Who needs a crib?

When I was expecting my first baby, I went around gathering up all the necessary baby things like any expectant mother would. I got the carseat, baby clothes, blankets, diapers, a bassinet, a baby swing, changing table, and of course most importantly (after the carseat) the crib. Or so I thought.

A little while before Gabe was born, we set up all the various baby furniture and the "nursery" was ready!

For the first five months, Gabe slept happily in his infant bassinet. It was just the right size; he felt secure. And the sides were low, so it was easy to lower our slumbering baby into his bed.

Then came the transition to the crib. It was a nightmare. No matter what we tried-- and we tried for a long time (or what felt like a long time to two sleep-deprived parents)-- he would not stay asleep in that crib. Our son would be absolutely miserable in jail...

About this time, I was hearing from a lot of mothers online who were co-sleeping with their babies. It seemed like such a perfect solution! Baby won't sleep in his crib? Just lay him down with you in your bed and he'll sleep like...well, like a baby! Okay, that's simplifying the process a bit, but that's the basic idea. I mentioned it to Nick and we decided to try it.

Gabe loved it. I set up firm rounded pillows between me and the baby and Nick and the baby, and for once we all had a good night's sleep. Gabe did have a few night wakings, but they were easily managed by me nursing him in bed, or sometimes simply popping the binky back into his mouth.

I started laying down with him for naps, too. We got some criticism for this: "How is he going to go to sleep for a babysitter if he's so used to sleeping with you?" A valid point, perhaps, but really how often did he have to go to sleep for a babysitter? Rarely. Travel did pose a bit of a problem, since usually we had only double or maybe queen beds to sleep in, and we were used to a king at home. But, we survived.

We slept happily like this for a little past his first birthday. Then around 13-14 months, Gabe learned to climb up over the pillows to get to me, which I did not appreciate. He became a more restless sleeper, turning in his sleep until he had his feet digging into Nick's back, and his head into mine. Co-sleeping had lived out its usefulness; it was time to get our boy back into his own bed.

I felt pretty confident that trying to put him back into the crib (which we were stubbornly holding onto for the next baby) would not be a good idea. What else was there? Well, we had a toddler bed that we had bought at a yard sale; we decided to use that.

To make Gabe feel more comfortable through this transition (and to keep him from rolling out), I used the same round pillows that we had used in our bed, tucked on either side beneath the fitted sheet. I won't say the transition was an easy one, because it wasn't. But it was a whole lot less nightmarish than the transition to the crib had been. All-in-all, Gabe seemed to like his new bed. He liked that we could still be close to him as he lay in his bed. And while there were still nights where he ended up sleeing all night with us, for the most part he slept at least half the night in his own bed. By the time he was two years old, he was sleeping 95% in his own bed.

Sometime before Zac was born, we decided-- finally-- to get rid of the crib to make room for bunk beds.

Then along came Baby #2. Isaac was different. First off, he started out from Day 1 sleeping pretty much through the night. He would "tank up" on breastmilk for 2-3 hours before bed, and then just crash around 11 and sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning. He, like his brother, slept well in his bassinet. But he also grew out of the bassinet sooner than his brother did.

At four months, we moved him into a pack-n-play which Nick's mom had bought for us. He slept well in this, too, for a while, as long as the bassinet attachment was in. When he got too heavy, though, we started trying to lay him down in the playpen portion. Suddenly, our up-until-now through-the-night sleeper was waking constantly for the first couple hours every night, until we would finally give in and bring him to bed with us.

About this time, I-- being the foresightful mother that I am-- decided we should move Gabe to the bottom bunk of the bunk bed and put the toddler bed in storage to bring back out when Isaac was ready for it.

Since co-sleeping full-time had worked so well with Gabe, we decided to try it again with #2. But again, Zac proved to be a different sort of baby, and I found a couple things working against us this time: 1, Zac would not take a binky, so I could not simply pop a binky into his mouth to get him to go back to sleep without nursing; and 2, whereas Gabe seemed to sleep better and more deeply when he was with us, Zac seemed to become a much lighter and more restless sleeper when he was in our bed.

So I combatted the co-sleeping for a while, continuing to think that if I could just get him used to sleeping in the pack-n-play, that eventually he would come around. But it was also around this time that our baby developed object permanance and separation anxiety, and just like his brother before him he refused to sleep in solitary confinement.

So now, for the last 3-ish months, Isaac has slept in our bed. But I have to admit, whereas I actually enjoyed having Gabe sleep with us and enjoyed a better night's sleep because of co-sleeping, the same has just not been true this time around. Frequent night-wakings and Zac's insisting on nursing, even for just 2 seconds, have taken the joy out of it for me. Nick, too, is feeling a separation from not getting to sleep closer to his wife (since baby is between us).

So last night, we pulled the mattress down from off the top bunk (which first had to be cleared of a bunch of junk that had accumulated up there), and put it on the floor in Gabe's room (which is now "the boys'" room, I guess). I layed down with the baby and nursed him to sleep. An hour later, he woke again, crying for Mommy and I came and nursed him down again; nodded off for a while as I did so, but came back to bed and slept with my husband for a while. Then Gabe started crying and Nick went in and layed down with him and slept with him for a while. Can we say "musical beds"? Around 6:00 Zac woke up again and again I layed down with him and nursed him back to sleep. But, he actually slept for 7 hours in his own bed! So, even though it was an exhausting night, I do have high hopes that this will eventually be a GOOD THING.

And yet, our big bed feels somehow empty without a baby in it...