Awake at 3:30am

About the eary morning wakings, I did find with Aran that once I stopped feeding at night (around 13 months), he started sleeping through till a reasonable hour. then he went though a phase of 4.30-5.30 wake ups, but seemed to get over that after a few months. Now I think he's up by about 6-6.20 but only starts calling (ie shouting) closer to 7 and them mamma or dadda goes to get him.

On the co-sleeping, Aran was in a camp cot in our room till 3 months, then in his own room. I CANNOT sleep in the same room, let alone bed with him. When DH is away, I sometimes bring him to bed with me if he is fussy, but the tossing and turning and kicking and reducing me to 1/5th of bed space does not work for me so he get's dumped back in his room where he falls happily back to sleep.

Yet I have friends whose 5 year old daughter still sleeps with them and now also her 9 month old little brother (how they got the time and space to make him, I don't know

I think you just need to do whatever works for you.

For Mia, she wants someone to "watch her" while she sleeps. those are her words. and even the promise of a lucky packet or treasured item she says she rather wants to sleep with me.

For me, having her in bed with me is when I sleep at my best aswell. Just knowing she's ok, and she's right there. As far as Hannah is concerned, it's easier to just lean over and plop the dummy back in than to have to get up walk across the house to Mia's room, plop it back in and then get my freezing backside back into bed

Mia is a lot like me in the sense that she loves that "close" feeling. Hannah I'm not sure about yet, but she's more on her own than Mia was and so far a much easier sleeper than Mia was. I can just put her down and she normally goes to sleep, whereas Mia had to be danced or rocked to sleep for months - even when she got just about too big to hold and dance with.

anyway, that being said, it's going better with Hannah. I've resigned myself to the fact that summer is a few months away and then she'll sleep better when it isn't so darn cold.
xo

Hi

My 5 month old slept in our room for 4 months and he used to wake up a lot in the night cause we disturbed him. I am also a light sleeper so everytime baby moaned I was awake and I started suffering because of it. A month ago we decided to put him in his own room and after a few nights he started sleeping though. We went from a baby that woke up every few hours to a baby that goes to bed at 6pm and sleeps without a sound until 4am. This could also be because he started solids and now sleeps better because he does not need to be fed in the night anymore.

I think it is dependant on the baby. My first born slept in our room for almost a year but he never seemed to be disturbed even if we put the TV on low in the evenings in our room.

I have a sister whose 4 and 7 yr olds still sleep in her bed and she can't get them out. I just made the decision early that I did not want my kids in my bed or sleeping in our room unless they are sick. I prefer to have my alone time with db. Plus I find that I am so uncomfortable when they are in my bed. The wriggle and squirm and I feel like if I move I am going to wake them up. Just my opinion.

Also not everyone wants to sleep train and I can see there point but I think it is dependant on baby. You can't be in and out of bed every half an hour attending to a baby that should be sleeping. If your baby is not sick and is comfortable then he should be able to sleep without you attending to him every 30 minutes. Sleep training is not always a choice but sometimes you need to make the decision that you have to get some form of sleep at some time and like Marijke said some of us are just better Moms if we get enough sleep. I do see the other side though.

It's just that co-sleeping for us - if she is sleeping in the same room - is her waking up for every little sound, from snoring, to turning in bed to hubby farting (sorry ) Yes sure she goes back to sleep rather quickly after being attended to but I'd rather she sleep undisturbed on her own than have her waking up because of us.

And if I really want her to sleep in bed with me, like for her afternoon nap, it's holding her down for 15min or longer while she screams and slaps, bites etc and I really don't see that benefitting her.

And I know Mia_hannahsmommy said something about not wanting to do the cry it out after the comment I posted, but I have to say that I have never had the guts to do cry it out, so 'sleep training' as it were doesn't have to include letting them cry

Jensen was a terrible sleeper for the first 3 months. During this period he was in our room with us in his own cot. DH snores.

When we started taking him to his daymom we moved him into his own room and from that moment on sleeps VERY well (appart from when we moved and he was unsettled).

Every now and then he wakes up early and once or twice I have tried to put him in our room and he REFUSES - point blank refuses - to sleep in the same room with us!

I didnt feel guilty at all because I realised that he prefers his own room. And this way DH and I get some alone time.

That is what happened to us. I was so scared to move him to his own room, but when we did it was bliss for all of us. We had been keeping him awake too.

I felt so stupid mostly for being sleep deprived for nothing. It was then that I realised that we underestimated Dylan's ability to cope in general.

We thought he would choke so we fed him mush. We thought he would get thirsty so we gave him milk at night when he didn't need it. We basically thought too much.

You have a very good point. One which I have never heard anyome bring up before, but possibly the most important point. What does your child want when it comes to co sleeping.

I have a question, I was wondering about it last night while laying in bed and I don't have anyone else to ask so bear with me.

I'm going to say you and I don't mean anyone in particular and I really don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to start a fight or dogging on them it's something I'm just wondering about. So here goes.

I can't for the life of me do co-sleeping, be that with a cot next to our bed or baby in bed because I can't sleep and yeah sure perhaps that's very selfish of me but for me to be a good mom I need my rest. So I was wondering, my LG can't sleep with us. If she does sleep with us hubby has to sleep somewhere else because when B sees him she wants to play. So I was wondering perhaps she, like me, also wasn't really 'made' for it. All children are different. What happens for co-sleeping parents when you have a child that just can't sleep in your room, or do you just make them use to it?

What if at some point you get fed up and try to put them in their own room after nights of not getting enough sleep just to realise that they prefer being in their own room, would that make you feel guilty for not trying it earlier. But if all children are different would it be so weird if some babies just can't sleep in their parents room?

Sorry, just wondering!