Questions from someone who really didn't intend to co-sleep

[Calliope]

Okay, so I'll fess up. We didn't intend to co-sleep. I didn't think my husband would go for it and I had (have) some reservations about it. We bought a co-sleeper but as it turns out, actually having the baby in bed with us gets us all the most amount of sleep and DH and I actually love having him there. Since I've fallen into this unintentionally I still have unresolved anxieties.

What do you do when one of you is sick and/or taking medications?

What do you do with the baby when you and your DH want to be intimate?

What do you do when you are ready for the kid to leave and sleep in his own bed?

How long are we going to be able to keep this up with only a full size bed?

I also harbor some desire to eventually transition him into the co-sleeper and then his crib, but I can't think of any way this would happen naturally. I'm not comfortable with turning this into another form of weaning.

Any encouragement, advice, input would be helpful.

[Katigre]

DS is currently 21 months old and we're in the process of transitioning him from cosleeping to corooming (the reason is that he was showing some signs of readiness plus we want to have another baby within the next year or so and would like him able to easily fall asleep without us next to him).


What do you do when one of you is sick and/or taking medications?
Don't let the baby sleep next to that parent. Sickness i don't worry about - medications that could inhibit body awareness in the bed or make you feel drugged I am cautious with. I can't imagine that there will be a time you are both sick and taking sleep-inducing medications b/c someone would have to be aware enough to care for the baby if he needed it :shrug.

What do you do with the baby when you and your DH want to be intimate?
Many options here that depend on yoru comfort level and personal intimacy style (if you tend to be a loud/crazy sex type of couple you'll have to do something different than if you are a quieter couple).

1. Have sex with baby sleeping on bed near you
2. Have sex on the couch/floor/other room (ahem...shower :O)
3. Have sex during the day when baby is awake/napping/entertained elsewhere in the house (bouncy seat, exersaucer, swing)

What do you do when you are ready for the kid to leave and sleep in his own bed?
Then you transition them to their own bed - recognizing that a full transition can take awhile and will most likely be gradual. Like with DS, we know that we would like him able to sleep in his own bed by the time we have another baby which will most likely be in about a year - so we're taking a very gradual approach to transitioning him since we're not in a hurry, and it has been fairly easy. First we nightweaned around 19 months - and that took a good month or so to really stick and be easy. Right now we have a crib with rails up sidecarred to our (queen) bed, and when he takes naps and goes to sleep at night he sleeps in there. He wakes up between midnight and 1am and then climbs over and into bed with us for the rest of the night. I'm fine with that for now and probably won't work to have him sleep in his crib all night long until we're pregnant and know a new baby will be coming within a few months. After the crib we plan to transition him to a mattress on the floor (if we had more than two bedrooms we'd work to transition him to a separate bedroom, but since we don't have the space for that we will coroom until we move in a few years).

How long are we going to be able to keep this up with only a full size bed?
Not sure about this...we have a queen and have a bedrail on one side and the crib on the other. For some reason it was more quished when he was an infant than now that he's a toddler - probably b/c we dont' have to be as careful to give him the right amount of space and such. You could sidecar a crib to the side of the bed and taht will expand the space more - you can use bungee cords to attach it and the mattress will be the same level as yours. My friend coslept with two kids in a full-size bed but I have no idea how she did it.

I also harbor some desire to eventually transition him into the co-sleeper and then his crib, but I can't think of any way this would happen naturally. I'm not comfortable with turning this into another form of weaning.
I'm not sure what you mean by a 'form of weaning' or why that would be something negative?

Transitioning from cosleeping to independent sleeping can be pretty painless and natural if you follow your child's cues. I remember when DS was about 4 months old, DH and I talked and realized that he would be able to transition to a crib if we wanted. We chose to continue cosleeping, but if we had wanted we could have transitioned him back then. And again, now that he is almost 2, he has shown signs of wanting to sleep independently as well as cosleeping - he didn't go from sleeping with us to sleeping separately overnight, it is a gradual process that we are in the middle of (and will continue to be in process of for probably another year at least).

HTH!

[Close2MyHeart]

I didn't intend to co-sleep either and we only had a full sized bed. We ended up co-sleeping w/ DD and DS3 because I found it so much easier to nurse through the night that way and still have energy to keep up w/ the others.

When one of us was sick/on meds... DH would sleep on the couch if it was him. I didn't take meds and rarely got sick, so it wasn't really an issue for me. :shrug

When we wanted to be intimate we would move baby to the cradle/pack'n'play in the room or we would go into another room.

