Sleeping with the enemy

After the vomfest of the junk, Eve slept through the night for the first time, a whole 9 hours. I, of course, only slept 6 and then lay there waiting for her to wake up!

This was only achieved, I must confess, because for most of it Eve was asleep on me. Among Eve's many qualities is having a lot of wind and needing to fart a lot. A few weeks ago she was waking herself up a few times a night with it because she can't pass it lying on her back. Each time I would get up, pop her on her front for half an hour until it was over, and then put her back down. It started to piss me off so, after one such night, I just put her on her front on me and fell asleep. We both slept for 4 hours.

The cot death research means that putting her on her front in her cot is really stupid and dangerous so, if she needs to sleep on her front then on me is the only option.

Every baby book says that babies should sleep in their cots, and sleeping with their parents means they will never be able to independently sleep. As a result, I tend not to tell people that I do this. I con myself that because Eve goes down in her cot each night (only to be taken out 2 hours later when the farts appear) that she is not getting into bad habits, but let's face it she much prefers sleeping on warm soft mummy than in her cot.

Everytime I tell anyone I do this they look aghast and I get comments like "you are making a rod for your own back", and some people look at me with such horror that you would think I left her rolling in her own poo in the gutter.

Until yesterday at baby group. We were talking about routines and I rather proudly said Eve slept through the night. All eyes turned to me "How?". I confessed that she sleeps on top of me so I had sort of been cheating. A small voice next to me piped up "I do that too, he sleeps much better like that". Someone across the room then said "I was feeling so guilty but I do it too, I need to sleep". The session then turned into a scenario akin to an AA meeting "Hi, my name is Yummy Mummy and my baby sleeps in my bed".

After trying to get her to stay on her back last night, and waking up with her crying for an hour, I no longer care. Perhaps when she is 18 and will still only sleep with her mummy I will care, but right now I need my sleep too much too.