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Attachment Parenting
Reluctant Bedsharing
I always said I'd never bedshare. It scared me too much and I don't want her in our bed indefinitely. But I've been exhausted for at least a month because my little good sleeper has stopped STTN. She was waking up several times a night. Out of desperation, I did one night of Ferber. I think it actually worked the way it was supposed to. She eventually fell asleep. But I couldn't bring myself to do it the next night. (I'm sure out of exaggerated mommy guilt due to working outside of the home.)
So in a state of sleep deprivation, I pulled her into our bed (she sleeps in a crib by our bed) one night. All of us got a good night's sleep. So I've done the same thing for the past week. DH has put her back in her crib a few nights when she's fallen asleep and she's stayed there for a few hours.
But I'm still scared due to the media attention to bedsharing deaths. I'm also afraid that I'm going to wind up with a 5 year old in my bed. Of course from a selfish POV, I'm feeling like a new woman with a week of decent (not great) sleep and I admit that I like a snuggling little baby next to me at night. I feel like I'm being lazy and creating a problem I'll have to tackle in the future.
For those of you do bedshare, when do you plan on transitioning your LO to his/her own bed?
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Re: Reluctant Bedsharing
DD2 8.22.13
MMC 1.4.17 at 16w
Expecting #3, EDD 1.29.18
DS has never slept in a crib. We are going on vacation in a few weeks and will be bedsharing then, too. When we get back, I want to bring his crib into our room beside our bed and see how it goes.
I know DH would love to have our bed back. We have a queen size bed, and it's getting pretty crowded. This morning DH said "It made me really happy when you cuddled with me this morning. You are always facing the other way to DS and we never get to cuddle anymore."
I was thinking about putting him in his crib (next to our bed) for naps during the day to get him familiar with it.
This may be a weird thought...but I was thinking maybe him being in a crib will help him learn how to pull up and stand. He tries so hard with the couch but can't quite do it.
I could have written your post back when DS was 5 months old (except for the STTN part). I never planned on bedsharing. But out of desperation, we did it...for 5 months. Some nights he started in his crib or ended up there later, but mainly he was in our bed from 5 months to 10 months. It was great for us. We transitioned back to his crib in his room without too much difficulty around 10 months. DH, DS, and I all enjoyed the extra snuggling time.
Honestly, I never worried about safety. He slept between us, and we kept the pillows and covers away from him.
He napped in his crib about 50% of the time at home, and of course at daycare he always slept in a crib.
If you dig a little deeper into the bed sharing tragedies, you will find that there is usually drugs or alcohol involved. If LO has good head control and you take precautions to keep pillows and blankets out of their face, it is safe. We were cautious and scared to sleep with DS during the first month or 2 as well, and kept him in his crib next to our bed until he woke the first time and then would bring him to bed with us. It was nice to get a better nights rest. Eventually we gave in and just started full time bed sharing.
My DS wakes every 2-3 hours to eat at night still, and it has been my plan to start transitioning him to his crib next to the bed when he starts sleeping through the night.
We bedshared the first year with the exception of about a week and a half when she was 5 months old and we tried to move her to her crib but changed our minds.
We transitioned her to a floor bed in her room after her birthday and we LOVE it. All that money we spent on the crib, and we hardly touched it.
Oh, and I always said we'd never full-on bedshare either. I'm happy to eat those words, we LOVED having DD in our bed.
The O'Baby Blog
There's actually some new research out now that shows that cosleeping/bedsharing may actually reduce the risk of SIDS: We started co-sleeping when DS was a baby because my cousin died of SIDS and I was up all night watching him breathe; after a TON of research, I am pretty firmly on the co-sleeping side of that debate.
https://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf
For the "in our bed till he's 5" problem - I do know a few moms who had this problem. We're handling it by starting the night in his crib, now that the SIDS risk is lower. When he wakes up (if it's past our bedtime), we bring him to bed with us. I love waking up to his smiles in the morning, and this way, he's used to at least falling asleep in his room.
I figure, eventually he will start to STTN, even if he's 2 when he starts to do it. And since he's starting in his bed, as long as he doesn't wake up, he'll stay there. That's the theory, anyway!
Some of my favorite memories as a kid were of morning cuddles with my parents on Saturday mornings when I'd wake up and climb into their bed. I still remember "THE RULE" - No tinkle pants on mommy and daddy's bed! Anyway, I won't mind if he climbs into our bed after nightmares or when he's feeling sick, even if he is 5. I just want him to be comfortable in his own space when all is normal.
I was very much in the "babies should sleep in their own beds" camp from the beginning because i've seen some bad stuff related to suffocation more than SIDS, i think. Anyway, I did plan to cosleep (but not co-bed) using the pack and play basinette. DS slept great in that for the first 4 or so months and from then on out he started the night in his crib, but he always ended up in our bed for the rest of the night and slept between us. It was the ONLY way I would have survived, and we were all fine. A little past a year, he started sleeping better, and finally was just waking up once a night around 4 am and then i started putting him back in his crib after nursing. Soon after that he started sleeping the whole night in his crib, and bedsharing was done! He loves his crib now and demands to go to bed when he's getting tired (and I thought he would never sleep!!) .
He still cuddles with us in our bed while we're getting ready in the am, but that's it. I actually miss snuggling his warm body at night, but he kicks and moves around so much now, so I think he would keep us awake more!
Anyway, things change over time that work for your family. For our next kid, I plan to do the same- basinette right up to the edge of the bed, then when they grow out of it, if they want to sleep in the crib, that's fine, if they want to sleep with us, that's fine too.
This is almost exactly what I would have said
I said I wouldn't bedshare before I had DS and then ate my words. Have no problem admitting I was ignorant of the benefits of bedsharing and that it can be safe.
We are at 11 months now and still going strong. We try to start the night with him in the crib side carred to our bed. He usually lasts 2-3 hours in there before moving over.
No, I am not worried about having a five year-old in our bed. We will transition him in the next few months as I try to night wean him.
If it is working for you and your family roll with it. You can set limits, like a goal of moving to a crib or floor bed by X date. And if you don't transition by then no one here will call you on it
I don't have the statistics in front of me (but they are somewhere around here - I'll look), but the risk of bedsharing is going to be less as your baby gets older. Does she have fairly good body control?
At your baby's age, I would be mostly concerned about crawling/walking/falling off of the bed, so take precautions against that. I would also be worried about getting her head stuck - make sure you don't have curtain cords hanging down, excessive material, etc. Obviously, don't sleep with her if either of you have been drinking or are on meds.
As for the 5 year old in your bed - we've been cosleeping from the start and are in the process of transitioning him to his bed right now. It probably won't happen unil he's closer to 2 and I stop bf'ing, but YOU get to decide when your kids stop sleeping with you. It's a struggle now, but maybe it won't be in the future? You never know.
We're still doing it at 18 months and I figure I'll try to get her into her own bed around 2 years old...unless I feel she's ready earlier.
I also could have written your post (and I have been thinking about writing one for a while now). I think that I'd be more comfortable having LO in his own room once he is STTN (which he has never done). Our LO's room is on a different floor of the house and I cannot function having to go up and down stairs 3 times per night. We start him out in the PNP in our room and he usually last 3-4 hours and then when he wakes the first time I just bring him in our bed for the rest of the night.
The crawling makes me nervous. DD's crib was side-carred until about a month ago. She scared me one morning when DH woke me to tell me that she had crawled over me, without my knowledge and crawled on top of him. So we bought an Ikea Gulliver crib and put it right next to the bed.