Friday, June 29, 2007

Big Family, Big Bed

From Danielle Bean comes this post about cosleeping with multiple children. I am thankful that she used this topic as one of her discussions as I am trying to examine all the different ideas about cosleeping. I will probably post again after I read the comments.

As for my answer to the question, we have a toddler bed next to our bed for our oldest and a cosleeper on the other side for the baby. Since the baby is rapidly becoming a toddler and nursing frequently through the night, we are currently exploring new options until we are ready to give them their own room together.

2 comments:

Chris Lewis said...

Mega NFP/NFL/AP dittos to you. We placed a twin mattress at the foot of our bed; we started out with the little one (now 2.25-yrs-old) starting the night there, and then she'd climb up into bed when she wanted to nurse. Along about June 2006, she started giving my wife a really tough time getting to sleep initially - 30-45 minutes trying to nurse her to sleep, so we changed things a bit. My wife nurses her right after dinner, then I take her and get her ready for bed, give her a bath, etc. This worked nicely - she started falling asleep much faster. As this became more comfortable, I started taking her back to the mattress on the floor after her 2 or 3 nursing sessions in the night. Ultimately, she started getting too wakened up during the night time nursing sessions, so late last year I started simply telling her if she woke up in the night I would help her go back to sleep (by patting her back, etc) because mommy was tired and wasn't awake yet. This has resulted in her sleeping better through the night, waking up only once or twice; she ususally asks for some water and then collapses right back down to sleep. We've started talking to her about the possibility of sleeping in her own room; we have another baby coming in late January 2008, and so we would like to have this one mostly out of the room for the new one's arrival. Our plan is that the twin mattress at the foot of the bed will be relocated to our daughter's room, and we'll place a smaller crib mattress at the foot of the bed. She'll start out the night in her own bed in her own room, and then if she awakens, she can come to the small mattress in our room and sleep there. Idea is that eventually she'll spend more and more time in her own bed in her own room. Not interested in rushing it or anything, but it seems like the next logical step.

JimmyV said...

Chris,

Sounds very similar to our pattern. We are hoping to move both of the girls into their bedroom simultaneously since the move didn't happen before baby #2 arrived. However, our eldest is starting to ask about "her room" so it might happen sooner than we think.