Pros and Cons of the Family Bed

We do co-sleeping with our children. We have found that there is an age where they want to sleep in their own bed for most of the night, but about 4 in the morning, we end up with 3 children in our bed. I dread the day when this doesn't happen, because I feel it helps with bonding, no matter the age. Votes: +4

Cosleeping was great for my daughter and I, It was easier to nurse, I rested much better specially with my c- section. I felt the baby was safe and that we both got a deeper bond slept much better. I miss does days since now she is one years old and sleeps in her room. When she was nursing it was ok to cosleep but when she wasn't a baby or nursing we both would loss sleep because she would move so much and I wasn't sleeping because she was mobile and I was scared she would fall off our bed. As soon as I put her in her crib in her room she slept through the whole night and so did I. Votes: +2

With my older daughter, I had a husband to consider, and he disagreed with the co-sleeping, plus she had a medical condition that prevented breastfeeding so that wasn't an issue. I love her and always have, but I feel that my relationship with her wasn't as good right from the start as the one with her little sister, who is now 11 months old. A year ago - a month before she was born - I left her father. We were in a shelter the first two months and she refused to sleep more than twenty minutes at a time in her pack-n-play. I breastfed, and usually brought her to bed with me at night. She slept from 2am-8 or 9am almost every night, after cluster-feeding every 30-45 minutes from 10 or 11pm until around 2am. Once she became mobile and over 15lbs, I got a crib and started putting her in it for naps, and after her bath and 9pm feeding, then bringing her into my bed - one side of which had a toddler gate between the mattress and the wall and the other side blocked by my body - when she woke up during the night. Once she took to the bottle and started refusing the breast last month, I started transitioning her to nights in the crib. Now we no longer co-sleep but I feel that we are very close. Her sister never went through separation anxiety when it came to me until she was almost 3, only stranger anxiety between 8 and 22 months. My little one cries every time I disappear for more than a few seconds except when I put her to bed when she's tired. Then she hugs her dolly and sucks her little thumb. Votes: +0

my daughter is 5 almost six and i have alway co-slept with her. i know there will be a day that she will want to be in her own bed but until that day ,i want her close to me as possible. my husband works nights so there is not much of an issue except when he has a day off then i lay in her bed until she falls asleep. this works for our family. i love laying in bed with her, she tells me story, i sing to her and we talk about the day. Votes: +3