Opinions Please :)

[BabyHaines]

JadeyB - there you go, maybe Katy would sell you her snuggle nest hehe

The main rules are making sure you don't have a heavy duvet or covers anywhere near lo's face. You need to move all pillows away from their heads too.
When G was tiny, I swaddled him and did an over and under with the duvet (over hubby, under George then over me). I then used G's own blankets for him (so he kinda laid on top of the duvet in the crook of my arm.
Now he's bigger, we all use a lightweight summer duvet, and I make sure it only comes up to about his waist. He just lies inbereren me and hubby, taking up most of the room.

I remember one night, Danny was watching a DVD on his laptop and I went to sleep. George was about 4months old and Danny was giving him a little cuddle. When Dabby laid G back in the middle, Danny said that even though G was asleep, he wriggled and fidgeted around until he was snuggled right up next to me

 

[Rebaby]

I think a co-sleeping sticky is a fab idea

As a neonatal nurse i had spent hours upon hours telling parents about safe-sleeping and SIDS guidelines and how they must never share a bed with their baby etc...so there was no way i was going to be doing it myself...was i?! Like so many mum's everything changes once baby actually gets here!

If we hadn't started safely co-sleeping i would definitely have given up breastfeeding early on, as he was feeding hourly at that stage and it was getting too much being awake all day and night. I would also have been more likely to accidentally fall asleep with him propped up in bed or on the sofa due to being exhausted to the point of going insane!

I really hope the nhs is changing it's stance on co-sleeping as i am going to find it very hard to go back to work and tell people something i don't believe to be true, but at the same time, i have to work within my remit iykwim?

Also it would be fantastic if midwives were able to help you safely co-sleep in hospital, we had a 5 night stay when Toby was born and the amount of times i caught myself dozing off with him lying on the (extremely high and narrow!) hospital bed was quite scary!

I am a total co-sleeping convert if you can't tell!

 

[Hayley90]

please do it, as we involuntarily ended up co-sleeping (if it settles him, i do it!) and i was SO scared i barely slept at all, which had a negative affect on things! We dont plan to do it all the time, and i'm putting him in his basket more, but basic Do's and Dont's will be helpful. Most of it is common sense, but the guidelines would be handy.

- just to add, i even co-slept both nights in hospital (was scared to have him even 2ft away ) and no one ever kicked up a fuss... they just sort of said "we dont recommend it, if you do, put the bars up on your bed" So even then i wasn't given a proper guideline! But i wasn't berated either which was nice.

x

 

[ellie]

sounds great!

I was also firmly in the 'I will not be co sleeping' camp I thought it sounded nice, but I really didn't think I would be aware enough of him not to roll over etc. However, after a lot of nights accidentally nodding off sat up in bed feeding, I scared myself, and started bringing him into our bed. He's never left we now have a cotbed set up as a co sleeper and so far he likes it as he can still scoot over to me!

If I was to do it again I would start with this from teh beginning, or get one of those co sleeper cribs. we tried a snuggle nest but foudn it too big and also K wanted to be next to me anyway.

I would have liked some proper info on how to do it safely earlier on. I might have got lots more sleep in teh early days

And I havent ever told a HP, couldnt be bothered with the lectures. But I think this is not really acceptable, why shouldnt we be able to be honest and to get unbiased advice about it? I too wish that teh nhs would research it more, or that someone would - but they probably won't.

 

[Dream.A.Dream]

sounds great!

I was also firmly in the 'I will not be co sleeping' camp I thought it sounded nice, but I really didn't think I would be aware enough of him not to roll over etc. However, after a lot of nights accidentally nodding off sat up in bed feeding, I scared myself, and started bringing him into our bed. He's never left we now have a cotbed set up as a co sleeper and so far he likes it as he can still scoot over to me!
If I was to do it again I would start with this from teh beginning, or get one of those co sleeper cribs. we tried a snuggle nest but foudn it too big and also K wanted to be next to me anyway.

I would have liked some proper info on how to do it safely earlier on. I might have got lots more sleep in teh early days

And I havent ever told a HP, couldnt be bothered with the lectures. But I think this is not really acceptable, why shouldnt we be able to be honest and to get unbiased advice about it? I too wish that teh nhs would research it more, or that someone would - but they probably won't.

How have you got this set up? I've tried suggesting this to OH but he's insistent it won't work xx

 

[Jetters]

please do it, as we involuntarily ended up co-sleeping (if it settles him, i do it!) and i was SO scared i barely slept at all, which had a negative affect on things! We dont plan to do it all the time, and i'm putting him in his basket more, but basic Do's and Dont's will be helpful. Most of it is common sense, but the guidelines would be handy.

This!!

I spent the first three nights at home wide awake, terrified of rolling on him but too scared to put him in his moses basket- cos I was scared of going to sleep in case he stopped breathing or something and I didn't know. I made the OH take it in turns to sleep in shifts which really wasn't good for either of us

We now have an Arms Reach which is fricking fantastic and I LOVE it, buuuut we only got it because I just couldn't settle co-sleeping... I bought "three in a bed" but hadn't finished reading it when he arrived!! Wish I had now!!

 

[Kaites]

Sounds like a great idea since there are always lots of "how do I co-sleep safely?" posts

I was also in the "oh, we'll never co-sleep" camp but that went out the window pretty fast Our hospital gives out information packages to parents and then reviews the stuff with you before going home and they went through all the safe co-sleeping stuff with me and hubby. We also covered how to co-sleep while breastfeeding in our breastfeeding workshop at the hospital before Emma arrived. Reading the other posts, I guess I was lucky to receive so much info and support because we were never afraid of bringing Emma into the bed.

 

[BabyHaines]

Kaites - sounds like you received some fantastic support!! Fantbloodytastic!!

Jetters - don't you worry, when he gets a bit bigger and a bit more robust, you'll wnder what you were worried about - promise!!xx

 

[Jetters]

I hope so! I love the Arms Reach now but he still spends 50% of the night on me... and I just don't sleep at all, or barely when he's on me (but at least he does!). I just can't relax properly at all.