What cosleeping is like for me.

When I was pregnant with Luke I never thought in my wildest dreams would I ever have my child sleep with me and my husband.  I thought things like 'what a bad habit' or 'they'll never grow out of it'.  And then I thought my husband and I would never get alone time or our bed back.

When we brought Luke home, we had him in a crib in the other bedroom.  My husband would go get him each time he needed to nurse.  Luke was always a fairly good sleeper so it wasn't often.  He was far from a colicky baby.  But each night I would worry about him being all alone and I was loosing sleep myself.  So we decided it would be easier to move the crib into our room next to our bed as a co-sleeper.  It was great.  I could check on him and I could see him breathe and move around.  Each morning around 4 or 5am Luke would wake to nurse.  I would pull him in bed with me, and being exhausted, he just slept with us because we were too lazy to get up and put him back in and risk waking him up.  Then as time went on, we just let him sleep after the 2am nursing, then one night I think we just fell asleep nursing at bed time.  And by that time he was older, about 4 months, and really strong so we weren't worried about blankets or the cat getting at him.  

That was it, he slept with us.  Then the crib ended up being a piece of furniture in the way and the cat ended up sleeping in it.  Finally we got tired of it taking up space and by then we knew we were a co-sleeping family. 

Now, I can't imagine it any other way.   Luke is now 16 months and I couldn't imagine sleeping with out him.  Neither could my husband.  In the other room, he'd be so far away.  If he wanted to nurse, it'd be such a long walk in there.  Not to mention all the benefits there are to co-sleeping, why would we want it any other way? 

I love the extra cuddles.  I love being there when he wakes up.  He's so cute when he wakes up, sometimes he's dreaming and he says 'bus' (or something else) right as he's waking up.  One time the day after we saw my friend Usa, he said 'Usa' right as he was waking up.  Then he rolls over and has a big smile on his face because he knows his Mama is right next to him.  And he's even more excited when he sees that it's the weekend and Dad is right next to him too.  Those are the moments I never want to miss.  They are the sweetest things.

Our next baby won't even be in a room by themselves.  They'll be cuddled right next to us.  I wouldn't want it any other way.