I can't see the wood for the trees on this one. DS is a month old - I know, he's tiny and needs to feed a lot, agreed. Actually he's not tiny, he's a whopping 12lbs 7oz and was 10lbs 4oz at birth so he's Jabba the Hut. Unsurprisingly he feeds frequently, a big part of the reason we started co-sleeping a fortnight or so ago. He will sleep for about three hours from 9pm or so, and usually he'll sleep in his cot for that, albeit going down asleep. From midnight onwards it's not unusual for him to feed every hour, which gets exhausting, esp as he feeds around every 90 mins during the day (BF, I should add).
Now I don't like co-sleeping and am doing it solely to get more sleep myself. He settles better - not perfectly, but better - when he can just spit out the nipple and doze off than when I would get him out of his cot to feed him and then spend sometimes literally hours settling him back to sleep. I found that quite depressing. But, if I'm awake every hour feeding all through the night, have I really gained anything? Really my question is this: does him sleeping next to my boobs all night stimulate him to feed when otherwise he might continue sleeping? I do try to roll over so my back is to him but don't know if that does much, if anything, to remove the smell, esp as the bed is often soaked in milk despite my best efforts with towels etc.
I'm at the point of going back to having him sleep in his cot. Nearly tried at 4am today but decided the middle of the night when you're tired and desperate isn't the time to try new tactics! The whizzy mobile arrived today and already appears (fingers crossed, touch wood, salt over shoulder) to have helped him settle in his cot for a nap, hurray!