrap the duvet around my lower half using my legs to keep it in place so it wouldn't be around the baby. Did make my shoulders get a bit cold though.

I wouldn't necessarily put him between you. Your dh won't sleep as lightly as you will. I pushed our full sized cot up against the edge of the bed and slept in a safe c position. With my little boy I often used a sheet to loop around his body and then tuck the edges under my body so he couldn't roll out.

I've never used a bed nest or anything like that sorry.

Hi I co slept with DS2 now 3 months for the first few weeks and it was the best thing I ever did.

Firstly, send DH to guest room/ another bed as it's much safer with just you in bed. Duvet can go over your bottom half but must be out of the way of the baby. I'm neurotic so I took it off the bed and used a flat quilt thing we have with a throw over it to cover my bottom half. Wear pj bottoms and a long sleeved top.
You must make sure the mattress is firm and bottom sheet pulled tight. Put yourself and the baby on the bed and put a pillow or similar on the opposite side to you to form a barrier to that edge of the bed.

Remove all other pillows if you can sleep without, if not just have one and keep the baby away from it.

Then curl up on one side of bed with the baby flat on back in middle. Have a baby blanket if necessary but I found he didn't get cold as I was there. It's so easy to feed / sleep / feed this way I cannot believe the sleep deprivation I went through with DS1.
Good luck!

Put the bednest against your side, and the baby between you and the bednest. Leave the barrier thing of the bednest out and try to get its mattress flush against yours with no gap - pad the far side of the bednest mattress with a rolled up towel if need be.

Your ds can then sleep on you, in your bed between you and the bednest, or in the bednest itself. No need to banish dh to the spare room!

My ds was about a month old before he spent significant stretches in our co-sleeper cot. I slept sooo much better when he was out of our bed, though. I never found curling around him comfortable for sleep and would wake up with my back in agony. Very glad we had a co-sleeper cot!

Ico slept with Dd from day 1.

Duvet on bottom half and a fleecy blanket on my top half, blanket on baby until she was big enough for a grobag.

I had a nct bed nest, sometimes she slept in it, sometimes not but it stopped her falling out. She always slept between me and the bed nest, never next to DH.

Also please ignore all the 'rod for your own back' brigade. I co slept with dd from birth. She's just (at 23mo) gone into her own bed and room. Took all of 3 days!

We co slept with all of ours. The best thing we did was get a super king size mattress and put it on the floor. Lots of room for everyone and no falling on the floor.

It was great.

Hmm, I thought I'd posted on this thread but it's not showing my end so here it goes again. Apologies of this therefore shows up twice for anyone.

We coslept very much like demonstrated [http://www.hobomama.com/2010/06/how-to-cosleep-safely-tutorial-in.html?m=1 here] although I never felt a need for a pillow behind my back. DD was a winter baby so I wore a fleecy jacket type top open enough for my boob to get out with a nursing sleep bra underneath and DD was in a sleeping bag. We had a bed rail for peace of mind but I don't think it was necessary to begin with as she never strayed from the boob vicinity!

Later on we had a side car cot but she never spent much time in it as she always migrated into the bed so we got rid, now we all sleep on a super king size bed pushed against the wall.

Hope that is helpful and you start to get a bit more sleep soon. Congratulations on your lovely new baby!

Wow so many responses, thank you so much. Keep them coming, I'm soaking up all the information! I will no doubt have some more questions once we give it a go as well. Thank you so so much, I really appreciate it.

I just put DD in the crock of my arm, below my pillows under the very edge of our quilt.

She never wriggled under the covers or tried to fall out of bed. (This is now a source of wonderment, as she is an expert at falling out of bed when sleeping on her own).

Honestly just curl up together and enjoy some sleep.

My DS is 19 days old and we have a co-sleeper (Chico next to me crib). For the first 2 night at home he slept a little in the crib but got restless knowing I was near him so I ended up pulling him into our bed where he slept between me and the co-sleeper (which is flush against our bed). Then we got a Sleepyhead which we put in the crib and he sleeps in that no problem. We're currently doing about 3 hr sleeps at a time at night between feeds, occasionally 4 hours. Plus he'll go down during the day in it too.

Well I spent a lot of today in bed resting with DS. I felt a lot calmer but didn't actually sleep. I felt a lot more relaxed though so I'm going to give it a go tonight. DH is a little nervous of being in bed with us so I think he's going to go on the sofa tonight. Not entirely sure what I'm going to wear, will need to raid my clothes for something suitable! I don't trust the duvet, we have a super king duvet on a double bed and I have a habit of pulling it right up and snuggling. I've got a couple of onesies with poppers up the front. Think I might wear one of those and then have a cellular cot bed blanket for me and a crib blanket on hand for DS.

Any other tips still very welcome!

I used to sleep with a nursing bra, t-shirt (neckline slashed to boob level as I don't have any button-down sleeping tops), pj bottoms and cardi/fleece depending on how cold it was. Duvet only up to my thighs. Pillow on other side of DD if we slept on a bed in the middle of the room.

Oh and up till about 4 months-is DD would only sleep on my chest. So same setup as before except I would sleep on 2 pillows so that I was slightly elevated. I didn’t plan on having her sleep on my chest but it was the only way to get her (and therefore me!) to sleep.

Good luck - it won't last forever.

Right, it's going fairly well so far I think. We got into bed at 9, don't know how much sleep I've had but I've definitely not been lying here awake which is lovely. Just up doing a proper feed now rather than lying down snuggles. First problem I've had- my hip and leg went dead from lying on one side. With DH downstairs I can switch sides but but once he's back I'll have to stay the same way to keep DS between me and the pillow in the safe C. Suggestions for blood flow to my leg please?!

Thank you again to all the replies, it's going pretty well so far I think considering we're only third night at home from hospital.

Hmm I usually slept on my back actually. Can you do the same or alternate between lying on your side and on your back when your DH rejoins you? Oh and also I spent the best part of last year sleeping with DD, without DH!

I switched to my back last night with DS in the crook of my arm. Seemed to work. We did a three hour stretch which was nice. After the three hours of boob, doze, no actually more boob, doze, more boob, scream, boob.... And so it went on.