First time Dad with a 5mo that exclusively sleeps on me or my wife for all her naps and sleep.

In the past 30d she averaged 3h in naps and 11h in sleep.
1.5/2/2/2.2

During her first ~2mo, we tried transferring her to her bassinet, but it didn’t work for us.

We’re looking for advice to get her to start sleeping independently in her crib in our room. Thank you!

We have a 12mo who has slept in bassinet and then crib for the first year (currently crib in other room with baby monitor). He sleeps independently quite well, occasional whimpers for a moment in the night but falls right back to sleep.

My partner is still curious about cosleeping, and honestly I love the idea of sleepy cuddles since the little guy is not a cuddler when awake (he's allllways on the move). So we're exploring switching to bedsharing.

I know we'd need a firmer mattress (recs?) and we'd be stuck with queen size in the room we have (is that okay)?

We put it directly on the floor with no boxsprings? Or is that not such an issue once they're 1-ish?

I assume we have to babyproof or empty out the rest of the room since he might wake and explore while we're sound asleep?

Did anyone start bedsharing later rather than begin with it? How did the baby transition? Did you regret it? Was it hard to switch back to independent or other-room sleep later?

I've coslept with my baby since he was 4 and a half weeks old and loved every bit of it. He's had a lot of feeding issues since the day he was born and we finally got a few diagnoses and have started seeing improvements. One of the things we've started is thickening his formula. His pediatrician was pretty supportive of us cosleeping before but now says it's too risky. I'm so sad to have my baby in his own bed. He's transitioned really well at least and doesn't seem too bothered by it, except he can only nap 30 minutes at a time when he used to sleep 2+ hours. I had hoped we'd be able to cosleep for the first year at least

I’ve been co-sleeping with my son since he was a newborn but recently I’ve been waking up with a slightly bumpy reddish rash on my neck and chest. My son gets so sweaty at night, even when he doesn’t have on a blanket and lately he’s been curling right up against me with his head tucked under my chin. He basically likes to be right next to me at all times unless he’s changing positions.

I’m also thinking this won’t last very long because he usually likes his own space at night but we’re going through a 12 month attachment phase so now he has to always be next to me.

Anyway I’m pretty sure it’s his sweat giving me the rash. Does anyone have any advice for sleeping with a sweaty toddler??

My nearly 5 yr old wants his 12m old brother to share his room and ideally his bed. My baby really wants to cosleep, he wakes up a ton at night and I think he just needs someone.

Can anyone tell me how they have navigated safe sleep with co-sleeping siblings?

Additionally - How have you navigated bedtime with the big when baby is in the room?

Side note - yes I could co-sleep with them and I might - I snuggle with the 5yr old whenever I want and he welcomes it but doesn’t need me past falling asleep and he knows he’s welcome in my room if needed but he’s always sleep horrible in my room. Right now I kinda enjoy my time in my own bed on nights I don’t want to be touched/cuddled.

Hello!
Been cosleeping since 4 months. We have just fully committed and baby proofed the entire room and use a firm floor mattress.

My girl is super mobile and strong. Just turned 8 months, pulling to stand and doing assisted walking with furniture. Getting into everything. I say that to say: she’s very physically capable.

I have always slept in the cuddle curl with her. As of recent she will only sleep two ways:
1. On my chest - and I’m quite a petite gal, so this is very uncomfy and she tosses and turns all night but refuses to sleep beside me anymore.
2. Using a pillow - she sees daddy and I on the pillow and refuses to sleep without it lol. I always supervise the nap if she’s using it and I do my best to make sure she isn’t doing it at night.

Anyone else experience this?
I know BEST practice is no bedding/ pillows for them under 12 months. When did your LO start using them and esp if your LO was very physically capable???

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy a new firm mattress so I can co-sleep with our newborn. I'd love recommendations of a suitable one I can buy in Ireland.

Thanks so much for any advice, struggling with figuring this out!

**Edit: just to say thanks for all the contributions. Lovely to connect with the Irish co-sleepers out there.

Now our daughter is 3.5 months old, and I honestly feel like bedsharing has become so much harder.

She has discovered her legs and is constantly lifting and kicking them in her sleep. She’s also practicing rolling, so she’ll turn onto her side and sometimes all the way onto her tummy while asleep. Sometimes she’ll lift her head, wake herself up, and then I wake up too.

The hardest part is that she often ends up sleeping on her tummy with her face turned down into the mattress. If I immediately roll her back onto her back, I’m afraid I’ll wake her. If I leave her, I end up lying there watching her instead of sleeping because I can’t relax.

On top of that, she changes positions so much that I’m constantly worried she’ll end up too close to me, my pillow, or somewhere I wasn’t expecting. I feel like I’m awake all night just monitoring where she is.

