Jenny952 and other occasional bed-sharers

RioG1978

Do you find that bedsharing only on occasion - like when LO is teething etc - is confusing to them and inhibits or slows down the bed to crib transition?

 My DD is 7 months.  I started bedsharing at some point during th 4 month wakeful and enjoyed it, but it's time to move her to her crib.  We only have a queen bed and while DD sleeps great with us, I don't.

So this is night 3 of having her in her crib all night (previously I was bringing her to my bed around midnight or so).  She's doing okay... but not great.  I have to go in to her several (3-5) times a night.  She nurses 2-3 times. 

I'm just confused about whether it is okay to bring her back to bed if she seems to need it... or if it's very important to remain vigilant about doing the middle of the night soothing in her room, so she learns that she has to stay there.

I do bring her to bed if she wakes after 5 or 6... I figure that's close enough to morning, and I love when she wakes for the day and smiles at me.  I think I'm feeling a little bit of guilt that I'm not bedsharing all night anymore. 

belladonna11307

I never considered myself a bed sharer, but when DD is REALLY fussy and won't sleep, we do.  I've been doing it since she was about  nine months old.  If I know she's sick or teething and waking up in the middle of the night and not going back to sleep with rocking and nursing, I'll bring her to bed with us.  I might do it for one night, it might be a week.  Once whatever was keeping her up has passed she goes back to her crib all night, no problem.  I will say, though, that DD is VERY laid back and hasn't had issues with any transitions (they skipped the transition period from the infant room to the toddler room at DC because she did so well the first day).  I think this might unfortunately be a trial and error, know your LO's personality thing.

RioG1978

belladonna11307:

I never considered myself a bed sharer, but when DD is REALLY fussy and won't sleep, we do.  I've been doing it since she was about  nine months old.  If I know she's sick or teething and waking up in the middle of the night and not going back to sleep with rocking and nursing, I'll bring her to bed with us.  I might do it for one night, it might be a week.  Once whatever was keeping her up has passed she goes back to her crib all night, no problem.  I will say, though, that DD is VERY laid back and hasn't had issues with any transitions (they skipped the transition period from the infant room to the toddler room at DC because she did so well the first day).  I think this might unfortunately be a trial and error, know your LO's personality thing.

 thanks.   I don't consider myself a "formal" bedsharer either.  And my LO seems to not have trouble with transitions - for example, sometimes for her afternoon nap we sleep together in my bed, sometimes I put her in her crib.  She definitely naps longer when we nap together, but no trouble going down either way.

 I guess I would really like the "luxury" of being able to change it up as it suits... so when I'm really tired and just don't have the wherewithal to get up 6x I would like to be able to just bring her to bed.  But I also don't want that to hamper her ability to sleep in her crib all night. 

99% of this parenting gig I find easy and instinctive.  This one thing just has me stumped and unable to come up with the "right way" for us/

 

Jenny952

Hi!  We never started out with her in bed with us all the time, so I think she still associates her bed and room with sleep.  I rock her each night in her room and then she goes to bed in her crib every night.  It's the middle of the night that I sometimes bring her into bed with me when she doesn't fall right back to sleep.  For my DD I don't think it confuses her because there are nights when she wakes and is able to fall back to sleep on her own. 

For a while recently when I had her in bed with me almost every night, I was really nervous that she wasn't going to want to be back in her own bed.  The other night she woke up at 3:30, so I brought her to bed and she nursed and then fell asleep after about an hour.  The next night she woke at 12:15 so I nursed and rocked her in her room and it took a little over an hour before I put her back down in her own crib.  So either way, it still took an hour and she was able to fall asleep. 

Like you, I do love waking up in the morning next to her, but I'll only bring her in bed with me if I feel like she really needs it.  When she was sick, she needed to be by me a lot and she snuggled up really close.  Now that she's feeling better, she's ok to sleep on her own.  I just try to follow her cues and do what's best for her.  I don't think we'll ever be a regular bed-sharing duo but I'll do it when she needs it.