Well I can tell you that this will be a short page on Co-Sleeping & Breastfeeding. I didn't do either. No joke. You can stop gasping now. I am in the minority... I know, I know. Don't judge.
Breastfeeding
As for breastfeeding, it was a choice that I had made. I had not made up my mind completely as I went into deliver our first baby. I had talked to my sisters who had both told me the pluses and minuses of b-feeding and bottle feeding. We had all the Playtex Drop-In bottles ready at home just in case. I had not registered for a pump... I figured I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Long story short, I had a very difficult birth experience with my first which I will not go into detail for fear of scaring people and I think it sealed the deal. Needlesstosay, my two non-breastfed daughters are perfectly happy, healthy and brilliant. They don't have two heads or six legs, they are not delayed in speech or walking. They are perfectly fine. By the way, the four kids in my family were not breastfed either and we turned out okay. It's OTHER people who have problems with me not breastfeeding usually... I had some people come up to me in the grocery store and actually ask me why my daughter was taking a bottle and did I know that it's pretty much child abuse to not breastfeed my child. I was a little defensive about it at first, but now, it is what it is. I'm a bottle feeder. So sue me. Sorry if you are looking for b-feeding advice as I HAVE NONE!!!
Co-Sleeping
I have never had a child sleep in the same bed as me! It's a wonderful thing. But I must say that in the past few months, my two year old who I'm pretty sure knows there is something up with the new baby coming, has attempted to crawl into bed with us. One morning I did wake up and she was there wedged next to myself and my husband. Off she went into her room. No idea how long she was there, but that is the only documented case (well I have one more to be shared below) of the "baby" sleeping in the same bed in our house or even in the same room.
From the time the baby came home, we made it a rule... no babies in our room. First night from the hospital, baby went into the crib. See... kind of helps out that I didn't breastfeed. I know sometimes I would have LOVED to just have the baby in a co-sleeper next to me, roll her over and feed her and roll her back into the co-sleeper. No such luck. I get up, go down the hall and feed her and come back. Over and Over. My husband does also help out with the feedings which is nice. We took turns at first but as soon as he went back to work, it was my job to get up 100 times a night. Sometimes I slept in the nursery La-Z-Boy but most times I went back into my room if I could get out undetected. Not really looking forward to doing it but we felt it needed to be done.
The only ACTUAL time that our youngest slept in our room was when she was sleeping in her car seat and I needed to keep an eye on her because her reflux was so bad that she was actually choking on her own vomit. That night, I slept with her next to my bed on the floor in her car seat. We ended up going to the GI doc the next day and it never happened again. That for me was my first experience with "co-sleeping" an infant.
In college at Notre Dame, I took a "Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab" class in which we learned about the benefits of co-sleeping and actually worked in a sleep lab in which we would tape parents and babies sleeping in the same room or bed. Kind of creepy but that's what we did. Our prof was a world renowned advocate and researcher of the benefits of co-sleeping. He once said that yes, some babies die when they co-sleep with their parents but it's usually because the parent is altered in some sort of way and rolls over. I'm not an advocate of co-sleeping and actually they come into your room at our hospital and tell you NOT to co-sleep with your child. Of course they have "co-sleepers" that go next to your bed. I just don't know anything about them. I like to have my baby safe and in the other room. Again, just my opinion. And also, as you will notice in this blog, I'm a big fan of sleep.
So... no co-sleeping and no breastfeeding. Hopefully I can get someone to write a blog post about these topics because I know they are definitely hard to tackle topics!!!
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