Mourning the loss of our family bed
Monday, September 24, 2007

Sorry if I am repeating myself here. I just can't remember if I have described our current sleeping arrangements to you yet.

We have a king size mattress on the floor of our bedroom. Perfect for co-sleeping with a baby. There's plenty of room between daddy and baby, so daddy's bony elbows aren't a threat. And it's only a few inches off of the ground, so if she ever rolled off, it wouldn't be a big deal. Perfect, except baby hardly ever sleeps in that bed.

When we got the king mattress, we moved our queen size bed into Scout's nursery. We figured it would be nice to have it double as sort of a guest room, since Scout never slept in there. For probably a couple months now, I 've been nursing Scout to sleep on the queen bed in the nursery for naps and for the first stretch of sleep at night because it is quieter back there. Our bedroom is close to the front of the house and even with the door shut, the sound of people going in and out of the front door and the dog growling at the mailman were disrupting her sleep.

When I first started doing this, Scout would go to bed at around 9 PM and I would stay up until her first night-waking around 1:30 or 2 AM and then I'd bring her to our bed with me. Gradually, her first waking got later and later. I found myself staying up until 3:30 AM a few times because I didn't want to wake her, but I also didn't want to go to bed without her. So, I started sleeping in her bed until her first waking at which point we might join DH in the king size bed.

I've noticed for a while now that she sleeps for much longer stretches if no one is in the bed with her. The other night, she was being a booger and didn't go to sleep until midnight. I fell asleep in the recliner in the living room around 2 AM with the baby monitor next to me. I woke up at 9:30 AM and realized that she hadn't fussed for me at all during the night. I was a little startled and went in her room to check on her. Of course, she was just snoozing away. She didn't get up until a little after 10 AM, and that's only because we woke her up to go to church.

This would make most parents happy. But it makes me sad. I love sleeping with my husband and baby all in one big bed.

Last night, I crawled into bed with her around midnight. She woke up at 2 AM to nurse and she nursed for a long time. I was kind of groggy so I'm not sure how many times exactly, but it seems like she woke up quite a few times last night. Sometimes, she does a good job of finding the boob on her own, but most of the time she fully wakes up and is all bright-eyed and kicking around when she wakes up to eat and I have to position her to nurse and it takes her a while to calm back down and fall asleep again. I got out of bed at 6 AM because it seemed like as long as I was laying next to her, she would keep waking up to nurse. She's still sleeping peacefully right now and I bet you a million dollars that she will stay asleep until I wake her up at 9:00 to go to her hearing test appointment.

I suppose I should be happy that I'd probably be free to sleep 8 hours or more in my own bed without her if I wanted to. But I'm not.

DH asked why couldn't we just put her crib in our bedroom with us. In theory, this is a great idea, but since she is a very light sleeper, I doubt that she would stay asleep if I tried to pick her up and put her in the crib after nursing her down on the bed. It seems that a co-sleeper bassinet would come in handy in this situation, but even that didn't work for us. Before I sold ours, we never used it because just scooting her a few inches over into the bassinet would wake her up. She is such a light sleeper. Sometimes she even wakes up if I pull a blanket up over her legs.

I suppose another solution would be having both the queen bed and the king mattress in our bedroom so she has her own separate space where I can nurse her to sleep, but still be in the same room with us. The only problem with that setup is the noise factor in our bedroom. (And it wouldn't work if we switched bedrooms, because her nursery is not big enough for a king and a queen bed. )

I don't really mind sleeping in her bed, but it's obvious that she can't have peaceful uninterrupted sleep when she can feel my presence in the bed with her. On the other hand, I have read that it's perfectly normal for babies to get most of their nutrition at night, so maybe it's not a bad thing that she wakes up to nurse when I'm lying next to her, I dunno.

I would also like to be able to sleep next to DH every now and then.

I guess I need to think about this a little more and come up with a solution.

Until then, here is a pic of our little sweetie playing in the floor.

Labels: baby sleep, pics of scout, the family bed

posted by Unkempt Mommy @ 6:47 AM,

3 Comments:

At Mon Sep 24, 05:27:00 PM CDT, twolinesonastick said...: Bailey is an incredibly light sleeper, too. I feel your pain. Anything and everything wakes her up so she sleeps in her room with a noise machien (and sometimes a humidifier too) and the door closed/monitor on. Not at night, but at naptime at least. That is, when she takes a nap!
At Mon Sep 24, 09:49:00 PM CDT, Anonymous said...: Thank you so much for sharing all this... I was beginning to think that my little sweetie-pie was the only one still waking up so much with me next to her.

You post REALLY encouraged me to think about how wonderful these precious moments are!!

Can you tell us more about night feedings (or suggest a link)-- you mentioned that research suggested most of the nutrition comes at night?! I'd love to hear more about this.

I read often-- sorry I don't comment more!!!

I love you stories, warmth, and style.

Fondly,
Katherine

ps in your missing sis post I was hoping to hear about the twins?? Wasn't she going to relinquish the twins to another family? (sorry, can't recall the details)! Is everything okay with her?
At Tue Sep 25, 06:35:00 AM CDT, eipwek said...: Katherine - I was looking for links to support what I mentioned about baby getting lots of calories at night. I couldn't remember where I had read it, but I found a statement on kellymom.com that says older babies who are more distractible (starting at around 4-5 mos) get 25% of their calories at night. I thought it was more than that, but 25% is still a lot.

I just went through another night that is similar to the one I just posted about. I nursed her down and slipped out of the room so I could stay up and have some "mommy time" goofing off on the computer. A few ours later, she cried out in her sleep, so I went and laid next to her to nurse her back to sleep.

She used to drift off and stop sucking. Now, she stays latched on and sucks continuously. It's harder for me to sneak away these days, but if I wait for the right moment (I'm sure you nursing mommas know what I'm talking about:) she seems to stir minimally as I get up and walk out of the room.

I tried to lay there and sleep with her at that point, but she just kept nursing and nursing and moving around a lot too. I finally waited until her nursing slowed down a bit and got up and went to sleep elsewhere. She slept soundly until 5 AM. I doubt she would've done that if I would've been sleeping next to her. I went to nurse her when she fussed at 5:00. Same scenario - she nursed and nursed and squirmed and I could not fall asleep. I slipped away and she is sleeping soundly by herself again.

I know that a lot of mommas just endure the all-night nursing...which I don't mind doing, but I'm thinking that allowing her to sleep and not keeping her half awake with my presence in the bed might be the best thing for us right now.

I stay home with her all day, so I can make sure that I offer the breast super frequently throughout the day, just to be certain she is getting enough calories. I have noticed that she is most definitely highly distractible at this age and if we are out and about all day, I have to find a quiet place for us to hide and nurse frequently, or she won't eat.

Thanks for reading :) and thanks for asking about my sis. I think I will tell the whole story in my next blog entry because there are updates.