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Attachment Parenting
brittanynikel
member
New to the Board and a cosleeping/bedsharing question
brittanynikel
member
Hello all! I'm new to this board (just had my baby a month ago) and am still trying to navigate my way through everything. I didn't really know much about attachment parenting, and sort of stumbled into it by chance. Turns out, almost everything that we've been been doing or plan to do falls under the AP category. I'm so glad there's a board out here where I can get answers and support from other ladies walking through the same things as me!
So...my first question--We always intended to co-sleep, but it has quickly turned into bedsharing. My daughter did okay the first few week or so at home sleeping in her rock n' play, but by week 2 she was pretty determined to only fall asleep if we were holding her or if she was actually sleeping on one of our chests. I'm not sure where the change came in. Granted, I didn't try super hard to get her to sleep in the RNP the first week home, simply because I was exhausted and in a lot of pain thanks to a 4th degree tear.
I know she's too young to be actually forming habits...right? I guess I'm just scared of bedsharing and not being able to wean from it. Cosleeping seems like it's easier to graduate to their own bed/room. My parents bedshared with my little sister and she developed extreme anxiety and refused to sleep in her own bed until she was 10 years old!! I know that is probably a bizarre/rare case, but that's my only real association with it so you can understand my hesitation.
I guess my question is multi-faceted...Any thoughts on bedsharing vs. cosleeping and the weaning process between both? Anyone want to share positive bedsharing experiences? Or why you chose to bedshare over cosleeping and vice versa? Also, at what point should you start to move LO to their own room or bed? Any thoughts would be helpful! Thanks in advance!!
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Re: New to the Board and a cosleeping/bedsharing question
Congrats on your new baby! Here's our story:
DD started off in a co-sleeper next to our bed. Even though I was aware of how to safely bedshare, I was scared to do it when she was teeny tiny. Around 5.5 months, I was still not ready to move her into her crib, but the co-sleeper was taking up a LOT of room in our super-small bedroom and we were ready to get that out. So, she moved into our bed. I *said* I would put her down in her crib and bring her into our bed on the first wakeup, but I did it on an extremely inconsistent basis--the vast majority of the time I put her down in our bed. At first it didn't matter, she'd still sleep in her crib if we laid her down. Around 8 months or so, however, she started refusing to sleep in her crib. She would wake up the second we started lowering her down, no matter how "out" we thought she was. So, she stayed in our bed. My daughter is an historically very good sleeper, but during that time I had lots of worries about whether I was making a mistake by having her in our bed. I work full time, and she did some reverse cycling where she'd wake up as many as 4 times a night to nurse, even when she was close to a year old. While being a working mom was actually one of the reasons I WANTED to bedshare (extra bonding and keeping my supply up), I also worried that she was going to be nursing all night until she was twelve.
Around 11, months, I started to suspect that she might actually sleep better in her own room. She was more easily roused when my husband and I came to bed, and she started waking up every morning when my alarm went off and being up for the day. We just sat on the problem for awhile, and finally our solution, at 13 months, was to put a full size mattress on the floor of her bedroom. That way we didn't have to train her to sleep in the crib, AND we can still bedshare on a part-time basis. She does perfectly fine with it. We soothe her to sleep in her room, and then leave once she's asleep. She usually wakes up around 4 and wants to nurse, and I spend the rest of the night in bed with her. A few times she has slept up to 10 hours straight, which she NEVER did when she was in our bed.
So anyway, my point is that in our case, no, it wasn't hard to transition her out of our bed. As for the age to do it, I really think it's entirely dependent on your individual situation--your baby's temperament, how you and your husband feel about ongoing bedsharing, etc. I know a few moms who start their babies off in the crib, and then bedshare after the first wakeup. Anyway, I love bedsharing and miss having her in our room in a lot of ways.
Bedsharing makes breastfeeding so much easier! I've got a bed in DS's room, so we're in there a lot. He starts the night in the crib now, and I move in to a bed w him around 3 am. I think around 6 months is a good time to start a gentle transition. He also naps in the crib.
Play it by ear.
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DD and I shared a bed (I was a SAHM for a bit) until she was almost 4 mos old. For the first few weeks, she did sleep on my chest, literally (you should have seen the rig I had set up to keep her safe) and then transitioned to the mattress. Anyway, one morning I woke up and her head was butted up against my ribcage (she was almost 4 mos) and it scared me to death. For some reason she loved having something pressed up against the top of her head (maybe from the last trimester of being in my pelvis) and had moved to accomplish that.
This discovery made the transition from my bed to her crib painfully simple for us. She went right in and would scoot until her little head was touching the railing and was out like a light from night 1 with no issues. She is 4 now and still likes sleeping with Mama from time to time, but she much prefers her own bed.