Co-sleeping/Room sharing talk while we wait

[swedengirl]

Hi All,

I am wondering what you all think with regards to co-sleeping and room sharing.

My sisters have always put their babies in an own room from about 1 week old, and even sometimes earlier. Their babies are super good and begin to sleep through the night really early on. My mum said she did the same with us and is really judgemental about people who don't. Which I hate.

Although I am still WTT this is something that I think about a lot with regards to what I will do. Obviously there are lots of guidelines saying that a baby should be in your room until 6 months at the least and preferably up to one year.

I think I will probably feel more comfortable with them in my room in a next-to-bed crib (personally I wouldn't have them sleep in my bed) or at least in a crib in the room. I think I will want them near me.

BUT I cannot ignore how good my sisters kids are with regards to sleep and also seem much more content just sitting and doing things on their own than friends babies who co-sleep/room share.

What are your thoughts/experiences on this? Maybe this has nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements?

 

[KalonKiki]

A lot of it has to do with what works best for you and baby and your parenting decisions (especially breastfeeding vs formula feeding) in regards to co-sleeping but sharing a room with baby for the first 6 months - 1 year reduces the risk of SIDS by 50%. I co-slept for the first 3 months with my DS and he was always a great sleeper, I would have co-slept longer but he wanted to sleep in his crib on his own at that point. My DD is not as great a sleeper so I still co-sleep with her but co-sleeping helps me get a lot more sleep as I breastfeed. I sleep in a double bed in the nursery and she spends the first half of the night in her crib and the second half in the bed with me.

 

[staralfur]

It has nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements.

Your baby will have its own unique temperament and sleep needs.

My daughter would never in a million years have slept on her own from one week old unless I left her there to cry for hours on end.

The sleep arrangement is definitely a result of temperament rather than a deciding factor. So you say that their babies are more content than others who co-sleep... that's because babies with a needier temperament wouldn't be happy sleeping in another room.

I can tell you that from my own experience I would have died from exhaustion if I was up every 20 minutes running to another room to deal with my daughter. That sounds miserable and it would have been miserable for her too because she really needed closeness to feel secure.

If you have a baby who sleeps well then I'm sure it's a fine arrangement, but you really won't know that until you meet your baby. The best thing you can do is play it by ear and do what is best for your individual child and not what anyone else tells you worked for theirs.

 

[swedengirl]

A lot of it has to do with what works best for you and baby and your parenting decisions (especially breastfeeding vs formula feeding) in regards to co-sleeping but sharing a room with baby for the first 6 months - 1 year reduces the risk of SIDS by 50%. I co-slept for the first 3 months with my DS and he was always a great sleeper, I would have co-slept longer but he wanted to sleep in his crib on his own at that point. My DD is not as great a sleeper so I still co-sleep with her but co-sleeping helps me get a lot more sleep as I breastfeed. I sleep in a double bed in the nursery and she spends the first half of the night in her crib and the second half in the bed with me.

Yes I think this is a good point. My sisters did begin breastfeeding but always stopped early as they found it too difficult so I wonder if this has something to do with the sleeping arrangements....
I preferably want to breastfeed so maybe the co-sleeping is for me. I'll just have to battle my mothers judgyness.

 

[swedengirl]

It has nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements.

Your baby will have its own unique temperament and sleep needs.

My daughter would never in a million years have slept on her own from one week old unless I left her there to cry for hours on end.

The sleep arrangement is definitely a result of temperament rather than a deciding factor. So you say that their babies are more content than others who co-sleep... that's because babies with a needier temperament wouldn't be happy sleeping in another room.

I can tell you that from my own experience I would have died from exhaustion if I was up every 20 minutes running to another room to deal with my daughter. That sounds miserable and it would have been miserable for her too because she really needed closeness to feel secure.

If you have a baby who sleeps well then I'm sure it's a fine arrangement, but you really won't know that until you meet your baby. The best thing you can do is play it by ear and do what is best for your individual child and not what anyone else tells you worked for theirs.

Oh this makes sense actually! Not thought of it that way...

Thanks!

 

[staralfur]

A lot of it has to do with what works best for you and baby and your parenting decisions (especially breastfeeding vs formula feeding) in regards to co-sleeping but sharing a room with baby for the first 6 months - 1 year reduces the risk of SIDS by 50%. I co-slept for the first 3 months with my DS and he was always a great sleeper, I would have co-slept longer but he wanted to sleep in his crib on his own at that point. My DD is not as great a sleeper so I still co-sleep with her but co-sleeping helps me get a lot more sleep as I breastfeed. I sleep in a double bed in the nursery and she spends the first half of the night in her crib and the second half in the bed with me.

Yes I think this is a good point. My sisters did begin breastfeeding but always stopped early as they found it too difficult so I wonder if this has something to do with the sleeping arrangements....
I preferably want to breastfeed so maybe the co-sleeping is for me. I'll just have to battle my mothers judgyness.

I'm someone who hates conflict within my family, it makes me so anxious and I avoid it at all costs... but when it came to my daughter and her well-being and me doing what I knew was best for her, I was ready to throw my fists up against anyone who challenged it, including my family!

My mother in law suggested that we start giving my daughter solid food at three weeks old which was just HORRIFYING to me and I never, ever would have allowed it, and I stood my ground against her repeatedly. My mom thought I was running myself into the ground by breastfeeding and encouraged me to stop for my own sake, but I stuck to my guns and told her I needed her to support my decision. My husband's cousins made jokes and rude comments about extended breastfeeding and as someone who was then breastfeeding an almost three-year-old I challenged them and spoke up for myself.

