On Cosleeping.

Cosleeping, for us, was more-or-less a conscious decision. I'd read a little about it, and knew (if only in an abstract kind of way) that I wanted my baby as close to me as possible. The second he was born, there was nothing abstract about it; I literally didn't put him down until he was about 3 weeks old except for diaper changes.

I was a little nervous about cosleeping at first; we have two cats, one of which is accustomed to sleeping between Wess and I. The obvious solution was to have Tristin between me and the edge of the bed, but I was nervous about this too - how could I make sure that he wouldn't fall off, or get underneath my pillow, or any of the other myriad awful things that the anti-cosleeping contingent would have you believe happen to EVERY baby that sleeps in its parents' bed?

Fortunately, the answer was quite simple, and Tristin pretty much came up with it himself by the time he was 2 or 3 days old. We had one of those pads for on top of his change table that has a scooped-out middle; Tristin was born the day after the table and crib were delivered, and what with bringing home a baby, it was quite some time before they were assembled. However, we did have the change pad, and it came about that he fell asleep on it one day quite soon after he was brought home. Ta-da! We had our solution. The change pad moved upstairs onto the family bed, and I rested quite a bit easier with Tristin having a defined space in the bed that was his.

We continued using the change pad until Tristin was old enough to roll out of it - about 4 1/2 months. Then we just switched to sleeping right in bed with me; at a hefty 22 lbs, I was not nearly so worried about not noticing him in the bed anymore. We fell into a pattern that we still continue with today: he takes his naps on his own in the crib, and (usually) sleeps in the crib from bedtime at 8 until his first wake-up to nurse, around 11:30 or 12. I come to bed whenever that first nursing session happens, and we cuddle together, nursing 2-3 times overnight, until 8 AM when he gets breakfast in bed and we get up together. The cosleeping is working quite well, except for the fact that my sleep is very, very broken overnight, but as long as I'm able to lie down in the afternoon for what I call my "unchaperoned" nap - while Tristin is in his crib - I get by just fine.

(N.B. Yes, most babies can sleep the night through without nursing after 6 months. However, for coslept babies, one year is the usual age for night-weaning.)

I won't lie. There are days when I'm so tired that I wish he would sleep the whole night through in his crib. The 3 occasions that this has happened shocked me so much I was unable to sleep, waking up to check on him every 3 hours or so, leaving me frazzled and frustrated that I couldn't just take advantage of my great good fortune. In my darker moments, I despair of ever sleeping through the night again. But then I remind myself of all the reasons I wanted to cosleep in the first place, and that it's not going to last forever; after all, no high-school student has ever needed to be nursed to sleep in his mummy's bed.