I thought I'd better tell you a little bit about your new host, and we can all get to know eachother in the process...

I'm Shannon, mother of 5, who have all co-slept (and some still co-sleeping) with dh and I. I was young and newly married when my ds #1 was born. We had a crib and a bassinet given to us at our baby shower. I was pretty clueless about babies, and thought I had to do what our parents told us should be done. So every night I'd rock and nurse Alex to sleep and put him in his bed. He'd awake and cry. The cycle went on and on, all night long. Within a couple weeks, I was so tired we just both fell asleep in the rocker and stayed there all night. Finally dh told me to just put him in bed with us, and wow! I actually got sleep! Soon the crib was just used as a playpen, and when we moved, it was sold.

When Alex was 14 months old, I became pregnant again. Again, still being young and believing everything at face value, I weaned him because dr told me I had to. We bought him a race car bed, and put him to sleep there, but by morning, he was always back with us. Soon we had two co-sleepers, at least for part of the night. Ds #2, Caleb, slept with us from day one. We did have some incidents of him falling out of bed once he started crawling, but luckly he wasn't hurt badly.

By ds #3, Corbin, we were smart enough to have the matress on the floor and up against two walls. Our oldest two were now sleeping in their own beds.

Currently we have our dd, Annora, who's 3 and 1/2 sometimes with us, and our 14 month old dd, Marosa, always co-sleeping.

The main reason it works for us is I am a very light sleeper. As long as I get enough sleep, anyway.

So, what's your co-sleeping experience?

Hi! Mama to four here (so far! ). Our experience has been to do what works best for baby and parents. Austin, our first, co-slept until 6mo. I did the "first time mom" thing and moved him to his crib in his own room once he got really wiggly and disruptive. I remember comforting him back to sleep and crawling out of his room many times.

Spencer co-slept as long as he wanted to (he was very independent early on...and then totally "mama's boy" and sometimes back in bed with us at two)...and then he slept in the PnP in our room. He napped in his crib, but didn't spend the night in it until he was about a year old...at which time we moved and he transitioned and slept contentedly and well there.

Our first DD, Kiley, once again co-slept until she became really disruptive and neither she nor I were getting much sleep. At that time (several months old) she began sleeping in her crib next to our bed. Sometimes she'd get up to nurse and stay in bed with us. At three now she still crawls in with us at times (and her room is connected to ours). Our baby, Isabelle (Ellie), is 4.5-months old and still a 100%, bonafide co-sleeper. That's the only way she or I get ANY real sleep! She likes hour-long nursing in the wee hours of the morning and neither of us want to get up to make that happen. She'll stay as long as she needs to...just like her sibs!

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