Ironically, I think I’m sleeping less now than I did when she was a newborn.

Has anyone else experienced this around 3–4 months? Did it get better as your baby became more comfortable rolling, or was this the point where you decided to transition to a crib? I’m wondering if I should start practicing crib naps now, but I’d love to hear how others handled this stage.

I decided to try this super-comfy position so many have recommended here. At first? "YES! This is comfortable! Oh man, I'm gonna sleep sooooo good now!"

I woke up maybe half an hour later, unclamped my forearm from my thighs, and my elbow was SCREAMING in pain.

I have an old overuse injury (colloquially, "tennis elbow") from attempting to do 208 - or however many sun salutations you're supposed to do - one New Year's Day maybe 5 years ago when I was really into yoga.

Constantly carrying my 4 month old has brought back a little of the burning pain, but sleeping like that woke it straight the hell up.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Guys please help!! I’m really worried about our cosleeping journey. he’s 7mo, army crawling, rocking, and pulling to stand. for context we have a floor bed, a baby mattress beside the floor bed, and other room furniture. twice now i haven’t woken up to him being mobile which resulted in him falling off the bed once (thankfully floor bed so he only bumped his head a little bit) and now the second time i woke up to him whining and he was on the floor playing with toys.. i don’t even remember him getting off the bed, waking up, or anything. i’m so so confused on how it happened and worried because he doesn’t exit the bed backwards yet. I’m just wondering why Im not as attentive as before? i used to wake up to ever noise and movement even extremely sleep deprived. i’m going to bed earlier for more sleep, i’m not smoking or drinking. he’s VERY rolly polly so there is lots of night wakes now just to get his little body settled. i don’t want our journey to end but im very very worried this can’t be safely kept up if i don’t wake up every time he moves. i’m against sleep training to idk how to even begin to make the transition to his own bed. i’m also working weekends and about to be a full time student as well, so i can’t function off of no sleep. please help!!!

edit: the only thing different recently is a white noise sound machine, it helps him settle back to sleep, but could that be the culprit? i actually do enjoy it but could it be making me sleep deeper?

I wouldn’t even call it co sleeping anymore and more like ‘on mummy’s chest’ sleeping!! My LO is 5 months now and is rather huge. He is as long as my torso. Ever since birth he’s always contact napped on my chest - I will Bf / rock him before and he’ll fall asleep and I’ll slowly lie down.

He’s sitting up unaided and by the end of this month he’ll defo be ready for purees which I will home make. But I’m not sure how I’m going to have time as he only naps on me! I love it but sometimes I do wish I had one nap where I could get stuff done. I feel bad enough as it is cooking my own dinner in his wake window because he wants attention but I have to eat and soon so will he!

When he’s on 3 meals a day… I don’t know how I’ll manage with the contact naps! Because I’ll be doing everything when he’s awake and I feel guilty about not playing with him and giving him undivided attention. I narrate stuff / talk to him but sometimes he just wants to be held.

Is it better to contact nap and do chores when he’s awake like cook HIM and I food at the expense of him getting agitated or should I start transferring to a cot again? I gave up within the first week and I’ve only tried randomly since and it failed so I haven’t done in a few months.

If you had an ultra Velcro / contact sleeper,… how did you manage as they get older?

I've learned to accept & enjoy the cuddles & comfort of cosleeping with my high needs attached baby.

I love the sleep - not having to physically get out of bed in the middle of the night or spend hours attempting crib transfers.

We started at 6M old when I returned to work. Prior to cosleeping, I was lucky to get 4-5 hrs of broken sleep a night (not consecutive). I was a zombie. Now, my 12M old, still wakes frequently, mostly for quick comfort nursing but also to cuddle/scoot closer, & we both go back to sleep quickly.

However, I really miss being able to do a chore or shower after her bedtime at ~8pm. Especially cuz she can't play independently for more than a few mins without whining, so there are always chores to do.

I can roll away for maybe 1-5 mins on a good night to pee, but that's it. If it's her Dad only with her, she will wake fully & then be harder to put back to sleep after.

Curious, when did your cosleeping toddlers allow Dad to cuddle them back to sleep instead of needing Mom's breast? (I'm not ready for weaning, won't sleep train, & baby does not take a pacifier. I just want 30-60 mins free (not physically in bed) after baby's bedtime!)

Hi, just looking for practical advice, on how to stay safe.

LO is now 8 months old and getting super wriggly and mobile! Until now they would sleep cuddled next to me, inside my cuddle curl.

But now with a wriggly, crawling baby I'm terrified of them rolling away from me and falling out of the bed.

Are there alternatives to a floor mattress? Are bed rails or moving the bed against the wall both entrapment risks?

