Co-sleeping questions...Can anyone help?

[Buggleboo]

I have one DD who is almost 7 ms. I tried to move her into her own room at 6 months (she had been sleeping in carrycot next to our bed up until then). However, she wakes frequently crying throughout the night and because her room is on the floor below us it means walking down the stairs etc and waking myself up loads every time to go down BF her and resettle her. So, in desperation I turned to co-sleeping and found it is pretty fantastic. DD loves being close to me, never cries, sleeps really well and sometimes only wakes once. I also sleep well. However, we only have a double bed so DH tends to end up in the spare bed because there is not enough room.

Some questions/worries for co-sleepers:

• Am worried about not sleeping in the same bed as DH affecting our relationship....

I don't really tell people we are co-sleeping for fear of all the 'rods for own backs' comments we are likely to get. I don't agree with CC or CIO and couldn't do that to DD. I feel much more comfortable with the William Sears attachment parenting approach.

Any one who co-slept with their baby - when did they go into their own bed/cot and was it a smooth transition? Although I like co-sleeping at the moment I do want my own bed back eventually!

Don't worry you are not alone! My DD is nearly 7 months as well and we've pretty much co-slept since birth- although her cot is still along side our bed and she starts the night out on 'her' side before
attaching gravitating towards me! My DP is in the spare room as we all sleep much better that way. I also have fallen into the attachment style of parenting a la Sear and figure I'll know intuitively when the arrangement needs to change.

Don't worry about things too much, other people will always have an opinion about how you are raising your child and will only be too happy to point out the negatives. If it works for you and your LO then continue!

I haven't shared a bed with my DH in YEARS. It hasn't affected our relationship at all. In fact I think things are better as we both sleep better in different beds and a good sleep makes for a nicer day ahead, iykwim.

I still mainly co-sleep with my 22 month old. For a few months now he has occasionally slept in his toddler bed which is in my DS1's room. He likes being in with his brother but likes cuddles with me too so is going back and forth as it suits him.

I unintentionally co-slept with my DD - basically, because I kept falling asleep whilst BF. So she generally arrived in the bed around 3am.

I did get the rod for back comments, but she was an awful sleeper and I just got to the stage where I didn't care - and I felt so much better after the first decent night's sleep. DH was in the bed, though, so no effect on that front, and he seemed rather happy to find her there in the morning too - nice little family time. Can quite understand why you'd rather there were only you two in the bed, I did always panic first thing to check she was ok. Can you get your DH to come and join you first thing?

She's just turned 2 and am pleased to report that she loves her own bed now. She ended up in our room until she was 9 months old, purely because we were due to move house so didn't see the point in moving her before then - and settled quite happily when we moved house - she always used to start the night in her own bed anyway and I think the novelty of the bedroom helped. I was also at that point more relaxed about having toys in the cot which she really really loved. In fact, having seen how she sleeps burrowed into soft toys, it doesn't surprise me that she never took to being on her back, on her own, in the middle of a cot. Also, she was starting to sleep better at that stage due to crawling etc. and just being older.

Hope that helps - only one other thing is to be careful when your LO starts to move - I did have one near miss where she very nearly rolled out of the bed so don't think we could have carried on that much longer.

I co-slept with DS2 until he was about 8 months; he moved to his own cot in with his sister well. We then had a couple of months where he started off in his cot and ended up the night with us but at 10 months he started sleeping through and not needing me any more.

My DH and I slept apart for the first four months of DS2's life and it didn't do our relationship any harm; infact it made it a bit more fun having to tiptoe around a bit

Could you get a sidecar cot then although DD will be able to get close to you, there'll still be a bit of space on the other side of the bed for DH!

I co-slept with ds3 until he was nearly 1, by which time he pretty much climbed into his cot by himself, he was that ready for his own space.

As for being a rod for your own back - rubbish. If it works for you now then stick with it. When the time comes that it doesn't work for you, or your DD, then that's the time to look at changing. For various reasons I recently had to co-sleep with ds2, who's 6, for 6 months, and it worked well for both of us. Until he got a bunk bed to share with ds1, at which point he scarpered off happily.

We are still co-sleeping with DS 14 months old throughout the night and with DD 3 year old from when she wakes at night.

DD did volunteer to swap beds with DS tonight...no idea how to get a child free bed, luckily we have a spare room !!!

DD is three and started nursery school this September. After school one day one of the Mums was explaining how she was going to go to Ikea at the weekend to buy her dd a new bed. She had a catalogue and we all oooohed and aaaarrred over the chosen bed and other Mums described their dds beds. I kept quiet. You see my dd has a 'book den' (her cot that we ended up using as a playpen really when she was little that now has one side off and is covered in cushions and teddies and bunting and was designed wih the inention of giving her a place to 'read' her books in) but she has no bed as such as she has always slept wih us.

My dd listened in carefully to this conversation and since then I would say five out of seven nights a week she insists on going in her den to sleep so she is like her friends.

She loves it... but we miss her and secretly get very happy when we hear her dainty stomps down the hallway and feel her hop into our bed... because do you know...some nights at say three am or four she visits us for a sneeky cuddle and then (I hate this bit) tipoes back to her den!

Thanks for all your responses! It has really reassured me :-)
Will investigate the sidecar cot thing though and see if her cot would be the right height for our bed.