Preggo w 2nd and still co sleeping w 1st

adriennevazquez

Just for some background my son is a year old. He is still majority breastfed and still cosleeps. I am due in August (so I have time) but I am worried about sleeping arrangements and breastfeeding with a newborn.

How?! How can that possibly work? Won't one wake the other? How can I wake up and feed my 1 year old and then wake up and feed my newborn and go to work in the morning?!

I think I need to start weaning my son and I need to figure out a transition for bedtime.

Any sleeping arrangement suggestions? Breastfeeding tips? Surely someone else has dealt with this. I am so worried.

Only thing I cannot do is CIO. I respect if that is how you did it but I am not able to. TIA!!

bookworm982

I completely understand your concern. DD only coslept for three months, but I still nursed her at night until she was almost a year old. To prepare for ds's arrival, dh took over dd's bedtime. I nursed her, and then they had a routine of their own that I had no part in. That broke the nurse to sleep habit. After a few weeks (I think), dh also took over middle of the night wakings. It helped that my milk supply was really low by that point, so there wasn't much comfort from nursing. DD started sleeping through the night just after her birthday, and ds was born a month later.

Once ds was born and I had ample milk again I tried nursing dd to sleep one night. She didn't want that. I can now do dh's routine to put her down if he isn't home, but the sleeping and nursing connection is gone. I'm tandem nursing, ds is almost 5 months and still cosleeping, and we are planning a third. It can be done.

Basically, your dwindling supply will probably help. I never dried up, but there was so little after about 32 weeks that we took advantage of it. Have you checked out Adventive in Tandem Nursing? That book helped me a ton!

jf198400

Obviously it is a personal decision whether to wean or tandem nurse, I will just share what worked for me. I got pregnant when dd was 9 months, we continued to nurse and started weaning around a year. It helped that I work FT and she was already used to bottles and sippies. My OB wanted me to stop BFing by the time I was about 20 weeks, so I had dd fully weaned around 13months old. I was more upset about it than she was.

I was glad I weaned when I did. Being pregnant it was kinda nice to not have to share my body with 2 human beings lol. It also meant dd felt no jealousy towards the new baby nursing, she no longer remembered or cared that she used to nurse.

If you are interested in tandem nursing, I would check out the BFing board and also kellymom.com.

As far as ending the cosleeping arrangement, we did it when dd was about 6 months old. I would nurse her to sleep in the rocker and then put her in her crib. Yes she did cry, and to some extent I had to let her cry. You can stand next to the crib and provide comfort without picking her up. I also recommend choosing a time when maybe you have a long weekend or something so you're not dealing with CIO and then having to wake up for work in the morning. It should only take a couple days to a week to adjust. I know it's hard to deal with, but as you get larger pregnant, you will appreciate having your own bed at night.

kcisthebombdotcom

I coslept with both. Ds slept between dh and I and dd slept on the other side nestled under my arm or in a sidecarred cosleeper. I felt I got more sleep than if I had to get up for both.

L0L0

I weaned DD at 15 months, about 6 months before LO was born. Now she has no memory of nursing and hasn't expressed any jealousy about it. When I nurse him she just points and says "baby milk!" We co-slept for 9 months and then just occasionally after that, but at 9 months we put her in her own room and just went in there to comfort her if she woke up at night. Now the new baby is in our room, and surprisingly DD doesn't seem jealous to find him there every morning. I knew I didn't want to tandem nurse, and we moved DD out of our bed before the pregnancy anyway. It got too crowded and it was time. We've never had to use CIO by the way.

jasieandry

We bed shared with my first. She was night weaned at about 13 mos and we moved her to her big girl bed when she was 18 mos and I was pregnant. We didn't CIO we just went through her bedtime routine and then got her in bed. If she got up we laid her back down. You can stay with him until he falls asleep for the first few nights then slowly move further away. If Ellie was having a real tough time falling asleep sometimes I would lay down and nurse her in her bed but I'm small so that might not work for everyone. During pregnancy she would spend most to all of the night in her own bed but sometimes she would wake up during the night and either join us or we would put her back in bed. Right now dd #2 is in bed with us and we plan to bed share and use the arms reach cosleeper more and more as she gets older and sleeps for longer stretches.When Ellie gets up in the middle of the night daddy will take her back to bed and settle her down again. She's had a few rough nights but overall its working for us. I'm nursing both and she doesn't seem to have any jealousy issues but she does ask for boobies all the time and will occasionally have a little tantrum when she doesn't get to nurse. But hey I'd rather her have a meltdown over not getting breastmilk than not getting candy like most toddlers