My baby doesn't sleep through... and why we co-sleep

All the books/google suggest that babies will sleep through the night before the age of six months. Some even from three months old.
My baby does not sleep through the night... at all. Not ever! And he is nine months old.

The thing is, I'm kind of OK with it.
Sure I miss a full nights sleep (OK I a lot miss a full nights sleep).
Sure I do sometimes wish I didn't get woken at night, and on particularly rough nights (thanks teething) I'm practically praying for him to stay in his bed for the night.

BUT I know this won't last forever.

He isn't always going to want me. To cuddle me. To fall asleep in the comfort of my arms.
Yes we co-sleep. Every single night.
Sometimes it's from 2:30am. Sometimes from 1am. Occasionally from 11pm. Every so often, from 10:30pm.
Always until 5am. Sometimes until 6am! You know if we're super lucky.

The thing is I really do love co-sleeping.
Yeah I'll be the first to admit that I was worried about it to begin with, and more so to even admit it. Because we all know how judgemental people can be. But I'm now at a time in motherhood where I feel comfortable in my abilities to make a good decision for the welfare of my son and don't feel like I doubt myself, or need to have my decision backed up.

No co-sleeping isn't for everyone. But it is no where near as bad as many people will have you believe.
You'd be surprised how well in tune your body can be with your baby. I personally ensure that Henry can't slip down the bed and under the covers, I pin the duvet underneath my arm so it can't ride up. I lock my arm under him so I can't roll onto him, and when he was tiny and I was just starting out co-sleeping (we didn't start co-sleeping until Henry was around four months) I'd use my v-pillow as a barrier too.

The thing is, everyone sleeps better in our house when we co-sleep. Our night feed is nicer as we can cuddle in our bed and then snuggle down to sleep straight afterwards. I feel like we have this great bond, and because Dann also co-sleeps with Henry, they have it too. It's just something our family does that makes us close, makes us happy. Of course, this bond, could be completely imagined too. But I do know we have a cuddly little boy, and that is a-okay with me.

Perhaps we're lazy. But getting up 10 times in an hour just does not do it for me. And to be honest, I don't think Henry would appreciate it either. Perhaps we're not tough enough. But I prefer my battles in daylight, and after a cup of tea. Perhaps I'm trying to cling on to that newborn phase for a teeny bit longer. But then who can really blame me, they do grow up faster than anyone can believe.

It's sleep safe week (13-19 March 2017) so I thought this post was most timely. Because yes it is always, always important to ensure your babies safety whilst sleeping, but that doesn't mean that bed sharing is not, and can not be safe too.

If you enjoyed this post - you may also like this one from Harriet at Toby and Roo who helped inspire this post!

If you're looking for more posts of safe sleeping, check out Kirsty and how she has her baby in his own room, Georgina's co-sleeping story, Rebecca's two sleep stories with two babies, and Jenna's sleep routines for baby no.1 and baby no.2 and Lucie's take on not being able to co-sleep at all.

Also I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not over the moon with these photos that Dann took, because they are basically awesome!