Logistics questions Re: cosleeping (LONG)
terri_doula2010
member
I would greatly appreciate any help or insight you ladies can provide.
Basic info: we have a 2.5 yr old DS and a 7w old DD. Currently DD's crib is sidecar-ed to our queen bed. She starts the night there and then when she wakes up I usually keep her in the queen with me til morning. DS has a toddler bed in his room and he starts the night there, then when he wakes up he and DH go to the futon in the living room (he used to come to bed with us, but I don't feel comfy with him and DD in the same bed yet...especially a queen!).
DS has never slept through the night for lots of reasons. We just discovered he has Celiac Disease in April, so I think his stomach hurt a lot without us knowing and that caused sleep issues. He does better now, but he is used to waking up. He also has nightmares now which cause him to wake up wailing. When we've tried to get him to go back to bed in his room, it leads to DH being stuck in there trying to convince him to sleep for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night...so DH just sleeps with him to get better sleep himself (We've spend MUCH of the last 2.5 years trying to get him to sleep in oh so many ways). He sleeps solidly as long as he is in bed with someone else.
The other BIGGER issue at this point is that it is taking upwards of 2 hours to get him to sleep at night because since having DD I can't get him to nap during the day most of the time which means he takes a really late nap when we go pick up DH and then it isn't enough time between nap and bedtime. All that time DH is on the hardwood floor beside DS's toddler bed on a floor pillow and he is pretty achy from it.
We're thinking about changing over to some form of full cosleeping to see if that helps. I wanted to see what you thought of these scenarios or if there was another one I hadn't considered.
1. We figure out a way to move DS's toddler bed into our bedroom to see if that helps him sleep through the night more. We have a big bedroom but it is full of stuff, so we'd have to move a lot around to accomplish this.
2. Move the crib out of our room and add a free or super cheap craigslist full sized mattress to our floor-queen-bed and all four of us sleep across that. Still lots of rearranging and we'd have to figure out some long-term way to keep DD safe because I sleep so much better/deeper when I know the kids are safe, hence the side car. (DS is pretty indestructible now, but the reason he started sleeping on his own in the first place is because I wasn't getting much/any sleep with him in bed with us full time).
3. Other??
We're all just trying to figure out how to sleep better and not spent hours on end just trying to get DS to sleep.
Oh, DD doesn't wake up very much at night right now. She is usually asleep somewhere around 8:30-9:30 (tonight she was asleep before DS and he went to bed at 7:15). We very rarely have to change her diaper and when she does eat she comes to bed with me to eat and then may fuss enough to wake me up to change to the other side but she really doesn't cry at night much at all...though I know that can change at any point.
Re: Logistics questions Re: cosleeping (LONG)
I only have one LO, but we do bed-share and I love it!
I like both of your ideas, but you could always put a twin rather than a full next to your queen if you go with option number 2, and save some (I know, not much) space. When we are ready to transition LO to his own bed, we'll do it by putting a twin mattress next to ours and putting him to bed there, bringing him in with us if/when he wakes, etc. Then, that will just become his bed and move to his room with him.
If you are worried about DD and DS being next to each other but want to bed-share, could you just have DS sleep on DH's side, on the outside? Then DD will never be right next to him, even if at some point she's sleeping between you, especially if she spends most of the night in her crib.
Good luck! Enjoy your snuggles with those adorable babies!
One idea I have instituted with my DS who is also a horrible sleeper is quiet time for nap time. I take him to his room and read one book and give kisses and hugs then leave. He is allowed to read books or play with toys as long as he stays in bed. He generally is passed out in 15 minutes, if he's still up after an hour he can get up but that is rare. It works for us because I don't insist he sleep during that time. We started it about a month after DD was born and he's never cried about it. Of course this only works for him with nap time, bedtime he still needs someone to fall asleep.
I had similar issues after Eleanor was born including the nap dropping - I gave up on naps because it was too much of a battle! We do a quiet time now which I wish I'd started when E was a newborn - basically he picks a spot and has to look at books or hang out there for an hour. Sometimes he falls asleep but usually he just lays there. I do let him watch a bit of video or play a computer game for 20 minutes or so afterward as a reward - lame but it works!
