I love sleeping with my baby

Last night as I lay down to sleep, almost nose to nose to 3 month old Markus, I was overcome with joy that he is in my life.  Sleeping with him, brings out this kind of over-the-top melodramatic emotions in me.  So while I’m sometimes embarrassed by the sheer mushiness of my feelings, they are still great emotions to experience.  I think this is one of the reasons that I enjoy sleeping with my baby so much.  Generally we settled down for one last nurse and then after Markus is all “blissed-out” on milk and drowsy and he usually falls asleep staring at me.  What a trip.  So often I’ll be almost asleep and I’ll look over and he is just staring at me with these big doe eyes like I’m the most awesome thing ever.  It’s so sweet. He is just so tiny, I can’t imagine him anywhere else.  Now I know that he would be perfectly fine in his crib, but I sleep better knowing that he is near.

Aside from the emotional benefits, there are practical reasons as well.  With 3 kids, ages 4 and under, none of whom consistently sleeps through the night, I think I would be a sleep driprived zombie if Markus wasn’t in bed with us.  Happily we have a king size bed which we divide into three, one third for my husband Harlan, one third for me in the middle, and one third for Markus.   I put a bed rail up beside Markus to keep him safe.  This way Harlan isn’t worried that he will squish the little guy, and I have enough room that I can move around without disturbing Markus.  Nursing at night is a breeze.  While it is now!  There was a learning curve for sure before we mastered the art of nursing while laying down.  It was worth the effort!  Now when he wakes up, I roll over, nurse and roll back and straight back to sleep.  I actually did try nursing in the rocking chair in the baby’s room when my daughter was a baby, but it didn’t work for me.  I was cold and wide awake.  Julia woke up too much too because she had to make more noise before I realized she needed me, and then it took her longer to go back asleep after.  Plus it would take me about half an hour to fully warm up once back in bed, and I don’t fall asleep unless I’m warm.  So all in all, the co-sleeping is the way to go for me.

Now the intent of this post, is not to convince anyone to co-sleep.  I simply wanted to gush about something I love so much.  As for your for sleeping routine, well, I think you really have to try and experiment and figure out what system works for the best for you, baby and family.  For me, though I think I’ve got this one cased.  (At least for now!)

Sweet dreams everyone,

Marie