Fast forward to the reality... Little H was born at 38 weeks with a quick and (relatively!) easy drug-free labor. We held him constantly - since that is what he wanted of course! We were in the hospital several nights. I tried to put him down in the baby bed beside my hospital bed, but he'd awaken and cry immediately. The two of us slept in shifts so H could always be in our arms. He slept well as long as we were holding him - he'd wake to nurse and then easily go back to sleep.
The first night back at home I tried laying him in the cosleeper, but he would wake right up and cry. I didn't blame him - it didn't seem very comfortable. I was afraid of putting him in our bed cause I didn't want him to smother in the blankets and I wasn't ready to give up the idea that he'd sleep alone. I remember that first night at home well - me sitting in the glider with H in my arms asleep, my husband asleep in bed, a very quiet house... I struggled to keep myself from drifting off to sleep. Finally around 5:00am I managed to get my snoozing newborn into the baby swing and crawled into bed myself for a couple of hours.
That next night we layed H down between us at the head of the bed, scooted ourselves down so that we could have blankets without being worried H would get wrapped up, and FINALLY got some sleep. Even interrupted sleep is better than none at all. It was amazing how much better we all slept with him in the bed with us. He would wake to nurse and then go right back to sleep most of the time. He continued napping in our arms throughout the day. It was still difficult for me to wake up to nurse him in the beginnning - it was winter, the house was cold, and at first we were using a nipple shield so I did have to wake up completely to nurse. And we did have a few weeks where he'd take a while to go back to sleep after waking to nurse. But for the most part, cosleeping wasn't really a choice - it was COsleep or NOsleep.
By week 13 I had finally weaned him from the nipple shield and not long after that we mastered side-lying nursing. Suddenly night-time parenting was easy. I don't even remember when he started sleeping through the night because it was so simple to latch him on in a half-asleep state that I stopped waking up completely. Snuggling with my baby in the wee hours of the morning became one of my favorite parts of being a mother. I love having that closeness with him, especially since I had to go back to work part time.
My husband and I did struggle a bit with not having any alone time in the beginning, but it was a small sacrifice to pay for being able to sleep. We'd still find our moments here and there. When H was around nine months old I started nursing him to sleep on the crib mattress on the floor next to our bed. Once he was asleep, I could leave him with the baby monitor and know that if he woke, one of us could reach him quickly and resettle him. That gave us some adult time in the evenings before we grabbed H and went to bed together. Not long after that we started putting him down for the night on a twin mattress in his room. He's 15 months old now and that's still where we are. He sleeps for a few hours alone and then we cosleep the rest of the night.
I feel like we've got the best of both worlds now. My husband and I get time alone together, but we still get good sleep and we both enjoy the snuggly time with our little guy too. At some point we'd like to transition him to his own bed full time, but right now this works for us. I wonder now why I was initially against cosleeping. There's nothing better than waking up to feel my son's soft hair on my cheek and it's even better on the weekends when the three of us can stay in bed til he wakes us up with a smile and a giggle.