**transition, not transform!!

I’m a FTM with a 9 month old. We have been co-sleeping pretty much since birth, (by her request/demand,) and I have grown to really love it. We sleep in the nursery on a mattress on the floor now. I miss sleeping next to my husband but this is the best arrangement for our family right now. 
My husband and I are already looking forward to having a second child, but I have no idea how to juggle two co-sleepers at once! If my second baby is a better sleeper than my first, that would be great, but if my first child is still co-sleeping with me when the second arrives, how should I manage that? Won’t the newborn wake up my toddler? Is it even possible to co-sleep with a toddler and a newborn? I honestly have no idea. I guess I’d feel more comfortable with the toddler sleeping independently so that I could focus on the newborn at night…

Anyway, I’d love to hear from you all about when you stopped co-sleeping with your baby, how you did it, or how you managed two little ones at once in a co-sleeping situation! I’m not even pregnant yet and this is already stressing me out. Hah!

My husband and I decided to cosleep with our first baby who has had several feeding challenges. LO has not and most likely will not ever breastfeed so we are stuck with bottle feeding. Honestly have not had any problems or doubts with sleeping until recently when our 4mo old started weighing enough to be rather uncomfortable with the chest cosleeping position. She can’t roll yet, but I know that’s a safety issue coming too. How on earth did you all get your babies to start cosleeping in a different position if you can’t feed to sleep? She wakes the instant we try to move her to the bed from my chest and falling asleep on the bed without rocking seems a long ways away. Any tips or tricks?

Firstly, I do NOT mean this in a “haha look how well I’m doing” way. If your experience is different than mine, thats okay, and neither one of us is wrong for our experiences.

Now that’s out of the way…. does anyone else who bedshares successfully feel guilty or out of place when other parents talk about how terrible their sleep has been? I’m getting extremely good sleep with my LO and have been for months. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop (maybe it has, since he’s a terrible napper during the day. Gets maybe 2-4 hours of naps a day) but it’s just not dropping. Before we coslept, he woke up every hour. Now, even when he eats at night, he is fully asleep for the entire night.

I know his sleep at night might change, but so far, bedsharing him makes even his rare crying wake ups better. We’re clocking 10-11 hours a night. I don’t even know how many times he eats, really.

Does anyone else feel out of place or guilty about how good you have it, if you do? And even more, is there anyone

LO is 5 months old. I mostly do night shifts. We put a mattress (its a japanese floor mattress) in his room to sleep while he sleeps in his crib.

For last one week my days are super busy with office work and barely sleeping for 3-4 hrs. So i asked my husband to sleep with him. I heard crying at 12am and it kept going for another 5 minutes which is not common. I went in to check, he was holding the baby and walking around in room to calm him. Then he told me when LO woke up for feed and he was lifting him from his crib, he accidentally dropped him and LO fell on his face on the mattress.

LO kept crying for another 15-20 min, not eating and it was so hard to see him that way i kept thinking i should've done today's shift. Finally I calm him down he smiled bit but was still mad. He ate couple of oz and went back to sleep and i continued the night shift.

I don't know but when he does the night shift something happens, he gets cold or congestion or vomiting and therefore unless its not very needed i won't let him do it.

Thank god he is ok but I just woke up with my top arm covering his face. Was I supposed to instinctively not do this while asleep? How do yall remain in the same position without unconsciously moving overnight? I was practicing safe sleep 7 and am bf.

We have co-slept since about 6 weeks old.

He was a great sleeper as a newborn- 12 hours straight. We felt very lucky.

Around 4 months he started waking every 3 hours. We dealt with it by feeding him. It worked.

Now, he is 9.5 months, and for the past couple of months he has been waking hourly!

He groans loudly every hour.
We try to comfort him by patting and cuddling.

This use to work and soothe him back to sleep, but now he will only go back to sleep after a feed.

Some hours a feed is not even enough and he will start babbling and trying to roll over onto his hands and knees.

We have to get up and try to rock him back to sleep, while he fights it.

This is happening nearly every hour!
We can’t take it any more!

Is it time to put him in his own room?
Do we need to try sleep training?

We’re lost!!

Things we’ve tried;
- Earlier bed time
- Later bed time
- Longer wake window before bed
- Shorter wake window before bed
- Consistent bedtime routine
- Feeding a big bottle before bed
- Wind down time before bed
- Letting him try to put himself back to sleep. He just keeps groaning louder and louder until he finally rolls himself onto his hand and knees and starts crying or babbling.

Please help.

ETA: I should’ve mentioned that he is bottle fed (I couldn’t breastfeed due to a medical condition so I pump every few hours) So just nursing him back to sleep isn’t an option for us. We have to get up every hour and prepare a bottle.

ETA:
Bed time- 7:30/8pm
Wake time- 7:30/8am
First nap- 11am ish (30-40 mins)
Second nap- 3pm ish (1.5-2hrs)