Do you think I'm setting up a bad habit (bedsharing vs. crib)?

jds0521

I should start this out by saying that I in no way want to bedshare with DD - I like that she has her crib & I don't have to worry about DH or I rolling on to her or hitting her with our arms or anything. And I also think I would never get any sleep if we bedshared completely b/c she moves & makes noises, etc. A LOT throughout the night.

Over the last week or so, DD has started waking up between 5:45am-6:30am where before she was w/u between 7am-8am. So yesterday when she w/u, since I was off & I knew she wasn't hungry, I changed her pamper, grabbed her paci & blanket & laid her down in our bed between DH & I. To my surprise (& excitement!), she fell back asleep until 8am. And since it snowed/iced overnight, I decided to telework today, so I wanted to sleep in until 8am again, I did the same thing with her & it worked like a charm! I don't plan on doing this everyday (b/c on the days I go into the office, I'm actually up @ 5am myself), but on the the days I'd like to sleep in a bit later, I likely will. Do you think she will begin to expect coming into our bed & not go back to sleep that early in the AM w/o coming to our bed if I continue doing this? Or eventually not want to sleep in her crib? She sleeps in her crib for 10+ hours, so this would only be another hour & a half or so.

mrsolsenk12

If you don't plan to make bedsharing permenant (which it doesn't sound like you do) a few times won't hurt any. We have done this a few times with Hayden and it has never cause a problem.

perry7285

i personally am scared to put LO in our bed, just because it does seem like children get hooked on it pretty fast, and once they're hooked, weaning them off of it can be very hard. so i would be afraid to do it even a few times--however, perhaps i'm being over-cautious.

charmcitygirl

Jacob was super sick over New Years and we brought him into bed with us several times.  I totally thought it was going to create a habit and it didn't.

Babies go through phases of waking early and so once she's out of this waking early phase, hopefully she'll sleep right through in her own crib! 

DavezWife

Ava is such a creature of habit, even ONCE makes un-doing it a long process. Not worth it, IMO. Perhaps you could set up the swing/bouncy or something in there, or like we might do... let her grab her morning "yoyo" and watch TV at the foot of our bed. But never start something you dont' wanna keep doing, IMO.  as tempting as it may be!

SS091506

We did the same thing with our DD.  I don't remember what age but she would get up at 5:30am or 6am.  We would bring her to our bed and she would fall back asleep until 8am.  It did become a habit for us (i.e. we did it almost every day).  I do remember it took us a week or so to break the habit.  We decided to stop when she would come to our bed and would not go back to sleep.

MBandBud

We do this every once in a while and it hasn't been a problem...so far...it is nice, isn't it?  I would have said never before and now I can see why folks get hooked...

njdcgirl

I'm not sure about the habit forming...but I do this too when I want a little more sleep. 

ejgballerina

In our experience, it was great.  DS started off in a pack-n-play next to us.  We started bedsharing around 4 months or so as DS reverse cycled once he started daycare where he would only drink juuuust enough breastmilk during the day from a bottle to take the edge off his appetite and then would be attached to me from 5pm until 5 am literally.  The only solution for us was bedsharing so I could get some sleep and he could dine at the allnight buffet.  Sure, maybe it was partly my fault for not forcing him to change his ways, but I felt bad enough leaving him every day to work that I jumped at any chance to connect and spend more time with him.  We weaned at 13 months and putting him down in his crib helped with that transition.  He would wake up anywhere between midnight and 3 am and want to come in our bed, which we allowed.  Slowly but surely, he has spent less and less time in bed with us and more in his crib.  Now he much prefers his crib and will really only come snooze with us on the weekend mornings when 630-7 am is just too early for us to get up.    In our experience, it wasn't habit forming at all and we never had any battles.  Of course I do realize that our situation may not be the norm, but I found that by just going with the flow, nothing really became a habit as we were constantly adjusting sleeping arrangements based on his needs at the time.