When it comes to sleeping, I don't mind bed sharing and it's certainly easier to nurse, but I struggle with bed sharing partially because of the type of bed we have. Our mattress is foam and fairly soft so my weight causes a dip that makes Melody roll into me. She sleeps really well that way (right up against me) but I worry about her being RIGHT against me all night. I wouldn't mind continuing to bed share if I had a firmer/better mattress for it. M certainly slept for longer periods while bedsharing, BUT every night she's been getting a little bit better!
My biggest problem right now is that her swaddle blanket doesn't fit right (and she can break out of any swaddle I try to do myself). The 0-3 month swaddle blanket we have fit perfectly EXCEPT she became way too long for it. So I moved her into the 3-6 one and length-wise its great but width wise I can't get it quite tight enough so she breaks free and then smacks herself in the face in her sleep.
It's actually kind of hilarious, until she's waking up crying. I've improvised to make it work for now and have another swaddle sack from a different brand coming from Amazon to see if it'll work a little better.
Since i Have to go back to work after only a 3-4 month leave, I need to get more than 5 hours of sleep (that is also interrupted in chunks), or I will be no good dealing with teenagers. However, I have to argue that the term "sleep training" can be misleading and also mean different things for different people.
I know that AAP recommends against sleep training but they also strongly recommend against any kind of bedsharing too. It all comes down to doing things safely and most of the time they make those recommendations because some people are just plain stupid and don't use their head (my doctor's words). The suggestion to avoid sleep training until older (6 months etc) from AAP I believe stems from the understanding of "sleep training" as similar to ferberizing or self-soothing / CIO types of methods. What I'm doing with Melody is often referred to as "sleep training", because the result is that it's changing how she sleeps but it really IS sleep training in the way that AAP references sleep training. It's simply adding a routine. Before I started this she would take anywhere from 10 - 60 minutes to fall asleep, and she wouldn't stay asleep for more than a few minutes and then it would take another 10-60 minutes of walking/rocking/shushing. Now she's asleep in under 10 minutes EVERY SINGLE TIME (except sometimes the very last sleep time in the evening, that takes a little more work) if I use the sleep routine we've set up. Once she's asleep she'll sometimes wake after only 5-10 minutes but it only takes less than 2 minutes of cuddling for her to pass out again. And usually then she'll stay out for 30-45 minutes. At night she'll stay out for 3-3.5 hours at a time, wake to feed and goes right back to sleep immediately as long as I follow the same routine.
So...technically this is "sleep training" but I seriously doubt it's the kind of sleep training that the AAP was warning against.
Cutestuff - Sounds like you've got your hands full but she sounds so sweet! Glad she makes you so happy!
Gagrl - I Did some reading on reviews and it sounds like it's not a bad book, just make sure to use common sense and your instincts along with it. That's what I had to do with babywise. I couldn't follow it exactly, but all kids are different and need adjustments.
Just do what works for your family!
Jezika - I'm right there, as long as I can sleep in for however long I want I don't mind the bedsharing and waking up to nurse. Unfortunately I know I have to go back to work in a month and a half and I want to get a little bit of her schedule down so that 1) she'll sleep for her caregivers (before I Started this routine she wouldn't sleep for anyone else, and that would be bad once I'm at work) and 2) I'll get a little more sleep since I'll have to be up by 5am each day. I would recommend if you plan to start some kind of sleep schedule/training (even just getting her to fall asleep on her own) that you start it a few months before you have to return so if you hit hiccups you've got time to adjust AND if you have a rough night you won't be trying to deal with that on top of work. That's the other reason I started now, I know that if I was having a bad night and I had to work in the morning I'd just give up, and then still not get good sleep before work. Here I can say "well I know I'm not sleeping well but I can sleep in or nap as long as I want tomorrow so I'll keep pushing through" and it's paid off for me.
Kat - I suspect that a lot of those negative reviews were taking the book to the extreme and/or didn't read it fully. I found when I read reviews for Babwise, many of the negatives were similar to what you mention: people saying baby was starving trying to force them to wait to eat etc. However, when I read the book it says loads of times that if baby is hungry to feed the baby and the to adjust the cycle to match the new feeding time. I did see that the book tended to be more geared toward bottle fed babies (formula or breastmilk doesn't matter) because it tends to reference ounces consumed, which is hard for a BF mom who doesn't pump.
The whole premise behind babywise is this: Baby will sleep better when he/she has a full tummy, and baby eats better when awake enough to get a "full feeding" (rather than dozing off at the breast and only eating a few minutes at a time), so the recommendation is for baby to eat, wake-time, then nap, rather than to eat right before napping. This is because if you are feeding when baby is tired, then they fall asleep while eating, don't get enough food, and wake more often, and it's a vicious cycle.
My doctor is the one who recommended Babywise to me, and the ONLY reason the AAP doesn't recommend it is because people were being stupid taking it to the extreme and saying "oh it's not time for baby to eat" and refusing to feed the baby, even though the book says TONS of times to feed when baby is hungry and adjust as necessary. It also says that during growth spurts then to completely ignore the schedule because baby WILL eat more. Also, babywise AND this other book both specify that nothing schedule-wise should be done before 8 weeks old because until then baby needs to eat whenever baby is hungry.
I can honestly say it made a huge difference for me to make this change. I feed Melody when she wakes up from a nap, and because she's awake and eats more she also is sleeping better. I found if I feed her when she's recently woken up and can get her to feed a "full" feeding (about 20-30 mins of BF), then she'll go about 3.5 hours before eating again and then consume another 20-30 mins of food. If however, she's eating less (like she does when she falls asleep eating) and only eats 5-15 minutes then she eats again every 2-2.5 hours. The whole book is based on trying to keep baby on this kind of a routine. And, if baby is hungry sooner then feed baby sooner, and reset the time but if you work hard for several days to keep baby awake and eating a full meal at every feeding, they start to go much longer between asking for food.
I started doing this routine (nap, eat, play, nap, etc) with M at about 6 weeks and she's still gaining loads of weight and doctor says she's in perfect health, so she's clearly not starving. It isn't always perfect, sometimes she wants to eat again sooner and then that falls too close to nap time because M can only handle wakefulness of 1-1.5 hours right now, but that's where understanding my kid and what she needs is more important than blindly following a books advice. And even the book says to adjust as necessary.
We have birthdays close together and both are '84 babies 
Hopefully I'll be able to join as a mommy soon and not just a TTC'er
His nighttime sleeping was pretty good though, luckily! We'll see how it goes today.
Ugh, here we go again! They say it lasts 1-5 weeks and knowing my luck, he'll be like this for another 3-4 weeks (since the first week is soon over)
