I knew before my son was born that I wanted to co-sleep - what I didn't know, and couldn't find no matter how hard I looked, was the actual practical advice - how does diaper changing fit in to the nighttime routine? What sort of things can you put on the
bed to minimize the mess, or do you just deal with changing the sheets twice a day? Is there actually enough room for two adults who like to sprawl, PLUS a baby in a queen size bed?
(In case you don't want to read the full story, our bullet-point solutions to these and other questions are at the end of the article)
Our son's birth day came, and I still didn't know the answer to any of these questions. The first night in the hospital he slept a full six-hour stretch half on, half off my chest in the narrow hospital bed, and I realized that if I could make that work, at home was likely to be just fine.
After that first night, of course, he wasn't sleeping more than three hours at a stretch anymore - but it was, in fact, just fine.
I had a post-dural headache for that first week which meant I was on my back as much as humanly possible, and was nursing him almost exclusively in the side-lying position. We discovered it was both comfortable and easy for us both to just drift off to sleep in the same position. Switching sides was awkward at first, but now I just sit up, roll him over, and lie back down. He's not showing any interest in rolling over on his own yet, so I'm not worried about having him on the outside of the bed. (Even once he does roll, though, I'm not sure it'll be a problem - he's a snuggler, and stays pretty close to my chest wherever he is.)
For the first couple of weeks I would try to position a lap pad (~18" square of some waterproof material, I'm not sure what but it absorbs leaks very well) underneath his butt. This caught some, but far from all of the diaper leaks, but didn't do a thing for spit-up or my leaking breasts. So the sheets were changed - frequently. The threshold for how much leakage would necessitate sheet-changing rose quickly and dramatically! We also discovered that blotting the wet spot with a baby wipe and allowing it to dry did wonders for most of the leaks.
We tried one of those sheet protectors that's meant for toddlers who are potty-training - I found it scratchy, sweaty, and uncomfortable, so that went away quickly.
Eventually I got clever, and added a bath towel folded into quarters for him to sleep on. This was flat enough to not pose a hazard to his breathing, and caught just about everything - except my leaking breasts! Sure, I was using nipple pads - but in the middle of the night, it's very easy to forget to put them on, or they slide around, or you fall asleep while he's nursing.... you get the idea.
Around a month in, we were hardly getting any diaper leaks at all, so I tried just folding the towel in half instead, so there was enough room for both of us on it.
Through these early weeks, I was changing him every time he ate, even overnight. Usually it would be feeding him on one side, get up and change him, feed him on the other side, back to sleep, repeat. It proved to be less sleep-depriving than I'd expected, but still hardly the disturbance-free nights all the co-sleeping literature had promised.
But at around 3-5 weeks, I noticed that he was no longer pooping overnight. As the diapers we were using seemed to be doing a really good job of sucking up moisture, so I gave it a shot - I let him stay the whole night in one diaper, changing him right before bed and right after we got up (about nine-ten hours). And ever since then that's been working just fine. We did get more leaks this way, but they were relatively little ones, and all of us were getting a lot more sleep!
As for room in the bed, that's not been a problem since the first few days, while we were still trying to figure this whole thing out. He and I together take up maybe 55% of the queen-size bed, and as I was a bed hog before my husband hardly notices the difference! My husband was a bit paranoid about rolling on to him, but at over 8 weeks in he has yet to even touch our son in his sleep, let alone roll. As for me - we nurse in the side-lying position and then just drift right off in the same position. One advantage to him being so close? I can feel him breathing. I also usually wake a few minutes before he does, and even if I am so tired that he wakes first, his wiggles wake me long before he starts crying. Again, more sleep for everyone!
So, the bullet points -
- a bath towel folded in half under us both catches 90% of the leaks (maybe only 60% early on, but it gets better quickly)
- a queen-size bed *is* big enough.
- once he stops pooping at night (3-5 weeks for us), you don't need to change him until morning
- the mother instincts work. really, they do.
- experiment, and find out what works for you. no advice is going to catch all contingencies!
(October 2006) (