The other thing that really helped us was an earlier bedtime. Maybe if you can figure out how to keep him awake on that drive, you could try the earlier bedtime? I also think tons of physical activity helps - make a point of going for a walk every morning that you can. Callum loves riding his balance bike so that's what we do most days.
On the bed situation - could you put a full size mattress in his room as a floor bed? Then DH could sleep in there as needed. We did that and it worked really well.
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Thanks for everyone's advice! Somehow we hadn't considered moving the toddler bed to our room, so we are going to start there.
DS is very sensitive and if he is awake in the middle of the night, he is crying. I mean WAILING. Same goes for naptime fails...if I'm not sitting there in his room, he is bawling. We've tried explaining quiet time in his room and he falls apart, even if the door is left open. He is fine going in there on his terms, but something about us trying to "force" him just destroys him. He can't articulate why yet. I've been encouraging quiet time on the futon (in the living room) with me and a movie on, but that is as far as I've managed.
Moving back bedtime when he naps late is a good idea too. We try so hard to stick to his bedtime, but I suppose it doesn't matter so much. One of the reasons is because we desperately need time together at night (seriously. I lose my mind. I'm losing it now) and that isn't happening all the time or as early now that we have a 2nd baby anyway, so I guess we can relax the struggle a bit.
I'm guilty of not reading the other responses...but...right now we only have the 1 child, but in anticipation of newbie on the way, we started some sleep training with our little cosleeper. In the end, what worked for us (for right now) was starting some Sleep Lady Shuffle type thing for putting him to bed. We just sit in the rocker in his room while he falls asleep in his bed (twin bed). I play on my phone there until he falls asleep. This is big because he was weaned and then went to rocking to sleep to this! Then when he wakes up at night, he has a floor bed in our room that consists of a fluffy bed topper we had and a pillow and blanket, so not a "real" bed. He sleeps there from about 3-5am. He's gradually started staying in his bed longer and longer. If he manages to stay in either his own bed or his floor mat all night long, he gets a sticker for his sticker chart, which was majorly rewarding for him! Who knew stickers could have such an impact?! Starting the sticker chart completely changed bedtime for us. We used to discuss the stickers every night before bed too and he would hop into bed babbling about stickers while he fell asleep! I didn't know if it would work because he's still so little with little vocabulary, but he caught on the to sticker idea right away.
I can share what we do in case any of it is helpful.
DS2 sleeps in the sidecar next to me/in the bed next to me. DS1 starts the night in his floor bed in his room. I lay with DS2 in our bed to get him alseep while DH lays with DS1 on the floor bed. When both boys are asleep, we go our about our evening. When DH and I are in bed, DS1 comes in with us when he wakes at about 12:30. He sleeps between DH and I.
For naps, I lay on thetwin-size floor bed with DS1 on one side of me and DS2 on the other. I often face DS2 so I can nurse him to sleep while DS1 cozies up next to me and strokes my arm or ear (his "lovies"). Once he is asleep, I inch out from between them, scoop up DS2 and put him in my bed.
I actually am surprised at how relatively easy this works out! We are thrilled to continue cosleeping with DS2 because I think the continued nighttime snuggles have helped make the big sibling transition smooth.
More Green For Less Green
I don't have an answer exactly to your question, but wanted to normalize something. Our LO just turned 3 and still doesn't always sleep through the night. Some kids just don't and more research is suggesting that it is perfectly normal for toddlers to not sleep through the night. Our culture has led us/moms to believe we need to get our kids to sleep through the night when really maybe we just need to accept that they won't most of the time.
In our home, I sleep with our LO and my DW sleeps separate. This isn't ideal, but needed for now so that everyone sleeps best. Maybe it makes sense for your DH to sleep with your DS if that will keep everyone well rested.
Good Luck... we too have tried every configuration known and finally landed with what works for us.