Please note, for the purposes of this answer, I always sleep on my hubby’s left. So, here’s how I would do it: lay on my right side, baby lays facing me, I help her find my nipple, and nurse her on that side. Then I turn onto my left side, moving the baby over to that side, help her find my left nipple, and fall back to sleep while she’s nursing, with my arm around her. I did it this way so she wouldn’t be between me and my husband, so he couldn’t roll over on her. This is because he didn’t always wake up during this process, and wasn’t always aware that there was a sleeping baby in the bed with us.
Depends on the couple, of course! (Isn’t EVERY parenting question answered like that?) Some people will wait until the baby stirs and then turn onto their side and insert nipple. Some sleep on their backs with the baby on their chest and the baby finds the nipple when he needs it. (WhyBaby did this a couple of times during naps. And no, I never rolled over on her.) Others indeed sleep on their side topless. The friend I spoke of earlier found that if she just slept topless, it didn’t matter much how she slept, he’d find the nipple - crawled on top of her, nuzzled to her side, whatever. She rarely even woke up while he nursed. As soon as the tooth decay was diagnosed, however, he found himself weaned and sleeping in his own bed within two days. Poor poppet - all that change at once, and traumatic dentist visits to boot!
Wow - thanks for the replies.
Breastfeeding was tough for us, the only way we could do it was with me in a certain chair, or in a certain corner of the couch, with the nursing pillow just so, with a folded towel on top of it, to bring DD up to the right height (I am TALL), with one hand behind her shoulders, and the other hand holding up my breast …
I did try it a couple of times lying down but DD couldn’t get the right latch, and I couldn’t get the right angle.
Well, if I allow my dog to sleep in my bed I think my Sons ought to be able to.
My kids lost intrest at about 4 or 5 tho’.
We’re not planning to co-sleep just because ElzaHub and I both toss and turn a LOT at night - I don’t think it’d be safe to have the baby in the bed with us on a regular basis. We do plan to have him in the bassinet in our room for a couple of months for breastfeeding ease until he outgrows it or we think he’s ready for his crib. My brother and SIL also have a mini co-sleeper that they’ve offered to us if we want it - the issue would be fitting it in our smallish bedroom.
I have no issues with co-sleeping - in fact, early in my pregnancy, I was pretty gung-ho on it until I realized that it probably just wouldn’t work with our sleeping habits.
E.
Elza B, I don’t know if you’re aware of co-sleepers that fit on the bed, not next to it or not, but they’re designed to protect you and the baby against exactly the kind of movement and rolling you’re worried about. They have stiff sides that are impossible to roll over, but the baby can still lie between you on your bed. As a bonus, they fold up really small (we put a couple of diapers, some wipes and a burp cloth in there and then closed it up, so it doubled as a small diaper bag) so you can take baby’s “bed” with you to grandma’s house or your friend’s party. Baby has her bed with her, and is much more likely to go to sleep in the back bedroom while you have fun.
We just used ours as a travel bed, but if you’re interested in co-sleeping, it might be your answer.
Yep - I’ve seen those:). We’ve considered one, but ElzaHub’s still concerned about having him in the bed with us - if the bassinet/move to the crib thing doesn’t work for us, we’ll probably look into the snuggle nest. We do have a small travel bed that we could use as well, so I think it’s just going to be trial and error for awhile.
I’m all for whatever helps me get the most sleep :D.
We had a pack’n’play with an attachable bassinet option that we set up right next to our bed for the first 3 months or so, so I could just reach over, grab baby, nurse, put baby back. Sometimes there was a diaper change in there too (that is one question I have about co-sleeping, we would have diaper leaks and blowouts at night a lot in the beginning, didn’t you ever have that in your bed?)
Sometimes of course I would doze off while he was nursing but I would just put him back when I woke up. We moved him to his own room at around 3 months when he started sleeping longer stretches at night (about 6-7 hours at a time), that worked really well for us since that’s also when I went back to work.
