cosleeping parents, why do you neglect your spouse?
Parents love their children and I get that...I also get all the benefits of co-sleeping but have you considered what this may be doing to your marriage? You are not getting any intimacy or privacy, your marriage is going to be around (hopefully) a lot longer than your child being at home, you need to prepare for the long run and keep your marriage healthy. Also co-sleeping dads..what do you think about it...all the moms think its great but that is probably becuase they are not as sexually driven as dads are....honestly men dont let your liberal man beating wifes stop you...what do you think about co-sleeping?
2008-05-20T11:22:46Z
I'm sorry I dont see this as a rant, it is a question how is your marriage doing since you have added extra people to your bed...and I disagree, like any relationship marriages take work, you cannot just put that on hold while you are parenting!
2008-05-20T11:24:22Z
you people are very defensive, I am asking a question...if you think it is negative answer it, possibly I am considering co-sleeping but I want to know how it affects your relationship,
WI MOM...why shouldnt I have kids becuase I have a question about the highly controversial topic of co-sleeping?
2008-05-20T11:29:22Z
by intimacy I didn't mean just sex, I mean all forms of being intimate, from what I see if you co-sleep you tend to always be with your child, when are you getting any intimacy...not just sex, that is not what I was saying!
shortnsweet4u812008-05-20T11:50:03Z
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I have 2 children, and honestly I've found that doing a mix of sleeping with and without baby/babies in our bed has worked best for our family.
Each family needs to know what works best for them. What works best for us may or may not help you reach that decision.
There are a lot of benefits to cosleeping. There are also some risks involved. The risks go down significantly when you free your bed of hazards and when no one in bed with the baby is a heavy sleeper and when they tend to not move a lot.
The type of child also dictates if it will or won't work.
With our first she would not sleep for the first few months unless she was attached to my breast and could drink whenever she needed to. So while I had started out thinking that cosleeping was not for us, it ended up being the only way to get ANY sleep. I had to sleep sitting up in bed, but it kept my baby asleep longer and thus my husband was able to get the sleep he needed to be able to function at work the next day.
Our first daughter found our bed comforting so we would keep her in with us until she fell asleep, and if she woke up in the night she was back in our bed till she was asleep. Once asleep we would gently transfer her into her crib. So part of the night she was with us and part of the night she was in her crib. By about 18 months she was in her bed and only came into ours if she was sick, or first thing in the morning if we wanted to sleep longer she'd stay and snuggle with us. She's our snuggly one.
This was the only way we could get her to sleep.
With my second, she was an extremely premature little one. Born at 26 weeks, weighing in at less than 2lbs and developmentally she was the age of a 22 or 23 week old infant. We almost lost her several times and she had to stay in the NICU for almost 5 months. Her twin brother did not make it.
When we brought her home we had a bassinet next to our bed that she slept in, but again, when she'd wake up to nurse I'd breastfeed her and cuddle her until she fell asleep. I could not keep her in our bed though as she was way too antsy. So instead of it helping us get sleep it kept us awake, so I would either walk the hallway with her to calm her down while my husband slept or I'd find another way ~ out of our bed ~ to quiet her down.
With this one there is no morning snuggle time as she is way too active. She wants to climb over us and attempt to get off our bed. I'd LOVE to snuggle her, but she just loves to be constantly on the move. There are a few times she's been in our bed long enough to fall asleep, but it just depends on the night.
Some of you may argue that this isn't true cosleeping. With my second its not. With my first she spent entire nights in our bed, and up until recently when we traveled she'd sleep in bed with us since we didn't feel like taking the crib with us.
I find it wonderful to train children to be able to sleep in a variety of areas. It definitely helps with long car rides and other places. I have a friend whose daughter won't even nap in someone else's bed, it has to be her own crib.
Each child is so different. Each family is also different. Meeting the needs of the parents and the child can be a difficult adjustment, but even if it takes a few months you figure out what works best for you and you go with it.
If you consider cosleeping read a variety of articles on how to do it safely. It has a lot of benefits for parents as well as the babies.
For us it actually helped us be more intimate. We got to enjoy watching our daughter sleep, and after we'd transfered her to her crib we were more in the mood for relations than ever before. (We are a very active couple and cosleeping didn't stop us! We just moved the baby out of our bed and into her crib when we wanted time for ourselves).
