Co-Sleeping Question

[smarrell]

My 8 month old had to have major surgery 2 months ago. She was a great sleeper early on but hit the 4 month sleep regression and started waking several times a night. Since the surgery, she's up every 1-2 hours. We've found that she'll sleep better if she's sleeping with us. She'll typically wake up once between midnight and 8 am, nurse and fall back asleep...so we're thinking about co-sleeping as a solution for a while.

My question is for those of you who do co-sleep, where do your LOs start out? She's ready for bed at 7...but obviously I'm not. If I put her in the crib at 7, she's up at 8, 9:30, 10:30, etc until I take her to bed with us around 11 or 12. I'm desperate for a few hours in the evening to get things done and unwind without putting her back to sleep every hour...any advice??

[AKMom]

Our little one is rocked to sleep and then I lay her in our bed. We have a cosleeper next to the bed, but she doesn't sleep in it anymore...I guess I just keep it there so if she rolls on that side of me then she would just roll into the cosleeper, not the floor! Plus I do love the pockets and the fact that I can throw a bunch of stuff in there if I need to clean up quickly!! ;)

I will putter around a little after she goes down and it's hit or miss as to whether she wakes up quickly or not. I just find that she sleeps better in our bed, even by herself. I guess I really don't have a very good answer, since my little one does wake up a lot early on in the night. I just think putting her in our bed to start out with is easier than messing with the cosleeper or crib.

[wellyes]

Can you lay down with her, the roll away when she starts sleeping deeply? Or does she need contact to sleep? Maybe you could put her in a wrap, snoozing, while you do your evening thing.

[ChristinaLucia]

I put a twin mattress on the floor next to our queen bed. I put DD to sleep there. Now she stumbles out if she wakes up, but when she was little she wouldn't get hurt if she rolled off. When I am ready for bed I pick her up and put her in my bed. Works great! Although it looks a little goofy and I bought a twin mattress just for this purpose.