anybody co-slept and bf to sleep and still got a baby who sleeps well?

[nzbabies]

I have been wondering if it is possible to co-sleep and breastfeed to sleep, and totally go with the flow of the baby - and get a good sleeper? My first ds has been a shocking sleeper and I did all of the above. My new dd has slept from 11 - 6 a couple of nights and I am also doing all of the above with her - but I am scared that if I continue the way I did with ds it will all go wrong...or is it possible that she could just be a good sleeper no matter what? Or should I get her in her own bed now and stop feeding her to sleep, quick!

DS did. Took a while though. (He still sleeps in our room in a cot by the bed, but he's moving in with his sister soon. He's 20m.)

ds - dreadful. coslept because i had to.

dd - we cosleep and she has slept 12 hours a night from 11 weeks apart from a couple of nights when she was poorly. she is 5 months now and i'm taking the 'if it aint broke don't fix it' view.

i think good sleepers are born not made

My daughter is still breastfed to sleep (although now she is older she doesn't always fall asleep, aaargh) We often co-sleep, although we didn't start until she was almost one, as we were too nervous about flattening her. Her cot is right beside our bed in any case.
Probably lots of people would describe her as a poor sleeper. I personally take the view that she is a good sleeper (it makes me feel better )
She was "sleeping through" ie about a 6 hour stretch from about 6 weeks old - she has got worse since we started to co-sleep at 11 months (following an illness), in that she now usually wakes up once a night (in her cot). I put her straight in with us, and she will go straight back to sleep until morning. In my view = good sleeper, in most of my friends' views = terrible sleeper.

While I didn't cosleep, I did BF to sleep pretty solidly until DD was about 15 months. That was also the age at which I weaned her, and she had absolutely zero problems getting to sleep on her own after that (or staying asleep - that was also the point at which she started sleeping through). She's still a great sleeper.

I had to google endlessly until I could persuade myself that breastfeeding to sleep was OK, though! After finding enough stories of 'I did it with mine - they were fine' I decided that the books were WRONG about it.

I also of course found stories of the opposite being the case, but that just shows, as you suggest, that it's because the children themselves vary.

BFing to sleep definitely made life a lot easier in my case - I just wish I hadn't worried about it at all!

I believe that each baby is individual and need different types of care so some need to be cuddled up close to mum and Bf to sleep (like my DS) and others are perfectly content falling asleep by themselves in their own cot. How they develop and grow is individual and not down to how you taught them to fall asleep as babies so the best thing you can do is tailor your care to your own babies needs, trust your instinct and forget what the books say.

My DD bf'd constantly until she was three plus. She slept in with us for ages. But we moved home when she was 18months and we bought her a bed instead of a cot and she loved it and went straight in. She would come into me early in the morning for a while but never woke up in the night- ever. We got over the early mornings eventually. She is six now and still wants her bed at about 7.00 on a school night and sleeps soundly.

I think after DS2 who has autism and slept only four hours or so a night I was just much more relaxed with her. And my not being sleepy and stressed helped her enjoy sleep IYSWIM.
Of course this is not the case for all kids but just her

Yes - co slept and fed to sleep till 16mo with ds1, then carried on co sleeping till he was 5 and a half. He slept really well throughout this, now he is in his own bed he sometimes wakes and gets scared but usuallyis fine.

Ds2 also cosleeps and feeds to sleep, he tends to wake more when he is teething but otherwise is Ok. The other thing is he doesn't eat very well so that prob makes him feed more in the night. He's 2 in a few days.

I fed DS to sleep every night until he was about 11 months - I also fed him back to sleep in the night until around 10 months. Only co-slept occasionally or for short stretches of the night.

He is now 2.4 and goes to sleep on his own, in his own cot/own room (and we have NEVER left him to cry in his cot to get to sleep) and he regularly sleeps from 715pm to 8-830am.

Like other posters say, each child is different...I plan to do very similar with our impending new arrival.