Cosleeping with toddler & baby? pregnant & trying to figure this out...

[outerspacemama]

I can't be the first to ask this question but I had a hard time searching for the threads.

I'm newly pregnant and DS will be 24 mos when the new one comes along. We really enjoy cosleeping with him (although I say that and DS woke up DH by kicking him in the face today because DS was sleeping perpendiculer - so MOST of the time we love it).

We are trying to figure out sleeping arrangements for when the new one comes. We only have a 2BDR place and I would prefer the second BDR as my office for at least a little longer. My ideal would be all of us in a bed or maybe a bed plus a sidecar/toddler bed pushed up to it. DH is all for trying it but he has reservations about all of us in a bed (we have a king but DH is big and likes space) and about the new baby waking the toddler up. Our families think we are crazy for doing any of this in the first place of course.

I'm wondering if people could share their experiences with 2+ kids in a family bed, what the bed situation was like, who did the nighttime parenting for who, and so on. And would you do it again?

Oh, and DS is still nursing but less these days since I don't have much milk. Not sure yet whether we will tandem or he may just wean before the baby is born.

[coltynsmom]

i can't offer much real advice since i am in the same situation. ds2 will be born when ds1 is 22 months. I am working on night weaning ds1 now so that he won't need to cuddle with me all night. then i think i will also have a side car in case i need to lie the newborn down for a bit. we also have a toddler bed next to our bed so ds1 can sleep in it for most of the night. some people have also suggested twin mattress on the floor too.

don't worry about what others say. my family thinks i am crazy too. i just choose not to tell them about it anymore :-) good luck!

[JorgieGirl]

Hi and nice to see others in my boat! I cosleep with DD who will be 25 mo when new babe is born. DH has his own room due to his work schedule. Currently am on a double with DD, but hope to get a queen before the new LO comes. I do have a bassinet that I may use, depending on how it goes. DD is already nightweaned (Jay Gordon method worked brilliantly for us with zero fuss), so I'm really hoping having a newborn there doesn't bother her in the night and vise versa.

I'm just accepting that it might be very hard for the first few months, or at least til new babe has night/days straight.

I would love to hear BTDT...

[activemomma]

am there, still doing that

I have a 26 mo dd and a 4 mo dd and so I have been through some of it. we are currently (mostly happily) bedsharing in a king. It was really hard for the first couple of months. at first we tried having all four in the same bed, but I was nervous about all of us in the bed with a newborn, so for about 4 to 6 weeks the baby and i slept on our pull-out couch and the toddler and dad slept in the bed. when we felt comfortable we moved the younger one up into the bed--baby on the wall, me, toddler, dad on the end. It feels really crowded, though we're all pretty slim.

the most stressful thing about the earliest weeks was that the baby crying woke her sister up, which made it hard for me to sleep peacefully. If the older girl wakes, she wants to nurse, so there are nights that I feel like i'm just turning from one to the other and not getting much sleep. most nights, though, we all get rest and wake up happy (baby wakes up laughing or sort of shouting).

in the evenings, we put the younger one down in a bassinet or other sleep area with us in the living room while her sister sleeps in the bed alone. my husband slings baby to sleep while I nurse the toddler.

i wish that while I was pregnant I had worked on trying to get my older dd to sleep w/o nursing, since naptime has become very difficult to coordinate. on the other hand, though, because of the upheaval in her life when welcoming a new baby, she may have regressed anyway.

blessings to all of you mommas....

[Bellabaz]

we did this for a very short while. dd1 slept on the other side of dh and babe in the middle of us. If we had had to continue with both in our bed I would have put a toddler bed next to our king. I am not at all comfortable with dd1 sleeping next to dd2.

[pixiekisses]

Never been a problem.
There's a few nights when everybody adjusts to the new sounds of the new baby, but then we all sleep well again.
Beauty of co-sleeping is that you feel the baby waking up long before she/he actually starts to cry, so you can pop that breast in to feed before there's any crying. (Or bottle.)
If the baby is gassy or crying for some other reason and wont settle down right away, me or my dear takes the baby out of the room to not disturb the others. But they are used to some sound and noice because of co-sleeping in general, so they don't wake each other up that easily.