#71- Don't bug the baby

It's taken 3 newborns to figure this one out; my two oldest children slept beside our bed for the first 3 months (with Rosalie, nearly 4) of their lives. This, we thought, was easiest. 
They wake up, I don't even have to get out of bed to feed them, we all go back to sleep, everyone is happy. Or at least I assumed this was the best possible scenario, often I would find myself feeling frustrated at the baby having a 'rough' night where he or she was waking up 5 or more times during the night to eat and being impossible to put back down, but I would tell myself that it could have been so much worse if I had to trek across the house to retrieve the little one and sit in a cold rocking chair to feed for 20 minutes.

Oliver was quite a noisy sleeper in his first couple weeks of life, grunting, sighing, sniffing, whimpering; we tried different things, thinking he was too close to the window, too sensitive to the light, in the wrong sleeping position, just wanted to be held, wasn't swaddled tight enough, didn't like swaddling, etc etc, it was also very difficult to get him to STAY sleeping once we got him down at night. Finally one night we decided to try and see how it would go to put him to bed in the crib in the toy-room.
BY HIMSELF.
We didn't hear from him after we got him down for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS (in case you have never been a parent of a breastfed newborn, this is a very long time) of course when I woke up and looked at the clock I completely panicked and ran to his room to see if he was still alive, which of course woke him up and I proceeded to feed the certainly starving little chubster, and ever so carefully put him back down and didn't hear from him again till morning, 3 hours later.
We thought we must have just gotten lucky, but it's been over a week now and he consistently has been sleeping at night for up to 5 hours straight at a time before waking up to eat.

And it has dawned on me; I think I was the one waking him up, not the other way around!
For the first few weeks, there is nothing lovelier -and definitely beneficial- as snuggling and sleeping with your baby, and being always very near. In fact, I think it's an essential part of a newborns development and creating a close bond and trust to you. 
However after the baby has regained his birth weight and then some, breastfeeding is established, and there is some kind of pattern to his sleep schedule, more often than not  the baby does not need to eat every 2 hours round the clock, especially if he is eating every 2 hours during the day. (this is not medical advice, only my experience with my children) with Isaac I automatically fed him whenever he seemed cranky and irritable, and at night it seemed the best way to get him back to sleep, which was true. but now I'm realizing that not every sigh and whimper through the night means hunger. I think I was afraid of moving Oliver sooner because I thought i wouldn't be able to hear him. Trust me, unless you are an incredibly deep sleeper, if you find yourself waking up to your baby snuffling and sniffling, you will definitely wake up to the sound of your baby crying because he or she is hungry. But often the baby is just sorting things out on their own before settling back to deep sleep. A healthy, growing baby will let you know when they are hungry!

So all this to say; we are ALL sleeping better, it's kind of sad for me because I did enjoy having Oliver so close to us during the night, but in my groggy states of waking up during the night and grabbing him and fumbling around to feed or comfort, I think I was really just bugging him more often than not and he just wanted to go back to sleep!

Of course I know there will be stages where he is up a whole lot during the night (I haven't forgotten growth spurts and teething!) and in those times we will keep the bassinet by the bed just in case, but for the most part, I think this has been the solution for us!:)
Good luck to anyone who wants to try this, and to new moms I'd say, if the thought of moving your newborn out of your room seems too much, maybe just try even moving them to the end of your bed instead of right next to you, or across your room, so they are still with you, but not 'cheek to cheek' so that you wake up to every grunt. Also as a sidenote; I know many mothers do co-sleep and everyone does just fine and sleeps even better! I am not condemning this practice at all, whatever works and keeps mom, dad (dont' forget about dad) and baby happy for the first while! But if you are having a hard time with a noisy sleeper, it can't hurt to try it one night! Your baby may surprise you!