Frequent waking in own bed being encouraged by early AM co-sleeping?

[mmeoiseau]

DD is almost 19 mo and has never been a smooth sleeper. Here's an abbreviated sleep history: we coslept for the 1st 6 mo, then she would start in her bed but come to ours when we went to bed (11ish), then we'd try and stretch that later, sometimes until 12 or 1 but often that was unsuccessful. In an effort to try and reduce some of the night waking (she'd still wake once in bed with us but easily and happily nurse back to sleep, it was just every 1-2 hrs), we decided to night wean (Jay Gordon style) at 16 months. That went pretty smoothly and over the past 3 months we've been working on trying to encourage her to spend longer in her bed at night, hoping that that might lead to more sleeping for everyone. But our typical night goes like this: 7:30/8 she's asleep, 1st wake up 10 - 11 (DH or I go in and rub back/stroke hair, back to sleep in 5 mins or less), 2nd wake 12 - 1 (same routine), 3rd wake 2 - 3 (same routine; until recently at this point she'd say "all done" and ask to be held, and we'd bring her into the family bed), 4th wake 5 -6 (for the past week she has stayed in her bed easily (no "all done" being verbalized) at the 2 - 3 am wake and then wakes up at this time and we bring her in to sleep for another 30 - 60 mins). So my question is this, I guess: is the eventually coming in with us just always going to make it hard for her to stay sleeping in her bed? Or is this just a "your child is not a sleeper (yet)" situation? DH and I switch nights when we are "on" (now that DD is night weaned we can) so I'm getting a bit more sleep, but 4 wakings a night and all the getting up is rough. When we just brought her in right away (which allowed for more sleep for us and we loved in many ways (very happy with the family bed)), the problem was it seemed like she kept waking earlier and earlier and was less willing to return to sleep, and then we became forced to go to bed at 10 / 10:30 which became a challenge. Now I'm feeling like my two options are 1) keep going with the 4 wakes a night, bringing her in in the early AM and hope that some day (age 2? 3?) she sleeps with less waking (for everyone's sake) or 2) stop bringing her into the family bed entirely (which makes DH and I kinda sad, especially me since I work FT and am away from DD more than I would like to be). Anyone had a similar situation or have any thoughts on this? Thanks.

[ssh]

I think night waking is just on of the things 19 month old babies do and nursing every couple of hours when your DD was younger is still really normal too. 4 times a night at 19 months doesn't sound excessive. I bet the getting up is really rough though. We always co slept and nursed on demand. I think everyone gets more sleep that way. You don't have to do as much when your LO wakes. I'd nurse DD to sleep and then roll out of bed to have some adult time. My DD didn't start sleeping most of the night until after all her teeth came in at 2.5.  From 2.5 until about 3 DD would nurse to sleep and then after about 9 or 10 hours of sleep would nurse and then would sleep a couple of more hours. One of our main goals was to keep bedtime and sleep time stress free. By 3 DD was sleeping all night long and right after turning 4 she decided she wanted to sleep in her own room and her own bed. Shortly after she was happily going to sleep by herself.

So I don't  think bringing your DD into your bed is doing any harm and you would all probably get more sleep if you brought into your bed after her first waking especially if you starting nursing at night again.