Co-sleeping with a crawling baby is an adventure. Snuggling up with your tiny newborn is easy to imagine. Even someone that is not an advocate of co-sleeping has likely fallen asleep with a newborn on their chest so they can understand the powers of the sleeping baby.
But the sleep arrangements now that the goose is loose? It’s a whole new game. A bedrail helps to contain her. I am teaching her how to get off the bed, dangling her little legs off the side until they hit the floor instead of diving head first. You get used to waking up with a little person sitting on your arm. Or your face. Or standing on your pillow.
Lots of people that co-sleep with their newborn begin to transition him/her in to a crib around this time. If you’re not wild about having fingers in your nose or getting kicked in the groin it could be the wisest choice. Unless, of course, you ever want to get any sleep. As a newborn Lucy slept like a rock. She woke to nurse once, maybe twice, in a night. Since she has started crawling everywhere, cruising along the furniture and battling with the dog for his new bone she doesn’t have the time to devote to eating during the day. She will nurse a handful of times during the day but it is a quick snack. She does the bulk of her eating at night, when there is nothing better to do. I can’t blame her.
If I want to get any sleep at all and she wants to marathon nurse all night I do not see an end to our current sleeping arrangements anytime soon.
People love to ask “So, how is she sleeping?” and ordinarily I say “Great!” or my all time favorite “Like a baby!” because any answer at all only invites advice. And for the most part unless you are a been there done that co-sleeper/breastfeeder/baby led wean-er (ha! Baby led weaning is the term for skipping pureed food and letting your baby eat solid food when they are ready. Baby led weiners – I have no idea what that entails) than even well-meaning advice falls on deaf ears.
I slept poorly throughout my pregnancy. Lucy is nearly eight months old. So, it is fair to say I have not “slept through the night” in well over a year. I am used to it. And while it is no secret that I am vehemently opposed to sleep-training an infant I am dangerously close to letting myself cry it out. Me. I might cry it out. Face down on the floor while Goose climbs on the dog. Fish can look after her for an hour, right?
Because I am tired, guys. Nursing a baby takes a lot out of you. And not just sleep. Water. I drink at least a gallon of water a day. I am pretty good at getting myself a glass of water. I went in the kitchen to get a glass of water just now.
Yup. A bowl of water. Sigh. I’m tired, y’all.
Excitement on the side 
you have many years ahead of you…. ugh. I don’t think I regularly slept through the night until they were at least two and a half… but the random nights where somehow everyone manages to sleep a full GASP 8 hours.. they are like gifts from the gods.. that then just made me really pissed when it didn’t happen again the next night. I remember going to bed just asking, praying, begging, for 4 hours solid. Counting how many hours I had slept since I originally went to bed, then how many more hours I thought I would get before being woken again… it was crazy how I had to count shit back then.
I haven’t gotten more than 2 hours of sleep in a row in almost 6 weeks. I am exhausted, and yet somehow my body will not let me fall asleep before 10pm like I was doing when he was first born. I comfort myself with the fact that I think its easier because he’s been an all night nurser for his whole life, so the most sleep in a row I’ve gotten is 4 hours (which sounds heavenly right now) but its harder on my friends who were back to 8 hour sleeps and then are now in our boat.
May tonight be different for both of us :)
Fingers crossed.
I wake up with a vision blurred…
So my son is 2.5 and still sleeping in our bed. My wife is gone more than half the week so it’s just him and I now that school has started for the semester. I keep telling myself I am going to put him in his bed. I have been able to fix his dependence to falling asleep with someone, my wife was able to, but i can’t sit in the room for that long trying to get him to sleep. I lay in there with him for a minute or two and then tell him goodnight and get my thousandth and final kiss for the night. I do love having him there with my since I would be all alone in the bed if he were not there. It also keeps his toenails trimmed – speaking of, i need to do that before bedtime.
I lived on tour through college too, although JB’s voice didn’t really do it for me I did have a good time at all the wsp shows i went to, especially with Branford Marsalis.
