yeah, I intended to have Caleb in the bassinet beside the bed initially, for the simple ease of it; babies often wake 4+ times through the night, and often feeds take an hour or so to finish with a newborn, meaning many hours out of bed every night if you do it that way. And if they get to the point of full out crying for you, they tend to be harder to settle back to sleep too (whereas if you can get to them when they're just stirring, it often just takes plugging a boob in for them to snuggle in and drift off to sleep on the boob)
And yup, there is a huge reduction in SIDS if they're simply in the same room as the parents sleep. That alone should be enough to convince people! lol. Just their own bed, in your room, makes a huge difference.
So, like I said, my intention was to have him in the bassinet right by the bed, so I could basically reach him by sitting up on the edge of the bed (not so much bumbling around the house) and also close enough that I'd hear him stirring. Only, it turned out that even that much getting up was a struggle! lol. And having been encouraged to bed-share safely in the hospital, I sorta just carried on bed-sharing at home! lol!! It means I am hyper-aware of him and he simply has to start snuffling about and I can roll over, flip out a boob, and we all snuggle up and go back to sleep. I have actually woken up a few times with him already latched on and drinking too....
I do have the cot against the bed, and he does generally start the night across in there. But until he is sleeping much longer hours at night (which, by the way, doesn't naturally happen until they 2-ish generally) I am happy to be sharing our sleeping space with him. And really, I don't actually see it as an issue if he's 4 years old and still wants to spend some of the nights with us.

It's my job now, to be there for him when he needs me and to not just ignore him and tell him "he's ok" even if he doesn't feel 'ok' at all! I'm confident that he won't be sleeping with us as a teenager, so a few years now is fine as far as I'm concerned. I won't ever get these snuggly baby days back again!
It's important to be aware that babies do NOT 'get bad habits' just because you meet their needs (their wants = their needs; they know no difference!) and I know *MY* sleeping 'habits' change around depending on what I am doing in my life, so I KNOW that any 'habit' Caleb has at the moment, will change as his needs change with his growing and developing. And hence I am not worried about 'making a rod for my own back', cos I KNOW he will develop and change, some times he'll "regress" and other times he'll rocket on too. I'm in no hurry to force my idea of good habits on to his growing body & mind.
