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This was asked on the May board, and it seemed most people have an arms reach co-sleeper. Or co-sleep in their bed. I don't think I want to co-sleep in my bed. DH is a crazy sleeper. The arms reach co-sleeper is so dang expensive. Can I get away using a pack n play with bassinet feature? Or is that not sturdy enough? I'm also thinking maybe I can put the crib in our room at first and then move it.
What will you being using?
We coslept with our son, and still do really - he is now almost four and still ends up in our bed most nights (he crawls in around 5am). We will probably have an Arm's Reach this time since 2 adults, one preschooler, and four chihuahuas are probably not the best sleeping companions for a baby. We have also debated just moving our guest room bed into the master bedroom for the first few months so DH, DS and some of the dogs will have their own space until the baby is big enough to sleep on his own and not need the boob every few hours.
:lurk:
I too am planning to get an arm's reach cosleeper this time around but I don't plan to spend a ton on it. I have had great luck on CL or also look for consignment sales in your area. Stuff like that are used for such a short period of time you can usually buy second hand and get nice stuff. I have also heard people talk about finding resale stuff on FB...I guess there are groups like CL on there but I haven't looked into that before.
I'll also say...I never intended to cosleep but that was the only to get any sleep with DS1. And so we did. :) DS2's personality was soooo different though. He has always preferred having his own space when he sleeps. It still amazes me how different they can be and how their little personalities show up right from birth. :)
Baby will be in his crib, in his room. :) With T, for the first couple of nights I tried keeping him in our room in a bassinet next to the bed. Neither T nor I could sleep a wink like that! I finally gave in to my MIL's suggestion that I put him in his crib and see if he slept any better, and lo and behold, he did! So that's where we will be starting out this time.
To be honest, I've never had much desire to co-sleep. T was such a hard baby for the first couple of months (he had a dairy allergy and it took us forever to figure it out, and in the meantime he was super colicky all day every day) that I sort of felt like my bed was the only place I ever got to rest without a baby in my arms. Plus I have heard that once baby starts sleeping with you, good luck getting them to stop.
Haha, this baby will probably be the opposite from T though and refuse to sleep unless he's in bed with us...
I will play it by ear. I will by a bassinet but the crib will be in another room! With dd i had such a hard time because she was colic so i really dont know yet.
We have a cradle that was my grandfather's that my sister used with all of her babies and I plan to use it with mine for the first little while anyway. I'll put it in our room next to the bed. Its old and beautiful but very safe, my dad was a wood worker and made sure before my sister took it that it would hold up. It was my dads dads when he was a baby and my dad slept in it too. Since we're using Patrick (my dads name) as a middle name for Miles I feel it makes it even more special that he gets to sleep in it too. I'll just need to buy new bedding for it. Eventually we'll move him to his crib in his own room but I know me well enough to know that if he's not right next to me I'll never get any sleep b/c I'll be sneaking in his room to check on him constantly. (I know already I'm going to be a nervous mommy... poor baby haha)
You're fine with the bassinet feature of the pack n play. That's what we used for DS and it worked great. We're in a different house now and all our other bedrooms are upstairs, which for me, is too far for baby. This time, we're putting the crib straight in the room, taking the side off and butting it up next to the bed. I'm sure some people will cry about a safety issue there, but we love the idea and I'm hopeful it's going to work out good. It's like co-sleeping and not all at the same time.
Because we are in a two bedroom for now and my 13 year old step son and our 6 year old son share a room, baby will be in with us. The bedrooms we have are huge so we won't have any problem fitting a crib in our room along with 3 full size dressers and our bed along with room to move. We never co slept with our 6 year old and don't plan on it this time either. I have heard the same thing that some kids are very hard to break of that habit. I also move constantly during the night because I have a bad back, so baby in his/her own bed is the best solution.
We have a pack n play with a bassinet feature that we will use next to our bed if this baby will actually sleep on its own for any length of time. With DD, she would NOT sleep at all unless being held or lying right next to me so we ended up co-sleeping in bed until around 8 months old. I actually found that I liked it a lot better than I thought I would-since i was breastfeeding, I barely had to wake up, just latch her on and go back to sleep. I was fortunate that she became comfortable sleeping on her own for at least a few hours at a time by around 8 months so we started making the switch to her crib at that time and by I think around a year old she spent the whole night in her crib with no issues.
With both babies we had a borrowed bassinet in our room until they were a few months old and either STTN or on a more regular schedule. I can't sleep with them in my room all the time; I get really tired of having to tiptoe around and DH and I like our privacy.
I think a pnp would work fine. I was just given an Arm's Reach cosleeper. I've wanted one with every kid and never had a bassinet of our own (never liked them). Plus it's smaller so takes up less space than a pnp. But a pnp would still work very well.