It can be very calming to watch your child sleep together. For us, it drew us closer together. My husband finds it sexy to watch me care for our children. We feel very bonded together as a family and enjoy morning snuggles with our children. We are just hoping that our youngest will soon enjoy these times without being an escape artist :).
I can't tell you if you should or should not cosleep. There are just way too many variables in play. If you or you partner consume alchohol or smoke in your bed then I'd definitely suggest NOT cosleeping. If you take sleeping medication or if you are on the couch with your baby there is a greater chance your infant will suffocate.
If you and your spouse have healthy habits and have removed dangers from your bed, then cosleeping can provide you with a lot of great benefits ~ for your whole family.
In the end you just have to know what's right for YOU.
(By the way sometimes Moms are way more sexually driven than the Dad's are... and in our family we follow very traditional roles so I'm certainly no liberal man beating woman... perhaps people think you are ranting due to how your question is worded?)
We did just fine with it - mainly because we had a child that didn't sleep as it was, so we took shifts, and if she would sleep between us, great (and no, it wasn't because she was babied, she has brain damage issues and it is purely a medical behavioural thing - she takes meds to sleep now)... with the second, there are times she will come to bed with us, but not often.
But, co-sleeping, parenting, playing with the kids, etc., can all cause the same issues with couples. It isn't all sleeping arrangements. A spouse could feel neglected over not being the center of attention anymore, or any of the time management problems that comes with being a parent and doing you best at it.
Do I feel I'm neglecting our marraige? NO... Our sex life? Not a bit. There are times the kid isn't in bed, afternoon nap times, shower times, etc.... and actually, I'm the one that wants "it" in the middle of the night, so I'd be the deprived one. We have an extremely active sex life, talk constantly, and still manage to focus on our kids wholeheartedly. I guess it's easier because we are great friends, have enough differences to make it interesting, and an off the charts sex drive that is definately because we do communicate openly, and were honest and got to know eachother before we got married (not necessarily before we became parents - damn sex drive). If you struggle anyways, maybe dividing the time or attention, rather, would be a problem, but when you are two of the same mind, and are working together, it is an experience you share, not get left out of.
But, yes, I missed the middle of the night "roll overs"... then again, our oldest will be 12 this summer, and the baby is 6 1/2 months, so maybe I should continue to miss them
Intamacy can happen in many places other than the bedroom at bedtime.
I co-slept with my son for 8 months, my husband and I loved it and plan on doing it again with our soon to be daughter. It created a new kind of intamacy as a family unit.
My husband and I found other crative ways to be alone together, snuggle, have sex, whatever. Got a friend to watch baby twice a month so we could go for dinner.
I feel bad for all the couples who only know how to be close and / or intimate during the nighttime hours when in bed.
Co-sleeping is something that a family needs to decide. Where do you get off thinking that it is the women's decision, that the women is depriving the man blah blah blah?
PS: my son sleeps through the night in his own bed now, he is not and never has been "clingy", he is confidant and independant. I am so sick of all the people who says kids who sleep in parents bed end up clingy and insecure for life. Bullsh*t.
I'm a co-sleeping Mom & I get plenty of intimacy with my husband. We still have sex 3-5 times a week. Sure, our marriage will be around a lot longer than our child will live @ home, but our child will also only be a child once. Our marriage is strong enough to put our child first for a while. Besides, it's kinda fun having to be creative about when & where we'll have sex next.
Well, we don't co-sleep, but when we had an infant, two toddlers, and a kindergartener in the house you could certainly have accused my husband and I of not having much intimacy. An infant will keep you exhausted and occupied for most of the night regardless of where they're sleeping.
Our marriage seems to have survived just fine. I'm sure the co-sleepers' marriages will, too.
edit -- lol, secretso, i'm glad you're having a satisfying sex life with kids, but there's no need to give other people a hard time. people do have different levels of sex drive, and what's important to most young couples in their early 20s is not always equally important at every phase of a decades-long commitment. i've got four kids, and obviously that implies some intimacy, lol. i'm also very happy with my marriage and love nothing better than a "date" with my husband of 13 years (we've been together for almost 20). it's okay if there have been times in my marriage where sex wasn't a priority ... love certainly always has been. and if you wouldn't be happy with a marriage where that ever happened, that's fine, too. it's not as if we have to be married to each other!