To Co-Sleep perchance to Dream

For about the last month Chloe has been sleeping in our bed. She has always before this slept in either a bassinet or in her own bed but in our room. She has also been sleeping through the night since about 2.5 months. But when she had the really bad cold she was fussy and constantly wanted to nurse. It started because I was too tired and or lazy to nurse her sitting up and then put her back into her own bed. Now I can't transfer her from boob to bed without a lot of screaming.

Over the long weekend Rick and I tried to put her in the crib in her own room and just let her cry it out. But she never seems to get to a point where she is too tired to cry and falls asleep. Sometimes with a soother and constant rocking in the stroller I can get her to sleep but it doesn't seem to work in bed. I can get her to sleep in my arms, but as soon as her head touches mattress she starts to cry. Rick can't seem to soothe her at all, she just gets progressively louder until I can't stand it anymore and go in and pick her up. Which immediately calms her down and she either falls asleep right away or starts pecking to nurse. Either way she has me wrapped around her baby finger and I don't get any sleep. So after 3 hours of me getting up every 20 minutes to calm Chloe down, I might add that 20 minutes seems to be the amount of time it takes me to fall asleep, I took her back to bed with me and we slept relatively well until about 6am. Which has been a wake up time for her for awhile. Last night I took her to bed with me at 10pm and except for a couple of grumbles in the night, which I quickly put a stopper in, we slept through until 08:30. This was a god send for me, as I am just a bit overtired.

I don't think that Chloe really likes sleeping with us, we are too warm for her and we tend to move about. Although I seem to have perfected the art of sleeping perfectly still. Another downside is my elbows are incredibly itchy, which I think is caused by her sweaty head being cradled in my elbow all night long. Both Rick and Margaret have expressed concern about her being able to sleep on her own. But I am of the opinion that my sleep is more important than hers. And since neither Rick nor Margaret can get her to sleep I think their opinion carries almost no weight.

I remember the days when this was all she did.... I also remember saying, "I can't wait for her to do stuff other than sleep" it seems we really should be careful what we wish for!