I never thought I would co-sleep. Both Stefan and I are super heavy sleepers and we are both very active sleepers. I was always worried that if I did co-sleeping I would roll over onto my baby or hit her in the head.

Well that all changed. From the first week that we had Capri home I started pulling her into bed with me around 5 or 6 in the morning. I would either put my nursing pillow in the middle of the bed and she would sleep there (that way there was something between her and us so we had less of a chance of hitting her). Than slowly I started just putting her head on my arm and she would sleep like that. This way her head is not on a pillow or on the mattress and I can feel her.

We do not full time co-sleep. I usually bring her into bed around 4 or 5 now (usually after she wakes up from her last feeding around midnight). I do this because she loves to cluster feed in the mornings and it is just easier if she is next to me.

For her first month we had a king size bed which made co-sleeping a lot better, now we are back to a queen size bed. I cannot figure out how my little tiny baby takes up most of my sleeping space but she does. I love these times though. She loves snuggling with me and drooling on my arm and I love it.

Many people (me included before I started doing it and researching it) think co-sleeping is super dangerous. Well just like most things if done wrong it is. Babies do not need pillows to sleep on so don’t use them with your baby because they do pose a suffocation threat. Watch your blankets, you don’t want to pull them up over your babies head. Capri sleeps with her head at my chest level (this will make breastfeeding easier when she doesn’t need helping getting to me), I have to make sure my blankets do not come up very high because she is lower down on me.

Take your time and research safe ways to co-sleep. Make sure you do not co-sleep if you have been drinking or doing drugs because you have a very high chance of hurting your child. Also studies have been done showing that it is safer to co-sleep with a baby that is breastfed because they wake more and are normally lower down and not on a pillow, where bottle fed babies tend to be placed higher up on pillows. So just make sure you are safe about it and enjoy the snuggles with your little one.

I am sure there will be a follow up post to this when I stop letting her sleep with us. Though she sleeps in her own bed for most of the night so it shouldn’t be as hard as full time co-sleeping babies.