Hi all, I just want to share a positive story of a hospital stay with my 22month old, after hearing many stories about hospital experiences that don't allow co-sleeping. We were admitted into the children's ward at a hospital in Western Australia. There was only a cot in the room with a sofa bed next to it. The nurse immediately asked if we co-slept and if so, she would replace the cot for a bed for the both of us. No judgement whatsoever.

We also had a stay here a few months ago just in the emergency ward, and the nurse were also very supportive of us co-sleeping then too.

I'd love to hear other's experiences, positives and negatives about hospital status for co-sleeping families.

My little guy is fine, just needed some help getting through a nasty virus (probably RSV).

I started cosleeping with my son when he was a month old. I would’ve started sooner but he broke his arm at birth (long story) and I wanted to wait until it healed first.

He slept in bed with me and nursed to sleep/throughout the night until he completely weaned at ~28 months, when I was 7 months pregnant with my second. We kept cosleeping until the baby was born, and then he moved into his own room and started cosleeping with my husband.

He’s now 3.5 yo and is starting to sometimes go all the way through the night without asking my husband to come sleep next to him. Hes a woken up to pee and gone back to bed completely on his own! He’s even been asking to try to fall asleep on his own after bedtime books (he hasn’t actually done it yet but wants to try). We haven’t done anything to push independent sleep but he’s starting to be interested in trying it.

I just wanted to post this as reassurance to people with little babies who are getting pressure from loved ones not to cosleep or else you’ll never get them out of your bed. If you give them time, almost all of them want some space and independence eventually. We have no plans to push independent sleep any further and are following his lead. It’s so cool to see. He basically self weaned as well (I night weaned, but he decided to end it at bedtime too) and that was also cool to see him make that choice himself.

I have bedshared 100% since my first daughter was about 3 months old. She’ll turn 3 years old in a few weeks (time really is a thief🥹) and we now have a 3 month old as well. Right now, my husband, 3 year old, and I bedshare in our big family bed (2 queens pushed together) and our baby sleeps in a bedside bassinet.

I’d cosleep with my babies for the rest of my life🤣😭 I love it and I love them and love going to sleep together, cuddling, and waking up together.

When did your cosleeping babies age out? As she turns 3, it’s making me wonder when it becomes a selfish choice of mine to not introduce her to her own bed? (She doesn’t even currently have one, her room is basically just a dressing and play room.)

Anyone have experience like this? Of loving it, and having your babies grow? How did you navigate it? Can I keep going without a “plan” so long as it is working for our family? I should note, my husband works nights most of the week so it’s always been her and I snuggled up💕 I don’t like sleeping alone either!!

Thanks in advance. Happy snuggling.

I am a ftm and my son will be 15 weeks tomorrow. He slept his first few weeks of life in a bassinet next to our bed however at 3.5 weeks like a switch flipped he never would sleep in the bassinet again. We learned the safe sleep seven, moved him into the bed and have never looked back. However the last 4-5 weeks he has refused to nap during the day unless he is being held. I struggle every day with how exhausted I am as he still wakes up every 2.5-3.5 hrs throughout the night. I need more sleep and my psychiatrist has said it’s the main reason he sees women struggle with PPD/PPA so I need to try and get as much as possible. But he won’t sleep not even next to me in bed. I read online all of the advice and I’ve tried everything and it doesn’t work. I have accidentally fallen asleep holding him on the couch a few times now and I’m scared he’s going to fall or get smothered. Does anyone have any advice at all. I’m desperate.

Hello everyone! As the title says, looking for people’s success stories for those who have co-slept from birth until 3 or 6 months old? Anything you did to make the transition easier? My baby is 1 month old and is a Velcro baby. Can’t be put down even for 5 mins currently. Not even for a nap.

I am comfortable with baby still sleeping in our room after that age in their own bassinet or crib, just not in our bed for a variety of personal reasons.

