Co-sleeping - my experience

There are two very strict schools of thought where co-sleeping is concerned. Those who firmly believe that it is a natural, necessary thing to do to provide comfort and care to your children, and those who think that it is the most dangerous and neglectful thing that you can do.

I definitely fall within the former camp.

I have no medical qualifications. I have not read through the numerous studies, piles of research and recommendations from healthcare professionals.

I just did what felt right.


I was very lucky to give birth naturally to two healthy, perfect and beautiful little girls. Yes labour was exhausting and the hardest thing I have ever done, but there were no complications, my babies were born safely, at good weights and I had no lingering postnatal symptoms (other than the standard having to sit down gingerly for the first week or two).

But when I got home. neither of those babies would ever sleep! The midwife and the health visitor both told me that under no circumstances should I consider co-sleeping. I would absolutely roll on my baby and suffocate her, I would knock her out of bed, I would cause cot death.

But after three nights of no sleep whatsoever, which followed the three nights of no sleep whilst in slow labour, I was at breaking point. Breast feeding was hard, but I knew I wanted to continue, and baby would fall asleep on the breast but wake within moments of being placed in the moses basket.

One night with R, the eldest, I fell asleep with her at the breast. I woke up seven hours later. Seven glorious hours. She hadn't moved, I hadn't moved. In all honestly I was actually in considerable pain because I had not moved a muscle for seven hours. I was also very swollen and super full of milk, which R was very happy about because she had woken with a very rumbly tummy.

But at the end of the day, we had both slept. I was able to fully function as a normal human being for the day, and my baby seemed to naturally fall into a routine that kept her happy and allowed me to catch a little break every now and then.

The co-sleeping became the norm. I would fall asleep carefully curled up round R, protecting her from her dad's clumsy form, and from falling out of bed, and I would wake up a few hours later having not moved. I could feed R without getting out of bed, and we could both drop back off happily.

I want to make it very clear at this moment that I never co-slept if I had even had the slightest sniff of alcohol (and have certainly never taken any drugs).

But I never confessed my sleeping arrangements to my midwife.

And when S came along, I co-slept with her too. Mr W was terrified that something terrible would happen, but even he had to admit that the only way anyone in the house could sleep was when S was in our bed.

These days, S won't settle in bed with me. She finds it too exciting to constantly stick her little fingers in our eyes whilst shouting "EYYYYE" and has developed a strange obsession with licking our noses. If Mr W is away, R loves to sleep in my bed with me. She is super snuggly and loves the adventure of us watching a film in bed together with hot chocolate, and the fact that we have a bathroom inside our bedroom.

Co-sleeping isn't for everyone, and I'll be honest that my babies seemed to naturally progress to sleeping alone in their own beds, in their own rooms. But I'd love to hear about your experiences?

L xx