JB is what is up. Love him. You crazy. ;)
And as for the “keep telling myself I am gonna put him in his bed.” Why? It’s working for both of you. Why change a thing? :)
I’m starting to think that any times we Moms are vehemently opposed to something it’s because life hasn’t put us in a situation where we might have to consider doing it. Because I was totally vehemently opposed to CIO. Until I had to use it because my kid wouldn’t sleep at night if he was in my bed, his crib, the Ergo, the car, or at the Ritz Fucking Carlton. He just wept for hours. Until Z and I were weeping, too. I hated myself for doing it. I felt horribly (and probably unfoundedly) judged. Until he started sleeping like a rock star. Then I felt like we’d taught him how to sleep, although clearly I’m still sensitive about it. And having a second kid who didn’t need CIO to sleep taught me that as long as I was evaluating what my kids needed as individuals I was probably doing ok by them.
Then again I might be full of shit. Because I’m vehemently opposed to not vaccinating your kid. Think it’s selfish, irresponsible, and unsafe. Of course, my kids haven’t had negative reactions to vaccines…so maybe the theory does bear out.
I do hope you get some awesome sleep soon. And I’m glad that you are doing what is right for your family.
No judgement from me, friend. As always you are wise. Of course I draw from my own experience. It’s all I’ve got. With different kids I would likely have made different choices. And I should probably have clarified. My issues with sleep training start with the assumption that it is the easiest and only solution to peace in your home at night. I don’t know anyone that has done any kind of sleep training at all easily. I almost linked to one of your posts actually. :) your point of view is a good one.
Oh man, did not mean to make you feel like you needed to clarify. I love your writing, am excited every time one of your posts pops up in my RSS feed. Hmmm…Now I’m feeling like this has been a pretty great object lesson for me-even though my CIO experience was 2.5 years ago I’m still pretty damn raw about it. Maybe I need to chill out a bit and not project my own shit onto other people’s perfectly lovely blog posts. Perhaps I should change my name to Over-Sensitive Sally.
I didn’t clarify on your behalf. :) I think we have has this conversation already. But in reading what I noted I I failed to include my standard disclaimer about how I only feel vehemently about my own kids. It’s part of the upside of being self absorbed. I am far less judgey than one might assume because I am so busy analyzing my own pile of shit. Ha.
That bowl of water looks SO GOOD. One of these days, when we finally get together, coffee’s on me, ‘k?
Deal.
Oh boy. I have no advice or help to give. Only a big old internet hug of solidarity. I was just telling the husband that we are soooo close to having two kids sleeping through but until we do Plum is doing her best to drag me through Hell every night so that I appreciate it. lol
This too shall pass….
Oh boy do I remember those sleep deprived hazy days. I was tired, bone tired, all the time for so long I did not remember how it felt to not be tired. When I was nursing I was an ice cream fiend – I HAD to eat some every night.
I co-slept with both my boys until they were about one year old but I also had the crib right next to my bed (just enough room for me to walk between the crib and the bed) so sometimes I would put baby in the crib when they were sleeping hard. My guys were both snackers throughout the day and had their serious milk meal right before their bedtime, waking to dine once or twice.
Perhaps you need to fill your nightstand with large water bottles. :-)
My side of the bed is covered with water bottles. :)
Co-sleeping is a double-edged sword. EB JUST started co-sleeping. She’s 2-1/2. So around 4 am for the past week, she’s snuck into our room to lay sideways between us and put her hand on my face to fall asleep. I am not used to this, but it’s better than making me get up at 4 am? She used to just come in the bedroom at 7 or so and whisper “mooo-ooom” really creepily into my face to gently wake me up.
Oh man, the creepy wake up. Love it. It;s cute when they star eat you when they are teeny. But at the side of your bed just staring as toddlers.. now THAT is a good time.
Oh Hunny!! At least you remembered WHY you went to the kitchen. TWH used to find me standing in the middle of the kitchen just staring because I was so sleep deprived I had NO idea why I was there & was too tired to figure it out.
HA! There is plenty of that, too.