4 yo co-sleeper - and #2 coming

[zannster]

I'm sure this must have been addressed before, but I went through several pages of posts and didn't see anything.

I have a 4 year old (will be 5 when baby comes). He has always slept with me. He has never gone to bed by himself. Usually he and I go to bed at the same time - and he falls asleep very quickly like this. Bedtime is very easy, as long as I'm doing it. We sleep on a king-size mattress, and DH sleeps on a twin beside it.

I'm not sure what to do about this sleeping arrangement. There's not really room in this bedroom for another mattress. The biggest problem, of course, is being able to nurse and protect a newborn (though I suppose it's possible that I could end up with one who does better sleeping elsewhere - but I'm assuming we'll cosleep). I'm not very good at doing all the nursing on one side. I need to move the baby (or me) back and forth, and that doesn't seem practical with a magnetic preschooler on one side. And that's the other thing - he wants to be up against me. We play a game of moving from one side of the bed to the other during the night, as I move away, and he moves against me again.

Aside from being awakened more often lately, I don't mind him being there. I feel bad about the idea of trying to make him sleep elsewhere - which I'm pretty sure will not go over well anyway. (I've often suggested he sleep in his bed, to gauge his reaction, and he whines that he wants to sleep with me). I just don't know how to make this sleeping arrangement safe for a newborn. Any suggestions?

[alegna]

Dd was in our bed full time when ds was born. She was almost 4 when he was born. I *tried* putting her on dh's side (next to the edge) - didn't fly.

What did work was putting a large, tightly rolled towel between her and the newborn. I probably did that for the first 3-4 months. Then they were fine.

good luck!

-Angela

[zannster]

I'm bumping this to see if can get any more input.

I've thought about the towel idea...and I doubt it would work. DS likes to move close to me periodically during the night. Since I've been pregnant, I've sometimes had another pillow between us, to put my knee on. That doesn't stop him. Sometimes he works his way around the pillow; other times he ends up with one of his arms or legs on it. I think I'd have to have something fairly large between him and a baby.

[henny penny]

What has worked great for us and maybe could be tweeked for you; I'll try to explain. We use a crib sidecarred to the big bed. When ds nightweaned I lowered the crib mattress about 8" since he was a terrible thrasher and kept me up ALL NIGHT. He had his space to thrashe and would often end up right against the big bed like he used to lay up against me. So he was sleeping against the side of the big bed mattress, iykwim. It was the security of laying against something as much as needing ME that worked. Could you use a bedrail on the twin, move ds into it, with the mattress a little lower to contain him?

[rubidoux]

My ds was 5 yrs 5 mos when ds2 was born and I was so worried about the same thing. It really just fell into place w us. For one thing he was much more understanding of baby's needs than I thought he'd be. Sometimes I'm sad about it, but he has never really had a problem w the idea that I have to be facing away from him and towards baby. When I put ds1 to bed he lies behind me w his arm around me and I'm nursing baby. Every once in a while Augie will fall asleep quickly enough and soundly enough for me to roll over and cuddle w Milo and I always tell him I miss it and am happy for the chance to do it again. But as sad as all that is, he really gets so much joy out of his relationship w his brother.

I never allowed Milo and Augie to sleep next to each other though, until recently, and I'm still not comfortable w it. I can't sleep on one hip all night, though, so what I do is turn around so that my head is at the foot of the bed. Sometimes Milo will follow and sometimes not.

eta: We also have a king and a twin on the floor. Augie and I are on the twin and Milo and dh on the king, but I'm really usually right in the crack between them and sometimes Aug will sleep a couple hours or more on his own while I'm cuddled up to Milo on the big bed. It has actually been a real joy to all be co-sleeping together!

[tropicaldutchtulip]

We are in the same boat now. We did not really start co-sleeping full time with the girls until they were about 15 months old. They are almost 3 1/2 now and we still co-sleep. I love every second of it! I'm planning on a side car co-sleeper for our son to start out with. The girls are starting to want to transition to their bed but still want to be in the same room. So we are switching our bedrooms around to the larger one so we can have our king and their queen next to each other. Then once our son is a little bigger then we will put him in the bed with us. I just don't want to replace the girls with our son! I have a plan, but we'll just go with the flow once he is actually here and home!