Being a mother and having the confidence of knowing that I was doing what was best for my daughter gave me the ability to stick up for myself and my decisions when in other situations I probably would have just let it slide or tried to make everyone happy. But my child's well-being was non-negotiable and I think you'll find that doing what's right for yours will come easily and so will fighting off the judgyness.

 

[swedengirl]

Oh I feel stronger just reading that!! Thank you!

 

[KalonKiki]

Exactly what staralfur said! Becoming a mother changes you, you give zero cares about what other people think about your parenting decisions when you know that you're making the right choice for you and your children. I think it's wonderful that you want to breastfeed but I'm biased as this is now my second breastfed baby and I've spent over 2 years of my life breastfeeding.
I won't lie, it's hard at first especially with your first baby but if you can stick to your guns and get past the first few weeks it becomes a piece of cake.

 

[MindUtopia]

There's another post in here about sleeping arrangements too, but we bedshared from birth until about 2 something and then roomshared (she had a little floor bed next to our bed) until she was about 3.5. It was lovely and made things so much easier. We never had battles over bedtime and sleep and we never had the stress that friends had with trying to force sleeping separately when it wasn't working. When our daughter got old enough, she told us she would sleep all night in her own room and that was it. She did and she's continued to sleep great (that was nearly a year ago now).

The guidelines for preventing cot death are to keep them in your room for 6 months, though there is lots of good research to show the benefits of doing it much longer, particularly for boys. The Mother-Baby Sleep Lab at the University of Notre Dame has lots of good research on their website. Beyond that, I just found it worked best for us. I don't think there's much truth to the whole, 'if you don't spoil them by keeping them close to you, then they'll be good sleepers' thing. Yes, if you ignore them all night (which some people do literally for 12 hour stretches without responding too them because they read it in some crazy book) and refuse to feed them, they won't cry and they'll eventually be quiet, though that isn't really 'good sleep.' And some people just have easy babies, so it seems like making them sleep separately is what caused them to sleep so well, but actually, it's more the fact that neurologically they just sleep longer stretches, so it was possible to sleep separately without losing your mind and making yourself ill with sleep deprivation. It's kind of a chicken or the egg scenario. It's hard to say what comes first.

I do have a friend who had one of those easy babies the first time. She would just go in her cot in her room and be asleep in like 2 minutes with no crying and she slept great from a few weeks old. She didn't understand why the rest of us found it so hard to do that and was definitely in the co-sleeping makes for bad sleepers camp. Until she had her second. Who just wasn't that sort of put down and leave to sleep all night kind of baby. She was exhausted and really struggled because she felt like she had to do things a certain way and the way she did it before was the only way. But all babies are different and the same things won't work for all of them. We found co-sleeping was great for us and I'd take the same approach next time too, but if it turns out to be something else works better, then I'd do that. But for us, co-sleeping worked great and we just did it until our daughter was ready to sleep on her own and then she did and it was a pretty easy transition.

That said, not everyone approved of how we parented (and that will be the case no matter what you do). My husband's auntie, when she heard we co-slept, told us 'you're going to KILL her!'. We didn't. She's 4. Still alive and it was a great choice for us and we're all happy with it. In fact, I asked her yesterday how she felt about sleeping with us when she was younger (she remembers some of it because she was a toddler when she stopped) and she said she liked it and was glad she slept with us and not alone. She said she wants our next baby to sleep with us too. As long as you're doing what works for you and feel good about it, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. If they want to do something different, they can have their own babies and parent how they want themselves. It's none of their business what you do.

 

[OnErth&InHvn]

#1- he was in his crib from birth.
#2- We tried and tried to co sleep, SHE didnt want any part of it. Co Bedding worked best.
#3- she coslept from birth and even at 9yrs old, STILL would if wed let her!

None of them are any more or less independent/self soothing than the other.

 

[swedengirl]

Ok it is so nice to hear these stories as I just hoped it was the babies not the sleeping arrangements that did it.

I think for me I am going to find it impossible to put this tiny human being who I am responsible for in another room entirely, I'll spend the night worrying. But I had the fear of god put in to me by my mothers and sisters who said that would lead them to be clingy and needy. But they are also in the allow your baby to cry to sleep camp which I am not in either ( I hold no judgement to you who do- just a personal preference for me that I would not feel comfortable to do that).

So looks like I will continue looking at the next to bed cribs then!

Thanks everyone! I feel much better in my decision. Think I just needed a little bit of reassurance!

Although now I have said this maybe I'll have a baby who wants to be alone....

 

[gezimmom]

I started a thread on this subject, also. Both of mine went to their own room around 4-5 months . The first one I breastfed until she was 9mo, so she ended up sleeping in our bed a lot simply because I fell asleep while she was nursing. The new guidelines in America say minimum of 6months in your room, but preferably a year. I think I'll be fine with keeping the next in our room for a year, but my dh is a light sleeper, so we'll see.

 

[MrsMinx]

@swedengirl. It's absolutely fine to have your baby in the same room as you and its quite natural. I did this with all of my children.
When your baby gets a bit older, you can then put him/her in a separate room with a monitor. Do what YOU are comfortable with as a mother, both your sisters and your mother did!

 

[swedengirl]

Thank you! I actually spoke to my SO about this last night to see what he thought. He told me that 100% the baby will be in our room and this is a point he will not compromise on. So good to feel support from there!

So now it is just figuring out where we will have the crib and what crib to get. Think some rearranging of the room is in order.

 

[darkriver]

We occasionally co sleep. I am not going to get much sleep otherwise. Its only on the unsettled nights. She is a good sleeper mostly.