The Accidental Cosleeper

[Tracey]

When we first brought DD home from the hospital, she slept in a bassinet beside the bed. We never had any intention of cosleeping. I got up every two hours to breastfeed on demand. At approx. three months she was too big for the bassinet and we moved her to her crib. When she would wake up at her two o'clock feeding, I would go get her and bring her to bed to nurse. I loved it as much as she did. She was sooooo happy and would smile and nurse and drift off. Here is were the cosleeping begins. She decided that the warm bed with Mommy's breast and both her parents was definately the place to be. She began to cry immediately when placed in the crib. We had no intention of letting her cry it out, so cosleeping it was. Well she is almost a year and she sleeps 10 hours at night like a dream. My husband has no problem with her sleeping with us (we have found ways to work in "Mommy Daddy time"). We all sleep restfully.

My question is....when do we move her to a big girl bed? Do we wait until she is ready to leave? Is there a certain age to introduce her own bed? Will she be in and out of bed with us until she is 12? We plan on trying for another baby in about a year, what about that baby? Am I doing her a disservice by not teaching her to sleep by herself? Basically, we are just going through all of this blind and doing what works for that point in time. I am trying to anticipate the next step. Thanks for any input.

[JulieL]

A girlfriend of mine DS co-slept with her and her husband until almost 3. He just recently converted to a twin bed. They were both happy with this arrangement.

I co-slept w/DS until 6 months. The change was hard and very dramatic for all of us. We do were accidental cosleepers. I don't think I will go this route if we have another, it was so hard.

I have heard plusses and negatives about a child being older and moving to there own bed. I think it really depends from child to child, but can be done.

[Rachels]

Wow, that sounds like a dream situation. I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. (Actually, I don't say that, because I can't handle the grammar, but you know what I mean.) :) Children will move on when they're ready. My ped coslept with her oldest until he was three. A good friend of mine coslept until her son was two, at which point, he spontaneously announced, "I sleep in own bed!" and did.

If you want some reassurance and info about the family bed, check out the book Good Nights by Dr. Jay Gordon. It made me feel pretty wonderful about this parenting choice.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[mamicka]

I don't have any problem with co-sleeping & occasionally do it myself. Just a note of caution, though, on who decides when its time to change. I've met two moms (one in my ped's office & another at the grocery store) who have children who are 10/11 who still co-sleep. Again, if that's what works for you than that's your call but I know that I don't want to be sleeping with my 11 year-old son.

[C99]

I agree with Rachel: if it works, why change it? Unless any one of you becomes uncomfortable with the arrangement, I don't see any reason to change things. We co-slept for about 6 months and I liked it become co-NONsleeping. :) I just wouldn't assume that she will be ready for the crib or her own bed. Some kids take a long time. An acquaintance of mine slept in a family bed until he was 14.

[Imperia]

I know a couple of families who even co=sleep with more than one child at a time (as long as you have a big enough bed!) and you don't place a toddler by an infant. So you don't have to move DD out of the family bed if neither of you are ready. I definately don't think you are doing DD a disservice, she is learning sleep is a warm and safe time. As she gets older she will probably want to sleep in her own bed. IF you want to transition he rto a crib or a bed before she asks to it's possible to do so gently. I knwo some people who put a twin mattress next to their big bed and would start the night there with the child. Then when they drifted off the adult would climb into the big bed to sleep. The child was always allowed to return to the family bed if they felt scared or needed a cuddle etc. When they are ready you can move the twin mattress to a separate room and have an adult start sleeping there until the child is asleep, letting them know they can come to you if they need you. I hope I am explaining this well.

But if you are all happy with the situation I wouldnt worry about it at all! Once we started co-sleeping everyone started sleeping wonderfully too! Amazing isn't it?

Imperia

[alexsmommy]

We had a very similar story. I'm a BIG believer that if it's not a problem for you, it's not a problem. Having said that, for us, I wanted to transition DS back to his own bed before 18 months simply because my experience with kids this age is that it's easier to do things while they are pretty small vs old enough to verbally protest -you know, the same reasoning peds use for weaning from the bottle before 18 months. Right now, Alex goes to sleep in our bed. We're slowly moving towards him putting himself to sleep, rather than lying on Mommy or Daddy, rocking, snuggling etc. He has his nighttime bottle, we brush his teeth, then I turn out the light and he lies down next to me and rolls around until he's alseep. Then I carry him into his own bed. The first few weeks there were a lot of nights where he woke up, cried for more than five minutes and was brought back into our bed for the rest of the night. Slowly, however, his bed has become less "scary" and he's been waking up, but putting himself back to sleep with minimal fussing. The past week, he's made it in his own bed for 10 hours every night. I have no doubt there will be a few more times he'll end up in our bed, but for the most part, he's doing fine all night in his crib. My next step is to get him to go to sleep in his own bed. I plan to start sitting on the floor next to him while he goes to sleep in our bed (rather than lying down with him), then moving to putting him in his crib with me sitting in the glider until he goes to sleep. The final step will be putting him in his bed and leaving the room. I have no problem moving at his pace. Like you I had no plans for co-sleeping - but like many Mom's, I had all sorts of plans that Alex disagreed with. Good luck with whatever you do.
Alaina - Mom to Alex 2-4-03 (born at 32 weeks)