Co-Sleeping Help

em'smoms

OK, so I know many of you successfully co-sleep. Here's the deal, Alayna is now almost 6 mos old and still wakes to nurse many times during the night, I am going back to work on Oct 1 and need to figure out a way to get myself more rest. Right now I am sleeping in the bed in Al's room (DP had surgery so it is not a big deal for me to be out of our bedroom right now but would like that to change soon).

Alayna nurses and goes to bed by 7pm every night in her own crib. She starts waking up every 2-3 hours sometime after 9pm. I try to nurse and put her back into her crib until some time after midnight and then tend to fall asleep nursing her in the bed. It is a queen. Here is the problem, when I fall asleep nursing her and she is then sleeping right next to me, she wakes even more frequently (like hourly), rooting and latching on which wakes me. If I put her back into her crib or all the way on the other side of the bed from me, she goes a bit longer and I feel better rested.

So here is my dilemma: I would like to return to my bed with DP sometime before I start work, I also do not want to walk back and forth from Al's crib every 2-3 hours or be woken up every hour with her right next to me co-sleeping every night when I have to work. Right now I do have a side rail on my side of the bed but she would be right next to me, DP and I do not sleep really close together once we are asleep, hence the king bed, we like our space. I am considering an arms reach co-sleeper so that she is essentially in the bed, but in her own space, but worry that she will developmentally outgrow it too quickly (online it says to stop using it when they can push up on hands and knees, she can push up on hands now). What are my other options? Is the only other option to put our king mattress on the floor and put a crib mattress next to it? When you do that do you put box springs down as well? Not looking forward to having to store our box springs and frame!

Thoughts?

sara291

Riley was the same way but I think quite a bit worse. 2 hours would have been lovely!! We were every 1/2 an hour to hour until 8 or 9 months old. Then slowly became better. I tried co sleeping & had slept on his floor that entire time. I held off there every few months did try co sleeping however it made it worse! How about just moving her crib to your room?

Shaeley Mae

Pack-n-play ......?

em'smoms

Well, we have decided on an original arms reach cosleeper, now trying to find one used in our area. We figure that since she goes to sleep in her own crib and I would only be bringing her into our bedroom in the middle of the night we are not going to worry about her pushing up and falling out of it. She typically stays asleep all night, even when she wakes to nurse, rarely opens her eyes so I figure I can just push her over into the co-sleeper after nursing and we can both go back to sleep with a couple feet between us (hopefully that way she won't wake more frequently, as she does when she sleeps right next to me!).
If things don't settle down after a year we may have to explore the mattresses on the floor thing, but hoping by then she is sleeping through the night in her own crib/room!

I don't want to bring her crib into our room cause I like that she is used to having her own space to sleep for naps and to go to sleep at night, pack n play is too low (without bassinet) to have to put her down into after nursing for me, seems disruptive, with the bassinet attachment, it could be an option if we can't find a co-sleeper used.