How long have you slept apart from your DH because you co-sleep with your LO?

[Beauchamp]

I'm wondering how many others are in the same boat as me--- DD and I co-sleep because it's the best way for me to get sleep. Sometimes she wants to sleep with her head or bum feet against me, and sometimes she needs her own space (i.e. 2/3 of the king size bed) and I hug the edge and barely move or I will wake her.

DH has been bumped down to the guest room. DD and I sleep in "our" king bed, mattress on the floor. We tried side-carring her, but it is too hard to move her back into the sidecar after nursing because she wakes up. When she wakes, she sits up and CRIES, she's not the type that just snuffles around and whimpers a little.

So now we are in a temporary furnished apartment after many days in a hotel. (Ugh!) We've been keeping her in between us in the hotel bed so she doesn't roll off. But DH's sleep is so disturbed by her waking. He keeps picking her up and trying to move her into the pack n play, and she wakes up, then I have to keep nursing her, rubbing her back, while he lays back down and pulls the covers up to his ears. (She cries if he tries to bounce/rock/sway or otherwise comfort her...it's gotta be mama.)

I don't mind the frequent wakings so much now that I have gotten rid of the expectation that she will sleep longer stretches. I do feel like I am a bad mom because I can't "figure it out" and help my DD sleep longer, though, even though I know it's a lot to do with her temperament. She's just not an easy baby!

My DH has said that all of my attention is on DD all of the time, but I feel like it has to be or else she'll cry that horrible cry.

As much as I love waking up with her, the nights are taking their toll on me. I wish there was a way to magically get her to sleep in the crib all night without her crying, and it actually being okay for her, not forcing her, etc.
I feel so torn and pressured by my DH a little bit. And helpless because I can't MAKE her sleep.

Can someone suggest something that maybe I am missing? Or give me some perspective? My DH is saying how exhausted he is and how little sleep he's getting, and I am thinking, um...that's what I do every.single.night, and have been doing every.single.night. since last June.

[lkmiscnet]

I started co-sleeping with my DS when he was 4 mo old. He is now 12 mo old. My DH has been in the other bedroom since then. We only have queen beds and with an over 6' tall DH, there is simply not enough room. Also, our son was not sleeping through the night.

My DH actually has erratic sleeping habits too, waking up usually anytime between 2-4am to read or watch something on his iPad. And, our DS only started sleeping for 4 hour stretches when he was 10.5 mo old, previously waking up every 2-2.5 hours.

So, in the interest of everyone getting a decent night's sleep, we are all happy with the sleeping arrangement for now. It does impact intimacy though, I will admit.

Now, if only I could get my libido back, DH would be happy about that, but that's another topic...

[~Amy~]

DH & I also sleep separately most of the time right now too. DS is a big boy (he's 2) and we only have a queen size bed. We had him with us until about 6 months ago, but he's too wiggly, kicks DH, etc. & neither of them sleep well because of it (and neither do I because I'm trying to make sure DS doesn't wake DH up). So we put DS down in his own bed in his room (full size bed) and then I join him when/if he wakes up (usually between midnight & 2am sometime). I would like to be able to spend more time sleeping with DH, but this is just what works best for our family right now & gets everyone the most sleep. We have never been in the habit of having sex at bedtime anyway, so it's not affecting intimacy for us, thankfully.

[Lilygoose]

We've been sleeping separately since DD was about 4 months I think b/c it never worked with all 3 of us in the bed (DD is almost 20 months now). Just recently she has started sleeping most of the night in her toddler bed in our bedroom, but she still gets in bed with me, usually around 4 am or so. DH also gets up early (4:45AM) for work and is worried his alarm will wake the rest of us up so he is still sleeping on the couch. He'll probably move back into the bed soon though as she gets more consistent b/c his wake-up time is around her get into bed with mama time, so this will work. Suprisingly I am getting used to being the only one in the bed and kinda like it!

[ssh]

DH and I never slept separately. We moved a twin bed next to our queen and put them both on the floor. I could lay by DD until she was asleep and then roll onto the other bed and lay with DH. As long as DD's feet were touching some one she was fine. DH's alarm never woke DD, only me.

She moved into her own bed and room a few days after turning 4, so now we have the whole room to ourselves.

[dachshund mom]

We have a king off the floor with a sidecar. DD doesn't actually sleep in it and I don't try to move her over, but it keeps either of us from falling out of the bed and gives us more room to stretch out. DD sleeps on the crib side because she moves around and keeps DH up if she touches him. If she's having a restless night, I take DD to her room and we sleep in there. DH is a bear if he doesn't sleep well. I can complain all I want that I don't get any sleep either, but I've learned it's all around better to just let him get his sleep.

DD has a mattress on the floor of her room that she naps on, or we can sleep on, or I can nurse her to sleep and sneak away. I bring her into our room when she wakes, but you could go sleep with her in her room after she wakes if she keeps your DH up. That way your DH would have "your room" back, DD is technically in "her room" and you could sleep with your DD in her room but still sneak off to your room to be with DH at the start of the night or in the morning. I know it's similar to what you're doing now, but it might make him feel better to be back in his bed.