We all slept better when he was in his own room, but for the early days it made sense to us to have him nearby. Now that he is 2 I notice when we are traveling together and he is in the room with us, we both wake up more often and earlier. I think when we wakes up early in his own room he often goes back to sleep on his own, but when he wakes up and sees mom and dad there with him he gets excited and wants to play.
He is a good sleeper though, we didn’t have much trouble getting him to learn to sleep on his own and he sleeps for about 12 hours a night still with a 2-3 hour nap. If any future children have sleep issues I could see tweaking the program. I am not committed to our ‘system’ it just worked for us with that child. I probably lean more towards ‘get the child into his own room’ camp as a default though, since I am a light sleeper I don’t need to wake up every time baby sneezes.
Co-slept, breastfed, and homeschooled my first daughter. Wouldn’t change a thing! She’s going off to college in ten days. Don’t think she has any separation issues…can’t say the same about myself, but I’m handling it rather well. 
We’re co-sleeping with my 19 month old now, but she’s a little pistol. She’s a kicker, a bed hog, likes to sleep sideways and on top of all that she’s such a light sleeper neither me or SO can move without waking the princess.
I’m ready for the move. Eleven more days and we’re going to start trying to get her to sleep in her new bedroom. I’m still nursing, but she’s gotten to where she can sleep through the night most of the time.
I co-slept with my twins - Hubby rode the couch for the first 8 months. I did put them into their cribs for naps, to be safe while I was doing other things and in order to get them accustomed to the cribs.
We’ve very gradually shifted to them sleeping in their own beds for most of most nights. Sometimes one of them will find their way to our bed at 4:00 a.m., and I just put the kid in the middle. When they go to bed at night, I lay with them (their beds are adjacent) until they fall asleep; it’s sweet and cuddly being there with them, I enjoy it a lot (we don’t have other kids to tend to).
Be VERY, VERY careful about pillows and infants, however — one morning, when they were about 5 months old, I woke to find a pillow on my daughter’s head! She’d turned her face away from it and was breathing fine, but that was a close call and it was entirely my fault.
I can’t agree more with the consensus here of do what works for you. Your kid will tell you what he or she needs most to thrive.
Co-slept with the girl for most of her first year, and the bedside co-sleeper was just for naps. Then transitioned her into her crib where she fought sleep every night. She’s back in our bed now for the summer because we are traveling and don’t always have seperate storage for her and at 4 she’s too old for a pack-n-play.
The boy who is now 17 months slept in the co-sleeper until about 4 months then into his crib where the first night he slept 8 hours and he has not stopped his excelent sleeping habits since.
To hijack a bit…why are kids always moving into the H position? Mom on one side, dad on the other and little darling the cross bar in the middle. For the love of all that is good and pure, what is the biological imperative to having her feet in my face??
Every family that co-sleeps with a toddler that I know experiences this same phenomenon. And in fairness I’m the Mothering-subscribing extended breastfeeding type too, so it is a bunch of families.
Yup. I often go to bed much later than my wife and daughter, and most of the time I have to do the forklift thing to scoop my daughter’s legs and torso back into a parallel orientation to ours. She has a definite thing for being perpendicular. I’ve woken up in the morning with little feet dancing on my ribs several times.
What *is * up with that? My daughter didn’t sleep with me often, but when she did, she invariably wound up perpendicular to me. It’s hard to sleep with toddler feet digging into your belly.
Wow, I’m not sure how I missed it, but I might have skipped making that post had I noticed that **rackensack ** said pretty much *the exact same thing * three hours ago. :smack:
For the first few months, I’d put her down in her crib, but then sleep in a bed next to it, when she awoke, she’d come to bed with me. Then we moved the crib in our room and Dadbeast and I would play the “no, I’m really asleep” game when she woke up. We just moved her crib into her own room, she is now 10 months. I have a waterbed, so her sleeping in our room in my bed really wasn’t an issue. I do find that she is easily distracted, even now, I have to put her down for naps and walk away so she will sleep.
My theory on the horizontal position is that when they were in utero, they got accustomed to it. You think toddler toes dancing on your ribs on the OUTSIDE is uncomfy? (relives fetusbeast dancing the charleston from her heart to her bladder)