co-sleeping.

People have a lot of bad things to say about co-sleeping. That its dangerous (you could roll over onto baby and can increase chances of sids), and can be habit forming (baby wont want to sleep in own bed.) Before having Jack I felt the same way, I didn't care if other people slept with their babies, but I wasn't going to because I was too afraid of squishing him. The first few days home were difficult. Jack started out sleeping in our room, but in his bassinet. Technically that is co-sleeping- being in arms reach, but I found that didn't really work for us. In my sleep I would try putting a pacifier in his mouth (not intentionally I was just dead tired). After about two nights I decided to just bring him into our bed. I was nervous, but I wanted sleep and I wanted my baby to feel safe. Well, every night I ended up just bringing Jack to bed with me. Since Matt was gone the company was nice and I slept every single night! Jack never truly woke up (he never woke me up crying, he would just be moving around because he was hungry I would wake up enough to feed him and fall right back asleep. Around the time Jack was 2-2.5 months old I started putting him in his crib for the first part of the night and then bring him to my bed around 3am.

Now Jack is 4 months old and guess what? He sleeps in his own crib! I still have been bringing him to our bed after his early morning feeding, but he has started whining and whimpering in his sleep if he is too close to me, and forget cuddling! Sleep has been hard for Matt and I because of his whining and whimpering. Well, a couple mornings ago, after Matt left for work, I realized, after scooting Jack over so he had his own space, that he just wanted to sleep alone!

So, last night was my first night of my experiment, I just fed Jack and put him back in his crib. To my surprise there was no whining in his sleep and he only woke up to feed twice (he is going through a growth spurt right now). also, a side note, I have done this before, but we preferred having him in our bed. We usually miss him after we put him to bed. In fact, I just put Jack to bed about two hours ago and Matt just asked me to go wake him up... (he asks me this every night, I always say no!)

All of this to say, for us, co-sleeping has been great for us. Rather than forming habits of needing to be with us, it has shown Jack that he can trust us and that his needs will be met, he feels safe being on his own because he knows we will be there to care for him when he needs it.

co-sleeping can be dangerous, but as long as you aren't drinking/on drugs or narcoleptic, it is a great way to bond with your baby!