[youngspiritmom]

We have a queen bed and me and my 15 month old boy have been cosleeping in it basically since he was born. Occasionally my husband sleeps with us but for the most part he sleeps on our living room couch! I feel so bad....but my husband says he prefers it that way. That is just what works for us. Sometimes I wish we had a king sized bed and occasionally I look around for a good deal on a twin to put next to our queen, but we haven't done that yet.

The only problem I have is friends/parents/in-laws commenting about how strange it is that we only have one queen bed. I think they begin to think that it is not fair to kick my hubby out....or they wonder about how the whole sex things works lol....I just want to tell them...there are other rooms in the house!

[Vancouver Mommy]

The four of us sleep in the same bed but we've had a kid between us for the past 3 years.

[echoecho1528]

I didn't stick DD in bed with me until she was about 7 months old (now 27mo) and that is when DH went to the couch, then to a futon, and now we've made it so he is on the nice lush king with the dogs DD and I sleep on a queen sized futon mattress on the floor of her room. We all prefer this because the dogs need someone to sleep with, DH snores, and he often wakes up before we do in the morning.
Since she has finally sleeping longer stretches, I have been starting the night off on the couch and she comes and gets me and we fall asleep together on the futon mattress. This occurs usually around 3am or so. I'd sleep with DH, but the room he sleeps in is on the other side of the house and I don't like having DD that far away. Call me crazy , but everyone seems happiest this way for now.

[kalamos23]

We haven't slept separately (well, the first week after DH went back to work after DD was born, we did, but it didn't last long). We have a queen sidecarred to a crib, and DD starts off the night in the crib. She generally comes into the big bed to nurse around 3-4 hours after she fell asleep for the night and she is a snuggler and uses me as her body pillow (while nursing!) so we don't take up much more room than I would on my own.

It is important to DH that he and I snuggle, so this is why we do it. Plus, I get to feel like a wife and not a pacifier for the first part of the night!

[Asparagus78]

Going on 4 years now! I've been co-sleeping (bedsharing) with DS1 since birth - he'll be 4 in 2 months. DS2 now sleeps with me, while DS1 just very, very recently started asking to sleep away from DS2, so he sleeps in his room with DH. Prior to that, DH was sleeping mostly on the couch - which he did quite a bit even before the kids because of my insane I-have-to-get-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night work schedule. Works for us, but I am looking forward to a time when we can cuddle at night without a babe between us, or the fear of waking up a kiddo. Maybe in 8 years, assuming we have another one in 2-3 years...

[amma_mama]

In our house, the joke is that DD has "her room" and DH has "his room"...I shuttle back and forth between the two. We only started co-sleeping when DD was 12 mo old so that we could both get more sleep. If I don't fall asleep in DD's bed while putting her down, I start off the night with DH (most nights) and go to DD's bed if/when she calls out for me. When she was younger that was consistently every night, but now it is only a couple of times per week.

[lonegirl]

For the first 2.5 years we slept together...albeit slightly apart as ds and I were on the futon (on a frame)beside our bed. Now in our newer place DH often sleeps in the guest room. We have a big King in our bedroom-so lots of space. DS and I go to bed earlier than him (around 11p) and he doesn't want to keep a light on and disturb us if he is reading. He also says sometimes our night sounds keep him from falling asleep. lol So often he will go to the other room to read/write and end up falling asleep in there. Other times he will read/write in the other room and come to bed with us in the middle of the night.

[barefootmama0709]

We co-slept with ODS from birth and we all slept in the same bed the entire time. I couldn't co-sleep with YDS because of medications from my c/s and that worked out fine too-he wasn't interested in co-sleeping anyway. He likes to sleep in his crib, by himself, in total darkness (odd for a baby, I know). Good luck-hope everybody starts sleeping better soon!

[dahlialia]

DH and I slept apart for 3 years when I coslept with DD1. Well, the first 6 months of that, we were taking it in turns snuggling her on the couch all night

with DD2 it has been 10 months so far...

DH has allergies & is a noisy sleeper. I have migraines. I can handle sleeping with him or with a LO, but not both. I miss it, as does he, but it's not forever...

[gagin37]

We've all managed to sleep together on a queen with a bed rail for nearly two years. I sleep in the middle between dh and ds. Dh is a snuggler, and likes to be cozy, but a lot of nights I end up need more space. We're currently debating a new sleep arrangement that would ds in his own room.

[D_McG]

If it's coming between you and your DH then I would have him take over nights or nightwean in some other way (Jay Gordon, whatever).

We slept apart the first few nights DS came home (when we had a full sized bed) and never again. I hated it and hated the dynamic it brought to our home.

You'll figure it out!

[dividedsky]

aside from when my boys were very small (co-slept with them all night then), i have nursed them to sleep and then deposited them into their cribs. if they woke in the middle of the night, i'd nurse whoever back to sleep in another bedroom and put him back in his bed if i wasn't so groggy that i fell asleep with him in bed with me... which i usually did. and one of my guys was a really awful sleeper unless he was with me. so i ended up sleeping apart from dh with one baby or both for a majority of the night until relatively recently (they're now ~17mos). the time felt right, so they weaned fully and gently (nighttime was the last to go) about 3 weeks ago. since then they've been sleeping through the night. so now i lay with them in the guest room until they fall asleep and move them into their cribs, and i can sleep with dh again....

it wasn't ideal, but it was best for the kiddos. it probably bothered dh more than me, but i had an easier time understanding that it was just a temporary solution!