co-sleeping and mama becoming a heavier sleeper?

[swl73]

I have always been a light sleeper.  We co-slept with our first baby, and I was such a light sleeper I woke up constantly throughout the night whenever she moved.  And I was always aware of exactly where she was.  But for some reason, now that baby #2 is here, I am suddenly sleeping more heavily than I ever had before.  This morning the alarm was going off for 14 minutes before it woke me up!  That has never happened to me before.  And I've been noticing that I often wake up and have to take a moment to figure out where the baby is.  This is making my husband and I wonder if it's safe for me to be co-sleeping with him while he's so little.  This is so bizarre - I've never had this problem before and I'm upset and frustrated because I love co-sleeping with him and think it's best for him.  It's also making me feel like something is wrong with my mama instincts all of a sudden.    

Anyone else experience this?

[TiredX2]

My sleep habits definately changed when I had kids (able to go back to sleep easier, wasn't disturbed as much by noise while sleeping...).

With what you are describing my first thought is, "Are you getting enough sleep?"  If you are exhausted, you're just going to be harder to wake.  I would also consider having your thyroid (and other blood levels) checked by a doctor.  Not for a specific concern, but if this is a new issue it is fairly concerning.

As for the co-sleeping: are you moving more?  Do you still react to DS's noises/movements?

[swl73]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm actually not too exhausted, considering I have a newborn.  My thyroid was checked during my pregnancy and was supposedly fine, so I'm assuming it's still OK.  Although if I have any more episodes like that one, maybe that would be worth checking out.  Other blood levels were checked out during pregnancy at my request and were all OK at the time.

Since I wrote that message a week ago, I haven't had any other instances like that one, so I'm hoping it was an isolated incident.  I think I have been still responding to my baby's noises pretty quickly since then.  He's so quiet and slow to escalate that it's hard to say, when I wake up, how long he's been making noise for.  My daughter, who is in her own bedroom now with a monitor in our room, was coughing a lot last night, and her coughing kept waking me up.  So hopefully that's a good sign.

I did also ask our pediatrician about this at my baby's two month appt last week.  (Our pediatrician is pro-co-sleeping, etc. and I trust her advice and input.)  She said I didn't have any of the major risk factors to contraindicate co-sleeping (obesity, drug abuse, sleep apnea) and so as long as the incident from last week appears to be an isolated incident, she thought we should be OK.  She suggested if it continues, that we should consider using a co-sleeper.  Seems like we're OK but if not we do have a co-sleeper we can dust off and bring into our room.  

Thanks for the reply and the suggestions!