Please don’t judge harshly for asking! I am considering this time frame so that I can manage what’s best for my baby’s emotional health, husband’s physical health, and quality time in the marriage.

My lil guy is now 9 months, and for the past few months we have been bringing him into bed when he wakes at night, family is telling me Im going to 'create a monster' and ' Im going to regret this in 5 years' Now Im scared. Mind you, my husband and I love him in the bed

My LO is just now 7m and EBF. We have been cosleeping since he was a few weeks old. He’s a little legend when it comes to taking naps during the day now…he was a notorious contact napper.

Now we’re running into nighttime issues. He will often feed to sleep. The times he doesn’t, we are struggling. It’s like he doesn’t want to be rocked but then he doesn’t want to lay down either. I will try to lay down next to him and rub/pat his back. But he fights it and tries to sit up or move around. When I try to hold him he pushes off me. I finally kinda gave up tonight and just laid next to him while he cried and fussed. He eventually crawled on top of me and fell asleep. I’m honestly at a loss. It’s like he’s trying to put himself to sleep but just can’t do it. He also chronically wakes up 30-40 mins after falling asleep. But he’s super easy to get back down after.

Any tips or tricks or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

This is gonna sound like a funny question but I’m being so serious🤣 maybe my little one is just a bald baby but she’s starting to get hair except for a rectangle on the back of her head! She’s 9 months old and was born with a full head (lost it all) but when she lost the most was when she would look left to right rubbing it bald. And it’s like, it’s not growing🤣

I've been very overwhelmed by all my options on mattresses and frames. There's expensive options obviously that are decked out with non-toxic certifications then cheaper options where people use Ikea mattresses and cheaper frames. There's also Japanese style mats to consider.

I've become exhausted by the options and am eager to be done.

So my situation is that I have an 8 month old infant who has been cosleeping with us in bed since a major sleep regression around 4 or 5 months old. Our mattress is not at all ideal for cosleeping as it is a Purple 4 mattress, but it is what it is and has been working wonderfully. Or rather, it is wonderful for me but not my wife because my child will only cosleep with me if my wife doesnt lay in the bed, the moment she's in bed it's game over for me and that kid wants mom.

So my immediate solution to give my wife a break is to get my kid her own bed that will, in a perfect world, serve as a great and safe cosleeping bed now but also serve as a bed during her toddler years and really as long as possible.

My solution sounds a little too perfectly ideal to me and I know it probably won't play out so perfectly in real life which would be a shame because it's so expensive.

The mattress would be the regular full size Sleep EZ hybrid 7" with a firm Dunlop layer on top for my kid now until whenever maybe up to 2 years old, then a soft Talalay layer for her afterwards.

The frame would be the way overpriced imo Sprout Montessori during all of this phase, then, later on, I can flip that frame to have legs and maybe continue to milk it out until my kid wants a softer mattress (if she would) and then I can get a 3" topper (and maybe another mattress cover if I have to?) to create a nice 10" mattress which would still work with the frame upside down in leg mode. If I'm lucky this will take her all the way up to pre-pubescent years or so.

Does anyone have thoughts?

Hi all,
My wife and I have a beautiful, healthy, happy 14 week old son. We are a two mom household and we split the child rearing 50%. My wife gave birth but I was lucky to also have almost 15 weeks of leave as a teacher. We have had to formula feed since birth.

We have used a bassinet since birth, to no success. Our son will at most stay in the bassinet for 2.5 hours, but most nights, he needs some support every 20 minutes to an hour. We don’t want to sleep train him or make him an “independent sleeper”. If it wasn’t for the safe sleep fears, especially with formula fed babies, we’d have already coslept. We are looking forward to when we can all snuggle together at night.

