Sleeping - without the Co

Question: ever wish you didnt stop co-sleeping?

Answer:

When Ryan and I first started to sleep with Jude, it was not something we did for the sake of co-sleeping. It happened quite by accident.

As with any newborn, Jude would sleep best when being held close. I remember if he was having a hard time being put to sleep, I'd lay him on my chest, bring my legs up under him and wrap my arms around him. This gave him the closeness he wanted on all sides and he would fall asleep easily. So, when getting Jude to fall asleep and wanting to sleep myself, I of course would hold him in my arms to get him to sleep.

Jude always hated sleeping on his back. From day one the second you laid him on his back he would wake up. So, I would instead hold him in my arms until he fell asleep and then just fall asleep myself.

The first few times this happened I felt like a terrible mother. Doctors, nurses, anyone you talked to would tell you how BAD this was! You could roll over and suffocate your baby! Even though this option gave Ryan and I sleepful nights pretty early on, we were both a little ashamed to be doing what apparently was so "wrong". I seriously wouldn't tell anyone he slept in our bed because I didn't want to hear the same stories about people rolling over and killing their children or the kids who survived but then were sleeping in their parent's beds until they were 21.

Then one day, felling terrible that my little man was laying in bed between two full grown people I of course did what I always do: looked online. I typed in something a long the lines of "do you sleep with you baby" in google to be sure I'm not the only mother doing it and BOOM there was a million hits. It all led me to co-sleeping and that there are so many supporters of it. Ryan and I were not at all doing it because of this attached parenting style and had no plans on this being a long term thing, but it was nice to know the support was there. I had also read that it was best that if you planned to stop co-sleeping on your own terms it was best to do it before 6 months as this was the point when you child would become most aware of his/her surroundings and so if they woke up in their bed room, expecting to be in your room, they wouldn't be happy. So, we planned to try to get him transitioned by then.

As Jude got a little older, could move a little on his own and we were ready to be away from him for the night, we gave it a whirl in the crib. I'll add that because he was able to roll over, we put him on his stomach. This is another HUGE no-no in the AAP, but we did it anyway. He slept like a champ. I wanna say this decision to move him happened around the time he started to set his own bed time (maybe 3 months?? I'm not 100% sure). Typically now, we put Jude to sleep in his crib and when he wakes up in the morning, Ryan brings him in bed with me. Usually he'll wake up around 5-6am, nurses and falls back to sleep for a couple to a few more hours. This is my chance to cuddle with him. I love it. Then, when he's up for good, we have a little bit of time laying together. He 'talks' to me and bites my face - it's so sweet.

But on with the answer to the question... do I miss co-sleeping. Yes.

Of course it's so nice to only have to share my bed with two other people now (we co-sleep with Buddy) and I'm sure I'm getting a much deeper sleep than when I was aware of Jude and it allows for more random "adult" time.. (wink, wink). However, I love/loved cuddling with Jude. I love taking advantage of nap time and our morning cuddle time.

Still, I consider myself lucky that he adjusted so easily to his crib, but look for random reasons to bring him in bed with me. Typically these are bad decisions because then I'm waking up every 2 hours or so to the sound of him moving, to feed him, or just to check on him when we both could use the good nights sleep. These random in-bed decisions are getting fewer and further between, but it's still nice when it happens, no matter how often I have to wake up!

As a side note, I think that Buddy is happy we stopped co-sleeping. He obviously doesn't get as much attention now as he did before Jude and so night time is he chance to soak up all the mommy and daddy attention he can.