For various reasons, co-sleeping wasn’t for us. Our baby has slept on her own pretty much from the beginning, and she’s a good little sleeper, thankfully.
However, there have been maybe a handful – four? five? – times we have brought her into bed with us over the past year (she’s 20 months old now). She had a bad cold that was keeping her up, we were in a hotel and couldn’t figure out how to assemble the hotel crib in the middle of the night, etc.
Each time, the TODDLER has gotten a great night’s sleep. In my opinion, I see what some advocates of co-sleeping are talking about … if she starts to rouse, it seems like she gets reassurance from us being there and goes back to sleep promptly, and even sleeps longer.
Her parents, on the other hand, we have a crummy night of “sleeping.” Toddler feet in the face, knees in the kidneys, fists on our noses … it’s not pleasant. It feels unseemly to elbow her BACK, you know?
So for families who routinely co-sleep, can a toddler learn to be a better bed sharer? Or are some kids naturally less restless sleepers? If sleeping with a kid continues to be like sleeping with an anxious wolverine, do parents suck it up in order to gain the other benefits of co-sleeping?
Making them less restless isn’t going to happen unless you do the “Mommy Dearest” thing and strap the kid in.
However, as a parent, who is no stranger to kids wanting to sleep with Mom or Dad, I can tell you: Kids are the most the soundest of sleepers. You can pretty much throw them around like a slab of beef and they aren’t going to wake up.
They don’t get better at it in that they always kick you and sleep sideways etc, but you kind of get used to it and eventually just shove them over and get back to sleep. Almost nothing will wake up a kid sleeping in parent’s bed, it’s kind of like having a pet sleep there, you just work it out and find a way to sleep though the crazy.
Mine sure never did. They defined their “half” (or third) as being the entire middle portion of the bed, and both of mine were very, very restless sleepers. My daughter still is - when we travel as a family, and stay in a hotel with 2 beds, the boys (dad/son) get one bed and the girls (mom/daughter) get the other.
I have to fight for my half of the bed and my half of the covers. My daughter will have nighttime wakeups, during which she tosses and turns violently (I think deliberately). Ugh.
My husband says that when our daughter starts dating, he’s going to check out the boyfriends’ shins and if they’re bruised, we’ll know something’s going on.
I think it’s really dependent upon the child and the situation. My son was a much better co-sleeper than my daughter ever was. Of course, he was all over the bed - and me - but he would fall asleep and stay that way. My daughter, on the other hand, is all over the place and wakes up as soon as you move, which keeps you awake because you’re trying to hold still. Needless to say that our daughter slept by herself far earlier than our son did.
One thing that I didn’t realize until just recently (because I’m a genius) was why they were so damn energetic when they were sick. It’s because I spent all night wide awake in the bed with them making sure they were as comfortable as possible. Of course they slept well - my job was to keep them relaxed and comfortable all night long.
Junior took to sleeping with me shortly after my ex and I separated and he’s gotten quite a bit better at it - at first he would basically try to sleep ON TOP OF ME - now he’ll sleep on his side of the bed and generally won’t twist around too much. It doesn’t hurt that the bed is a king size.
I do get a little wistful every time I walk by his bedroom and see his nifty little toddler bed sitting there, made with the bedding that he selected, and the duvet that he selected and the pillow that he selected, that he’s slept in a grand total of 3 times.
<sigh> Well, I keep telling myself that he won’t be sleeping with me when he’s 16…
Less restless doesn’t necessarily mean “easier to sleep with”. Littlebro eventually went from wiggling around in his sleep but spending most of the time on his side to flopping down on his belly and spending the whole night in a starfish configuration, something which already meant not enough space for anybody else back when he was six. We joke that when it comes to beds he’s like gases and takes up all available space.
I never heard of co-sleeping till my daughter was well into her teens, but I can’t imagine I’d have allowed it. And it never was an issue - she had no problem sleeping in her own bed in her own room. In the early weeks of her life, I’d frequently tiptoe in to make sure she was still breathing, but once I was sure she mastered that, those visits stopped.
She and I napped together once - or at least I *tried *to nap. She was an active, almost violent sleeper. It shouldn’t have surprised me - when she was in utero, I was sure I was going to birth a gymnast!
My daughter sure didn’t - she was a restless baby/toddler who moved all over the bed as she slept and had no awareness of “other bodies in bed” - now she is a thirteen year old who if we share (like Mamma Zappa - vacations or something), I am certain to spend the night getting whapped in the face and kicked - although her head usually now stays at the top of the bed and she doesn’t end up sideways.
My daughter slept in with us for quite a while. That wasn’t really the plan - she’d start every night in her cot, but most nights there would come a point, say 3am, after which she would not go back to sleep in here cot but would happily sleep in our bed. In the interest of a quiet life, we gave in to that battle. It really wasn’t a problem. OK, I’m a heavy sleeper, but she seemed to stay pretty still while she was asleep - no squirming or kicking, etc. If she woke up she would latch on for a feed and barely even wake my wife up.
The only problem came when she decided it was morning and time to wake up. Her favourite thing to do as soon as she opened her eyes was (and still is) to reach for Daddy’s nose and pinch it. Hard.
Now, at the age of 14 months, she has actually slept through the night in her cot a total of maybe six times, all within the past couple of weeks. Hurrah! Of course, my wife still thinks it’s funny to go and fetch her when she does wake up so that she can still come in and wake Daddy up by tweaking his nose.
My kids used to wander into my bed around 4 am. Not too much sleep after that. Morning in bed became a social time. My wife and I would try to sleep while the kids watched cartoons. I got to where I would go sleep on the couch and my wife son and daughter would share bed.
Toddlers have the worst imaginable morning breath.
