Just wanted to share something positive.

[lovesea]

We started bed-sharing by accident really. As a newborn dd (now nearly 12 months) was in a moses basket by our bed but she was very fussy and difficult to settle. My son was 2 and a half when she was born and he was still getting up at night sometimes and was usually up for the day at 6am. I needed to get as much sleep as I could and having dd in bed with me and feeding her lying down was the only way to get some decent sleep. I often breastfed her until I was sure she was in a deep sleep but sometimes in the middle of the night, my back would ache from being in the same position for too long so I would pull off and I found that most of the time she would just roll the other way and go off to sleep. At around 6 months she stopped falling asleep on the breast at bedtime. She would just pull off when she was done feeding. She was always very drowsy, so more often that not, I would just lie there and I found that she would quite often just drift off to sleep eventually. If she started fussing or crying, I would play quietly with her or shh, or pat her or sing and she settled and went to sleep eventually. As she got bigger our bed began to feel very cramped and dh had to move into the spare. 2 weeks ago, we decided we would like to attempt reclaim the marital bed if she was amenable. So we got the cot and removed the rails from one side and put it against our bed, sort of a side car. At bedtime I feed her on our bed as usual, then put her in the cot and lie with her until she goes to sleep. This takes anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes. But she has started sleeping from 8pm until 3 or 4am, which gives me enough hours of unbroken sleep to function and also makes me feel positive that she will eventually sleep those extra few hours. I'm happy that we have reached this stage without a struggle and I know that she feels happy and secure at bedtime. I just wanted to share because people often post here desperate for assurance that it will get easier. Believe me dd has been and still is one high needs baby, she can scream her head off despite all our best efforts to calm her. There have been nights when dh has taken her for a walk in the sling just to get her off to sleep.