We actually wean them from co-sleeping between 6-9 months or when they stopped needing to nurse through the night.

AFA helping them sleep in their own bed... I just did it slowly. Put them for naps in their crib, then try it at night... if it didn't work, we didn't stress about it and just kept them w/ us a bit longer. It worked out.

[abbiroads]

well, I'm only going to answer on question right now :kiss but I can come back later for more.

We have transitioned one child out of our bed. The way it worked for us was, we explained the problem to him (Eli was waking him up and he wasn't getting enough sleep) and we told him it was time for him to move to his own room. That night he started the night in his own room and came into our room early in the morning. After a few weeks like that, we had a new problem (I can't remember what it was) and we explained to him that he needed to stay in his own room until it was light out. We had to remind him of that rule a few times, but with no real fuss. He now goes to sleeep on his own and wakes up on his own. Once we put him to bed at night he stays in his room (except if he needs something like to go potty or a bed change because it is wet) until we get up in the morning. Now, that may not work at all with Eli, but it did work really well with Joey.

[ellies mom]

Okay, so I'll fess up. We didn't intend to co-sleep. I didn't think my husband would go for it and I had (have) some reservations about it. We bought a co-sleeper but as it turns out, actually having the baby in bed with us gets us all the most amount of sleep and DH and I actually love having him there. Since I've fallen into this unintentionally I still have unresolved anxieties.
We didn't intend to co-sleep either but like you we found we slept much better that way and unlike most of my new mom friends I wasn't an exhausted wreak because of it especially since I didn't get the "sleep through the night at 4 months" model.

What do you do when one of you is sick and/or taking medications?
Sick, I didn't worry about and we never had to take medications so it wasn't an issue.

What do you do with the baby when you and your DH want to be intimate?
We had a twin size bed in DD's room so we go in there while she slept in our bed. It felt very high schoolish.

What do you do when you are ready for the kid to leave and sleep in his own bed?
When DD started crawling, we would start her out in her crib and then took her to bed with us when she woke up the first time. When we moved her into her twin bed, I actually would go into her room to sleep at some point. Her bed is comfy and she doesn't snore, so I was doing it as much for me as her. Now, with the new baby on the way we are trying to get her sleeping all night in her room by herself but we are taking it really gradually. If she cries in the middle of the night, I go into her room but I don't lay down an cuddle with her but I may doze off laying at the foot of the bed. After 6am, I'll call her into our room or cuddle with her in her room.

How long are we going to be able to keep this up with only a full size bed?
Well, that depends on how big you guys are while you are sleeping.

I also harbor some desire to eventually transition him into the co-sleeper and then his crib, but I can't think of any way this would happen naturally. I'm not comfortable with turning this into another form of weaning.
Good question, obviously, since DD is 4, I don't have a very good answer other than to try and start the evening off with him sleeping in his cosleeper/crib and hoping you do have a "sleep through the night" model.

[loveberry]

What do you do when one of you is sick and/or taking medications?

If a med or any substance makes you sleepier than normal then baby sleeps next to the more aware parent.

What do you do with the baby when you and your DH want to be intimate?


Explore opportunities in the rest of the house. :O

What do you do when you are ready for the kid to leave and sleep in his own bed?

When I was ready for him to go I bought him a cool bed and set it up. A year or so later he was ready and he actually slept there. :giggle

How long are we going to be able to keep this up with only a full size bed?


Forever? We always had a full, I think.

If you find yourself tired of co-sleeping, consider how much less sleep you will get trooping down the hall to another room to soothe a crying child, give up on the idea, and get some sleep in the family bed. Or if you think the child is really ready to be sleeping alone and will not be night waking a bunch, buy them a cool bed, set up a great room, have a gentle and soothing bedtime routine, and be flexible. Alex will be ten in a week and has started climbing in with me again lately. Too much junk going on, he needs the reassurance that he can still be my little boy.

[Teacher Mom]

What do you do when one of you is sick and/or taking medications?
The other parent is "more" responsible for the baby at that time.

What do you do with the baby when you and your DH want to be intimate?
Like others said, there are other rooms in the house. Use your imagination!

What do you do when you are ready for the kid to leave and sleep in his own bed?
Have the "birds need to leave the nest" talk about six months earlier and keep repeating as necessary. They will naturally want to by then.

How long are we going to be able to keep this up with only a full size bed?
Depends on your size and how much room you need for sleeping.

We never would have thought we would have been a co-sleeping family for as long as we were. But it worked for us and we did not want to mess with something that was not broke.