My experience of co-sleeping.

An article by Chelle    1 Comment

One of our regular guest posters Liz shares her experience of co-sleeping.

I had an open mind about co-sleeping when my baby was born. My husband and I weren’t sure about doing it at first because we thought we might squash our tiny baby, so we swaddled her and settled her in a Moses basket right next to our bed. My husband spent many hours holding her skin to skin in the night (awake) to let me sleep between feeds.

However after a couple of weeks, I got the hang of breastfeeding lying down. Mostly I tried to do the night feeds sitting up. This meant I could do a feed, my baby would fall asleep, I could put her back in the basket and we’d all have a good few hours sleep before she woke up. Sometimes, though, I was so tired I couldn’t face sitting up for another half an hour so I snuggled my baby in for a feed lying down. We would both fall asleep but invariably I’d wake after only an hour or so because I was cold (I couldn’t pull the covers right up when she was nestled in the crook of my arm), and I’d put her back in her basket and try to get back to sleep. I think this is the main reason why we didn’t co-sleep as a general rule – I found my, and her, sleep was more disturbed by keeping her in bed with me. Also I was pretty leaky from breastfeeding and need to keep a bra and breast-pads in place so I’d have to strap myself back up after a feed!

However, we did find co-sleeping a really useful fall back when we traveled. I spent a lot of time co-sleeping with my baby on a trip to Japan when she was 4 months, as she needed the reassurance of mummy and daddy in this strange new place. I think it was about a week before she was able to settle in her travel cot. Equally, in a heatwave in Paris, she was really thirsty, so wanted to feed every 2 hours during the night and so I just slept with her for ready access to my boobs.

The last time we really co-slept much was on my return to work. She decided to “reverse-cycle”, taking her breastfeeds in the night rather than the day and I was so exhausted that once I’d hauled her into bed for the first feed of the night, she stayed there with me till morning. After she’d settled with her childminder though, we did some sleep training and she stayed in her cot with just one feed a night till she was a year old. Now if we try to bring her into bed with us for comfort, she just wriggles and won’t settle, so it doesn’t seem to be an option anymore. Sometimes I miss the cuddly times of her being a little baby and I’d certainly be open to co-sleeping with a second baby if and when we have one.

Did you co-sleep and how did it work out for you?

Chelle McCann