The Joy of Bedsharing – by Josie McLachlan
Thomas was a dream when it came to night sleeping from the minute we brought him home. He slept soundly in his Moses Basket at the foot of our bed and in the first few weeks he woke at 2am for a quick feed and then fell fast asleep until 7am. At four weeks, he was sleeping from around 8pm to 7am without waking – perfection!
Before Thomas was born we knew a strict bedtime routine would not work for us. Routines are something that I have always found restrictive and we wanted flexibility for our precious new baby. This model worked brilliantly and being breastfed Thomas was a cluster feeder throughout the evening and slept in our arms until bedtime.
At around 18 weeks, Thomas decided that sleeping through the night was boring and found the wooden bars on his new cot far more interesting. He then decided that night feeding was great fun and it meant having the undivided attention of mummy. At first, I would bring him into bed, feed and then return him to the cot – as the nights went on this was turning into a very distressing experience for him and I was determined that under no circumstances was Thomas going to be distressed. After a great deal of research, endless discussions and emails with a close friend who was experiencing the same problems and reading ‘The Family Bed’ I decided that Thomas would sleep with Tim and myself in our bed. The first night was so exciting, Thomas lay safely in his sleeping bag on top of the duvet in between us and slept beautifully and fed peacefully before returning to sleep. We enjoyed a great sleep – the best for days.
Thomas is now nine months old and we still sleep together, however, we have invested in the biggest bed and duvet in Scotland! He no longer feeds throughout the evening and goes to bed anytime between 7pm and 8pm in our room. For us, sleeping in one big bed is one of the most wonderful experiences of parenthood. Lying in my bed when all around me is dark and silent watching my baby sleep is one of the most beautiful sights and I treasure every moment. Our night feeds are now calm and quick and some days I wake up wondering whether or not Thomas fed in the night at all. If he does feed, I have a rule – don’t look at the clock, if I don’t know the time, I don’t worry about it.
It has taken a long time for me to feel confident to talk about our sleeping arrangements and night feeding in groups of parents. It has been a constant source of amazement that a lot of mothers feel it is wrong to bring Thomas into bed and even worse to be night feeding at nine months; I have lost count of the number of times that I have heard the words ‘rod for your own back!’ or ‘mm, you need to do a bit of controlled crying.’ All I can say is, it is a personal choice and for some it will work and for others it won’t, however, the most important thing for me has been to follow my natural instincts and I knew from the outset that anything that involved crying or withdrawing night feeds could be shelved.
I still receive sympathy from mums who say ‘I feel so sorry for you, it must be really hard not getting a full nights sleep.’ My answer to that is, no it isn’t hard, it is a joy. It would be much harder for us to put Thomas in a cot in another room than to feel him close to us in our room while he is so small and vulnerable. Our nights are precious and to climb into bed and provide love and security to Thomas is one of the most important things we can do for him.