Does co-sleeping affect the length of time it takes a baby to get to sleep?

[Aranea]

We co-slept with dd1, and sleep became a huge issue for us. Partly because she tended to wake a lot, but mostly really because she would take up to 2 hours to fall asleep and needed me to be there till she did.

DD2 is 15 weeks now. She started sleeping through at 3 weeks in her moses basket, but it all started to go a bit wrong at about 11 weeks when she began to wake more often in the night. She is now in a bedside cot and it has been next to the bed with the side up. But her sleep has been getting worse, and her daytime naps have been getting shorter and she's less good at settling for them.

So this evening I've decided to take the side off the cot so we can co-sleep with her to make the night-wakings easier to deal with. But after discussion with DH, our real concern is to avoid the 2-hour marathon getting-to-sleep sessions. Does anyone have any opinions on whether what we do will affect the length of time dd2 takes to get to sleep? At the moment she's fine, takes about 10 mins.

Facing similar issues, so bumpity bump.

Anybody? I'd be really interested to know whether other co-sleepers' babies had trouble getting to sleep.

DD 20 months. Co slept from birth. No falling to sleep problems.

Oh good, thanks for that ShowOfHands. Maybe dd1 was just crap at going to sleep and it was completely unconnected to the co-sleeping?

Any other experiences out there?

yes ds was not good at going to sleep until he stopped naps at 3yo. i got through it by changing routines and expecatations as he got older. some children need less sleep than others.

aranea 12w is a (sorry cliche but true) big growth spurt, where babies will feed all night to stimulate supply.

Oh.... that's like dd1. She got better about going to sleep when she dropped her nap at about 2 years.

Didn't know 12w was a growth spurt. But she's now 15 weeks and things haven't gone back to how they were, despite my efforts at patting/shushing! Feel I may be looking at a year-long growth spurt...

My DS is 14 months and will take HOURS to go to sleep if not beside either me or DH. He falls asleep in minutes when we co-sleep.

I can't say I noticed that dd slept with us either in our bed or bedside cot from birth till she was 3 but apart from odd times when she was teething/ tiredness/ change of routine/ naps etc she usually fell asleep quickly

since being in her own room she falls asleep within 10-20 mins and does not need us around at all (hasn't for a while, she is 3.7

Thanks Zaftig and sfxmum. I'm feeling encouraged. I don't really mind whether we co-sleep or not, in principle, but I would like to feel that the things we found difficult with dd1 were not actually caused by what we did.

sorry just noticed your dd is 15wks not months growths spurts are a bugger all the way through I think and tend to disrupt sleep.

one thing I found was that after the initial settling in, when I would speak softly/ sing etc I started keeping the interaction fairly minimal gentle patting
also they seem to go in cycles fall asleep, then go deeper then slightly rousing after about 45 mins then deeper sleep (see it was a hobby

my dd was a terrible day time sleeper short naps and dropped them altogether shortly after turning 2

I developed the same hobby myself with dd1, sfxmum. She always used to wake up after 40 mins before settling for a longer chunk of the night. It was very annoying!

I'm a bit concerned that dd2 seems to have decided to do short naps just like dd1. Did you find that the short naps went with frequent night wakings?

hi sort of, I guess I seem to recall reading somewhere that sleep promotes sleep which I suppose is the same as the 'too tired to rest idea. once dd dropped the morning nap I used to make sure we had a busy morning then a rest/quiet time in the afternoon which did not include sleep but mostly sitting on my lap quietly reading or just cuddling
But to be fair she started sleeping through the night quite regularly from 10/12 months

we also always did late bedtime (8-9) because it suited us really

Oh wow you are now my new hero. A co-sleeping baby who slept through from 10/12 months?! Something for me to aspire to. DD1 never slept through till she got her own room at two and a half.

steady I did not say every night dd was still bf during the night until she was about 2, when she wanted and any night waking was for that, once we stopped the sleeping through became the norm, although to be fair I barely recalled having fed her during the night
sort of half awake for both of us
looking back I think I should have night weaned earlier

Got a bit overexcited there...

fwiw, my 5 month old co-sleeping lo conks out in about 2 minutes of cuddling and back rubbing or i feed her to sleep. used to take much longer before we were co-sleeping - normally 30 minutes to an hour and 3 or so attempts at putting her down. Which is not great when you are desperate to go to sleep yourself. So as you can imagine, i think co-sleeping is the best thing ever!