Infant sleep

[thomashanancy]

Hi all,

I am a mum of a 4 month old and have been bed sharing for a month and a half.
We have a queen bed that is on the ground, I do have my own pillow and blanket and have that wrapped fully around me. My baby doesn't really move right now, like no rolling at night yet so haven't really been concerned and I am an extremely light sleeper.

But I have questions.

1) How do you sleep once baby starts becoming g mobile in bed? Like once they start squirming all over the place and rolling... I would assume they fall out of the bed and you get feet in the face?
2) Do you ever sleep facing away from baby? Like I haven't yet and my arm goes numb and my back is killing g me from being in one position all night.
3) Does baby roll into you when sleeping, how do you deal with this if you have yourself a blanket?

Mostly I kind of just want to know what to expect in the next few months when baby gets more mobile?? Please help.

 

[albertagirl]

@thomashanancy My LO and I bed shared from the time she was 2.5 months till just before 5 months. In this time, she only moved once or twice (more like crashing into me), but mostly she would stay in the same position because she was usually close to the milk buffet. I used my pregnancy pillow as a barrier so she wouldn’t fall out of bed, and at one point I had a towel rolled up and between us to prevent me from rolling on her. I got rid of the towel because I never rolled beyond my pillow. Once LO was in deep sleep, I would slide my pillow away from her (to the edge of my side of bed) and I would face away from her. Seemed to work fine for us. Now, she is in her crib and sleeping like an angel. As much as I miss her, she is sleeping better and so am i

 

[bymay]

@albertagirl Sorry to hijack, I’m just wondering how you managed this transition? Mine (2.5 month) isn’t sleeping well, and I’m considering bed sharing.

 

[albertagirl]

@bymay My LO couldn’t be transferred once she fell asleep. She was, and still is, a light sleeper. So I concluded that her sleep had to start where she was going to sleep. I placed her safely in my bed, put a boob in her mouth, and fed her to sleep. Once in deep sleep, I would pull out and roll to my side of the bed. Hubby had to vacate the bed. I would use this as a nap method but when night sleep became a disaster, I resorted to this at night too.

 

[bymay]

@albertagirl Oh gosh I’m sorry, the sleep deprivation…! I meant how did you transition from bedsharing to crib sleeping at 5 months. That seems quite impressive!

 

[albertagirl]

@bymay We were actually sleep training for naps using Sharlene Poole’s supervised settling technique. It’s a very gentle approach to sleep training. Since putting her down for naps was impossible, we wanted to start there. If we had used the approach both day and night, transition to crib at night would have happened sooner. It took 2-3 days to get the naps nailed down. I put her down for the night maybe 10 days after we started the sleep training. By then, she knew how to sleep in the crib. Now 6 nights in the crib, she is very comfortable there. After night feed, I put her in the crib awake and she’ll roll around for a few minutes and fall asleep. I’m definitely a lot more rested than before. DM me if you want the specifics of the approach

 

[bymay]

@albertagirl Thank you so much! I’ll look up this lady and reach out if I have specific questions! Naps are pretty hard for us too.

 

[dinkold]

@thomashanancy My LO sleeps in the middle of the bed between my husband and me. When LO started rolling in his sleep, he would only roll the top half of his body, pivoting at his feet. So the three of us would end up in a bizarre “N” formation, sometime “H” formation, and once or twice he managed to spin himself completely upside down.

It was more work (eg less sleep) for me those nights to move him back into lying parallel to us. Also I got kicked a lot.

 

[jayb05]

@dinkold This is what we do too. We upgraded to a king bed for more overall comfort. My partner and I have just kind of gotten used to getting kicked and nudged.

 

[thomashanancy]

@dinkold Ah yeah, my husband is a very hard sleeper so we can't do this, baby would get elbowed.

 

[dinkold]

If my husband is not sleeping with us, I take LO and we sleep in the guest room where the bed is up against the wall. So LO won’t fall off the bed.

I’ve tried sleeping facing away from baby but I get anxiety because I know I’ll have to turn around when he wants to BF and turning around will wake me up more. So instead I only gave away if I’m reading / redditting next to him. My other advice is to look into a different pillow or a knee pillow. Yoga and stretching helps me too.

If baby rolls into me, I will either move away so he can roll into his stomach. Or I will push him back into the middle of the bed.

 

[joep]

@thomashanancy I coslept with my son for the first year and he slept exactly how I did as a baby - so still I had to check he was breathing sometimes. At a year he moved into his own room and started sleeping through the night. Now if I try to cosleep he is so wiggly and fidgety. I miss our peaceful nights snuggled together!