we are co-sleeping November 30, 2007
When we brought C. home from the hospital, she was a teensy little thing. She was a month early and weighed less than 6lbs.
Our bed is size full - not a big bed. And neither Jon nor I felt comfortable putting this incredibly minuscule baby into bed with us. This sort of surprised me, as I co-slept with my other babies and am a huge supporter of it and have written extensively about its many benefits. But my gut told me that my baby, this baby wasn’t ready to actually be in the bed with us. Plus, with her underdeveloped larynx, she seemed unable to nurse lying down anyway.
So for the past 17 weeks, she’s slept in the mini-crib we have right next to my side of our bed, and when she wakes to nurse, I sit up with her in the rocking chair and nurse her. She’s been right at my fingertips, but not actually in our bed with us.
These days, C. is a healthy, apple-cheeked 4 month old. She weighs about 15 lbs (we’ll find out when she goes for her check up on Monday), and she nurses just fine in any and all positions. So for the past few nights, I put her down to sleep at bedtime in the little bed right next to ours, but when she wakes to nurse, I pull her into bed with me - between me and the bedrail on my side of the bed - and nurse her back to sleep. And we nurse and snuggle and both get a full night’s sleep. It’s awesome, and it now feels right.
I am reminded yet again that one of the great pleasures of mothering a new baby is the tactile comfort of sharing sleep with her. I love the way she smells, and the way she nestles in next to me. And as a mama who works full time and has to be away from my baby 40-plus hours each week, it’s a wonderful bonding time.
Me likes.
Makes me smile!!
Yay!!
That’s lovely; a time to be together in peace and quiet after the busy day. I co-sleep too (and tandem nurse) and could not survive without it!
LOVE co-sleeping I still do it with my 18 month old and my 3 year old will crawl into our bed in the middle of the night too! Thank God we have a king sized bed though!
That’s sweet.
I love to hold alanna when she is sleeping and love to cuddle with her when I’m sleeping(until I get a foot in my gut). There’s something about knowing this is my last child that makes cuddle time even more special.
This is what we (oh, yeah, we . . . my wife) did with our kids. Nurse them to sleep, put them in their beds, and then she’d go go sleep in our bed. Then when the baby child would wake up in the middle of the night, she’d go in and spend the rest of the night in their room. (Our baby’s room was a guest/baby’s room, so she’d just end up sleeping on the guest bed.)