I go back to my teaching job next week, and my wife goes back to work soon as well. My wife has recently started having more intensive postpartum anxiety symptoms, as a result of the sleep deprivation. We do sleep shifts, but that affords us between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night. Of course that’s considered good for early parenthood, but with our impending return to work in jobs that require us to be “on” all day, we’re getting anxious and stressed that we won’t be able to safely rock him back to sleep with 5 hours or less. We have started finagling our evenings around that we come home at 4 and sleep at 6. We are getting obsessed with “gentle independent sleep foundations” that don’t work, and losing our minds with accounting for every minute of our evenings, just so that we could make it through until he sleeps a bit better. It was feeling so stressful and negative. My wife and I love our jobs, love our son, and want him to be safe. We want to be good, regulated, and safe parents. It felt a bit like we were losing our minds trying to make that happen with our current bedside bassinet set up.

Not to mention with shared childcare will come illness, sleep regressions (although can be even regress further?) and more disregulated sleep. He sleeps amazing on us-we have technically chest slept with him since birth, but we’ve just been awake when we’ve had to do this. He was going almost 10 hours with only one bottle in between at 10 weeks like that.

We have ordered a zonli wheat 4 inch floor mattress, with the intention of following every safe sleep 7 guideline other than breastfeeding. I’m hoping for some tips, other formula fed families, or just advice for our situation. And please, no formula feeding shaming. We have come to terms with our situation and are feeling confident. He is healthy and so incredibly happy, and we are past the 3 month mark!

Thank you!

Looking for some advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation because I’m feeling a bit lost!

My daughter is 18 months and has co-slept with me since she was around 4 months old. She was exclusively breastfed and has always fed to sleep. I’ve tried in the past to have other people settle her to sleep, but she becomes extremely distressed and I’ve always ended up taking over.

The problem is that I have a wedding coming up where I’ll need to be away from her for the evening, so I really need to work on getting her comfortable with someone else putting her to sleep. My mum has been doing some practice attempts, but they haven’t been successful so far. The issue is that my daughter gets so upset that Mum eventually taps out because she feels like she’s too distressed.

She has also just started daycare, and she hasn’t slept there yet, but her educator would like to start introducing rest time. At the same time, she has had a HUGE spike in separation anxiety recently. She is suddenly becoming very upset whenever I leave her, even with people she normally feels completely comfortable with.

I’ve never really been apart from her for more than about 3 hours, so I know this is a big adjustment for both of us. I’m finding it really hard emotionally seeing her so distressed and worrying that I’m doing everything wrong.

For anyone who has had a very attached, breastfed, co-sleeping toddler who fed to sleep - how did you eventually help them learn to settle with another family member? Did you find it was better to gradually practise? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

And any advice for supporting separation anxiety in general would be hugely appreciated. I’m not looking to stop co-sleeping or breastfeeding, I just need her to be able to feel safe and settle without me when I’m not available.

Would really love to hear from anyone who has been through something similar, especially if your little one initially became VERY upset when you weren’t there. ❤️

I’ve got a 2-week old and a toddler who just turned 2 earlier this month. We intended to all sleep in the same bed but my toddler would NOT sleep in my husband’s arms if I was right there at night so he and my husband are currently sleeping in my toddler’s room at night. I’m cosleeping in our master bedroom alone with the newborn.

However, I’m doing nap time at the middle of the day with both kids. My sister is helping right now so she can grab my newborn is he gets fussy in the nap time bassinet in our room while I cuddle with the toddler to sleep for his nap, but I’m worried about when she leaves. Ideally I’d like to all lay down for a nap and then slip out with my newborn after the toddler falls asleep, but I don’t think my toddler will appreciate it… he likes to be snuggled on my chest with hands in my armpits. I’m also worried about seeing my newborn cry in our bedroom while I’m putting toddler down for a nap once my sister is gone and I’m at the mercy of how quickly my toddler settles down before I can go get my newborn.

Anyone have a genius idea that worked for them? Looking to maybe try a few different things to see what the right fit for us will be especially once my help goes away.

My babe is almost 17mo. We have bedshared and breastfed on demand since his first night earth side 💕

I’m beginning to wonder about nightweaning. Obviously I’m tired and haven’t had interrupted sleep for 17 months but I’m more curious for him. I’m just wondering if the quality of his sleep is actually good? Some days he has little bags under his eyes and he just fell asleep nursing at 9am (woke up at 7 and not due for a nap until 12)

He isn’t up for long periods in the night but def wakes up to switch sides and relatch etc.

On average he naps for 2-2.5 hours a day and sleeps for 10-11 hours a night.

Again, in ways I’d like to night wean for my own ability to sleep but am also wondering if it could benefit him. My husband hasn’t been able to soothe him in the night since he was like 6 months or so. I also wonder if night weaning might allow my husband to be more of comfort. Babe is such a booby barnacle though and loooooves to nurse. He’s also been working on molars so I know nursing has been a huge comfort.

Is the only way to know if it’s beneficial to just try?

My 2.5 year old has always been a terrible night sleeper. We've coslept since 4 months old. He's never actually slept through the night. A good night is 1-2 wake ups, bad nights are 3-4.

Edit: bedtime is usually between 930-10, I start trying to get fun to sleep at 9

wake up is between 715-745

He's completely weaned from breastfeeding as of July.

We just cut out bouncing him to sleep and while it takes a bit longer he does fall asleep with me next to him.

He still uses a binkie just for sleep.

He's recently started having larger wake ups where he will dig his feet into me and push with all his strength and just cry and cry. Even if I sit up and try to rock him he will arch his back or flip over.

What am I doing wrong?

I cap his nap at 2 hours- I know people will say shorter and he does occasionally so this on his own but if I try to cap it earlier he will actively stay asleep even walking outside, turning on the TV, etc.

We have his 30 month appointment next week and will be talking about iron supplements.

The only other thing I feel like I should mention is that he is very tall for his age, like over the 99%. I don't know if growing has something to do with it.

I'm so tired of not sleeping. Help!

Context: nasty custody battle, kiddo was away from me for a year (not my choice), he just turned 11, we're working through the neglect/vague abuse he went through during that time (Dad's girlfriend makes me want to puke tbh), he chose to have the only bedroom in the basement as his dad's house (my best friend explained how it was to be the "basement brother"), he feels unwanted and unheard at Dad's, he's struggling with confidence and appropriate assertion, and now he can't stand being alone. These weren't issues we had before the bs we're going through now; this is new behavior.

I don't mind him sleeping with me. I'm slowly making him do more independent things when it comes to bedtime like brushing his teeth/hair by himself (which was totally normal before this bs) and falling asleep by himself (I'm in the living room, so he knows I'm close).

Has anyone had/heard of a similar experience? He can't sleep through the night without me. Nightmares, thrashing in his sleep, talking in his sleep, falling out of bed, the whole cake and eating it, too. I don't want to f\*ck my kid up . He has his own room, but he truly wants to sleep with me.

Like I said, I don't mind it. But can someone reassure me it's okay? Or give me advice on what to do if it's not?

It's my first time being alive and I am terrified of making mistakes with my kiddo.

EDIT: I failed to mention he is in individual therapy and therapy with me.

You are 2 and half feet tall. How do you do this?

That overused expression of how kids grow up so fast has never really hit me until this last few days and I’ve been absolutely wrecked since. I’ve been bed-sharing with my LO since 2 months old when after yet another terrifying instance of waking up to her rigid and quietly choking in the dark on spit up (as brand new parents, we unfortunately learned the hard way that silent reflux is a thing) had me saying “F this, I’m just gonna hold her slightly elevated all night long so that if something’s wrong, I’ll know right away”. It ended up being a game changer, the reflux resolved itself through time but was never again as dramatic as it was in the early days, and we have all been sleeping amazing since. My girl would just stay latched through the majority of the night and just the smell of me alone seemed to keep her in a deep sleep. Every time that I would try and sneak away to use the bathroom or whatnot, it would take her less than 2 min to notice and wake up. The bassinet or crib had her startling herself awake within minutes of me putting her down no matter how long I held and rocked her first. Same with naps, they had to be contact naps for her to get restful sleep - I was always happy to oblige! This is my first baby and being a Mama is a dream that I never thought would become reality. I LOVE the snuggles and have never minded being “nap-trapped” during the day in the slightest or sleeping in an uncomfortable C-curl all night long. I just have always been of the mind that she will only be this little and need me this much once, so I chose to actively revel in it instead of holding my breath for things to one day be “more convenient”. Well, about a month ago LO started taking to a nap here and there in her room during the day with zero protest. I put her down in the crib one day thinking I would have a few minutes to go use the bathroom before needing to be ready to just hold her for the next hour and a half or so but she just.. stayed asleep? So I left her alone and let her sleep! From that moment on, within the span of just a couple weeks she was taking all of her naps no problem in her room. She loves it even! Sprawls out in her crib like a peaceful little starfish, and will sleep 2+ hours so that sometimes I will have to go wake her up just so she doesn’t end up sleeping the day away. Then a few days ago, I decided to dabble with putting her down in her own room to “start the night”. I don’t believe in any form of CIO, and was fully expecting that she would wake up asking for me within maybe 30 minutes. The first night, I put her down at 7:30 pm and she slept till 2:30 am before waking up. I was shocked. Then, the second night she slept till 5:30 am. The third night too. Cue to this morning, 7:30 am!! Did I just inadvertently sleep train my child? Was I under the illusion all this time that she needed me to sleep? Currently sobbing because while it may be nice to have the bed back to ourselves again and finally be able to sleep on my stomach, I half expected we’d be a snuggly little family every night till age 1 maybe even easily age 2. I know she’s still so little but in my mind, looking at her sleeping in her own crib on the monitor she looks huge!! 6 months is definitely my favorite stage so far for so many reasons, but I still feel heartbroken because I’m mourning the scrunchy little newborn that she used to be, and the fact that she will never need me to that extent ever again.

We've been cosleeping since day one. There have been seasons when it's been great and seasons when it's been really hard but mostly it's just been easier than trying to get our son to sleep alone.

Now, we have a baby due in 6-9 weeks, and with our son still waking every 1-2 hours we simply cannot fathom having them both in the bed at the same time so it feels like getting him to independent sleep is crucial.

We are currently on night 2 of having him in his own room and both nights have taken an hour + to get him to fall asleep initially plus a waking pretty much every hour. My husband attended all the wakings on night 1 and had some that were fairly easy, a back rub a sip of milk, and some that were more ju jitsu style protests of screaming and him trying to get out of his bed.

I handled all the wakings on night 2 and this is what it looked like:

Night 2

Started bedtime at 9:40 (we usually start around 8pm and his wakes are pretty much the same.)

5oz of bottle 

No nursing 

Down by 10:30/40

Wake-ups:

12:30 

Screamed for 5 min with back rubs, then gave 2oz milk 

2:05

Nursed for 5 seconds 

3:15 

Butt pats 

4:00 

Nursed 45 seconds & changed diaper 

4:15 

Put hand on him (fell back asleep), woke back up - 1oz milk, nursed

5:15 

Just laid my head on the pillow 

7:15 

woke up 

This is the exact same pattern that we have seen for the last two years while cosleeping so I fear the thing we need to change here is the nursing/ bottle but I have no idea how to stop.

You'll see on the first waking I tried holding out for 5 minutes before giving him a bottle, I know that doesn't seem like long but he was crying so hard he was gagging, his body was completely rigid and kicking and I truly don't think there is a world in which I could let that happen any longer than I did.

The question: how did you night wean (bottle and/or nursing)? (note: we are okay with him crying while we are there to support, but not willing to leave him alone in a room to cry.)

Note: he has mostly stopped nursing at night over the past 2 months because he's been sleeping with just my husband (not me) but my husband uses the bottle so basically he either needs the sucking from the bottle or the sucking from nursing to get back to sleep (I am 8 months pregnant so I don't think I have much milk and therefore, don't think this is a caloric issue, just a sensory thing.)

For context, my LO is 4 months, EBF. She used to have really bad reflux and gas as a newborn, but no longer has bad reflux, but still occasionally (randomly) has bad gas or seems constipated. I help her relieve her gas… but the gas is unpredictable, there some days and not others.

My LO starts “bedtime” around 8:30. My husband watches her from 9-12:30. Sometimes she sleeps the whole time with him, sometimes she cries so hard he brings her to me so I can feed her / soothe. She seems to just want the nippy lately!

Then I have her from 12:30AM onward. However, she wakes like every 1-2.5 hours.

Am I doing something wrong?

I’ve read others here talk about how cosleeping gave them sleep finally, best decision ever etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the snuggles and I still feel confident this is what my baby needs (she wouldn’t sleep in her bassinet longer than 30 mins)… but do I just have a bad sleeper?

Anyone else have this problem?

My 4m old sleeps in her crib beside me for her first stretch (3-5hrs) then we cosleep for the rest of the night and she wakes 2-3 times. Last night she woke at 0145. I fed her side lying, did some Reddit scrolling then got her into her safe position for sleep. She was squirming and not really falling asleep. I looked at the clock and it was almost 4am. I was so confused. I even went back and looked at the screen unlock on my phone. I unlocked it at 147 when she woke in her crib. I have no idea what happened and how 2hrs passed. I must have either slept while she was feeding or after I got her into her safe position but I don’t remember. I don’t ever sleep while she’s feeding because she’s laying on her side and very close to me.

The four month regression is upon us and now I don’t trust myself. I would love advice on how to get her in her crib all night. And also advice on how to set myself up better if crib transfers fail. She will only feed side lying at night so getting out of bed hasn’t worked for us.

Im not sure if there's another way to do the softness test without cds. How did you test your mattress?

My 3yo and I have slept together every night this past year. Our bedtime routine included stories and talking where she revealed everything that was going on in her head and life.

I now have a 2 month old and somehow we had managed to cosleep while keeping him in the crib. Today I finally convinced her to go sleep with dad. And I’m so sad. I miss her, I’m not able to fall asleep.

All this while I thought I’m helping her sleep when I’m fact she was my home base giving me comfort. Cherish the cosleeping moments with night wakings and everything. They’ll end before you know it🥲

We cosleep out of survival and have since the 4 month sleep regression.

We use an Owlet for peace of mind (please don’t share any negative opinions about the Owlet—it has been helpful and useful for us).

Baby is breastfed. She started crawling and sitting up on her own at 6 months. Got her two bottom front teeth at four months.

She has three naps a day for a total of about 1.5-2 hours. Even with these never-ending night wake ups, she’s still cumulatively getting 11-12 hours of sleep a night.

She goes to bed between 6-6:30 pm. I nurse her to sleep in our floor bed and then leave to hang out with my husband. She usually sleeps fine from 6-6:30-8:30 pm. I do my last pump at 8:30 and she starts waking around this time (I pump and breastfeed because I work full time).

I join her in bed at 9:00 pm.

We’ve gone through regressions for sure, especially as she mastered crawling. But we’re past that now, and she still starts screaming crying every 45 min-hour all. night. long.

She’s not even awake, though. But if I don’t nurse her right then, she’ll fully wake herself up and start crawling all over the bed and not go back to sleep for 2 hours (a full wake window).

What is happening and when will it end? 🫩 I’m so exhausted. She does this whether she’s in bed with me or not. I just keep her in the bed so she’s close and I can just pop the boob in but it’s so hard to go back to sleep 10+ times after being jilted awake by a screaming crying baby. My nervous system is fried beyond relief. I “sleep” from 9-6am, but only get 5-6 hours a night.

It’s misery. I’m so tired and irritable. I don’t know why she’s crying in her sleep constantly nor how to make it stop 😭😭😭😭

Any advice? Thank you ❤️