I know Co-Sleeping doesn’t work for everyone, but I don’t think I’d still be functioning if we didn’t. Over the years I’ve gotten smarter about it!
With Mackenzie, I was single and it worked for us. I’d always start her out in her crib, and she’s generally wake once and then I’d bring her into my Queen size bed and nurse her back to sleep. Since it was just her and I, I never really worried about her falling out. When she was about 9 months old we moved into a house and I started working day shifts, previous to this I worked evenings, so I didn’t mind getting up a few times. When I started working days I really needed to have a solid nights sleep, so I went to Cry it Out to get her night-weaned just before her first birthday. CIO was heartbreaking for me, eventually it did succeed, but I vowed never to do it again!
Liam started out in our room in a bassinet, then into his crib in our room. With him everytime he would stir, I would wake. Eventually I brought him into bed with us, but I was always paranoid he would fall out of bed, when I nursed him on the outside. I started only nursing him on the inside between Andrew and I, this worked but I became very lop-sided! Eventually it got a little better, but I always felt a little self-concious about it. I went back to work when Liam was 10 months old, so at 9 months we started the night weaning with him. We were really successful and he was sleeping in his own room after a week or so, and most nights right through. Occasionally he’d wake around 5-6am and I’d just bring him back to our bed, nurse him and he’d go right back to sleep. He was always such a laid back baby, I think this is why we were so successful with him.
With Ciaran, I vowed not to get lop-sided this time! I had heard of the little co-sleeping bassinets that attach to your bed, but couldn’t justify spending the extra money on it when we already had a fairly new crib. I did some research and decided I would try a ” Crib Side-Car” with our crib by removing one side rail and lining it up with our beds mattress. This way I could feed him on both sides at night and not get lop-sided and not feel like he was going to fall out of bed. It worked great! Why didn’t we think of this sooner? We kept this set-up until Ciaran moved into his own room this past summer. We’ve had a bit of a relapse since Finn arrived, but with the Crib Side-Car there’s still room for him, so he usually ends up back in bed with us at some point to nurse back to sleep.
Here’s a couple of photos of our Crib Side-Car:
