I am a co-sleeper. I didn't really plan on being one, and Brian and I never even discussed it before Alyssa was born, but once she arrived we found that we just couldn't put her down at night. She was like a glorified pet that you beg your mother to let you have sleep in your bed. Except that she didn't have fleas. So while we were in the hospital, Alyssa spent much of her non-eating hours sleeping on Brian's chest, and she continued to sleep there at night when we brought her home. Our first night out of the hospital, Brian and I actually fought over who got to hold her when we went to bed.
Ethan also slept in our bed, but he and Alyssa slept differently from each other. Alyssa wanted to stretch and move when she was awake, but she refused to sleep if she wasn't snuggled next to a warm body. Ethan is our cuddler, but halfway through the night, even as a newborn, he would want his own space, so we would put him in a bassinet beside the bed.
In our family, it's when the baby reaches about six or seven months old and begins to take up more space in the bed that Brian announces that he's not getting very good sleep, and the baby needs to move to a crib. And that's when my sleep goes down the hole. I know a baby is supposed to be able to sleep through the night around three or four months, but because my babies get used to nursing whenever they please, they don't. So I put the baby to bed, and then I'm up three, four...ten times a night with a crying baby who just wants to eat and go back to sleep.
So now that baby number three is coming soon, and Ethan is still in the crib, we needed to have a place for our baby to sleep. He'll sleep with us at night-time, but we need a safe place for him to nap, and then a safe place for him to transition to when Brian starts losing sleep. But I'm hoping that this time around, when the baby gets kicked out of our bed, I won't start losing sleep too.
I mentioned before that we looked at the Arm's Reach Co-Sleepers, and weren't too pleased with them. Then I started looking at the play yards with bassinets, but upon reading the guidelines for them, once we'd be ready for the baby to move in to the bassinet permanently, he'd be grown out of it.
I went to bed on Thursday very depressed and confused. Brian had all sorts of suggestions, like putting the baby to sleep in a drawer, box, or laundry basket, (His sister actually made a very cute bassinet out of a large laundry basket with her last little girl.) but none of his suggestions met my criteria for the perfect baby bed.
Then on Friday Brian came home from school just before we left to take Alyssa to kindergarten, and he mentioned they were having a yard sale at the Hinman House just up the street. We walked on over on the way to Alyssa's school, and there in the driveway was a beautiful, three-sided crib. Actually, it does have four sides, but one of them is currently off, which is how I'm going to leave it.
I measured it all out. There is exactly enough space in our bedroom to put the changing table against the wall, the crib next to that, and the bed next to the crib. We'll leave that fourth side open, giving us our very own co-sleeper. We'll have to put the fourth side back on when the baby gets older and can pull himself up. We wouldn't want him crawling onto our bed during nap time and falling off onto his head.
So that was a very long and drawn out (or shall I say protracted? Who had Mr. Bullert at CBC?) way of saying we bought a crib for the baby. And even if my reasoning doesn't make much sense, it's exactly what I was looking for without even knowing I was looking for it. I've been looking at bedding sets online (those puppies go up to $900, just for a blanket, bumper pad, and crib skirt!) and couldn't find anything that I really like. So now I'm excited to make the bedding for it, and I can't wait until it's time to set it up.
