Thus far, we have been a co-sleeping family. The night Nova was born she snuggled up to me and we both fell asleep in our queen size bed.
Cale’s Mom very kindly purchased a co-sleeper for us as a gift and I love it! It is so handy for easing parental fears such as, “Am I going to roll over on my baby?!” because the answer was, “Nope!” the co-sleeper was great but it turned our queen bed into more of a twin since it takes up quite a lot of space. Not to mention that our little lady would wake up every hour and a half or so and fuss before falling back asleep, plus she would squirm around until her legs were completely off of the sleeper and I’d spend most of the night putting her back into it.
We decided to put the co-sleeper aside and instead made her a little fortified pillow fort. It gave us a bit more room and she seemed to sleep more fitfully, usually only waking once or twice, making a few grunting/fussing noises and then falling back into deep sleep. Great!
Then about a week ago I fell asleep with her while she was nursing at around 10:30pm…and we didn’t wake up until 6:30am!!!! This was our most successful sleep! I couldn’t believe it! So we scrapped the pillow as well and just cuddled. The only problem is that aside from that one night when I must have been exhausted, I haven’t had great sleeps. She sleeps like a rock but I find myself waking often, afraid that I’m going to roll or pull the blankets weirdly or something else equally as scary for baby.
So…tonight we are trying to see how she sleeps in her playpen, which has been in our room, pulled up to the side of our bed since her birth. She’s got her pjs on and she’s swaddled and I even threw a thin blanket on her to make sure she’s warm.
I LOVE sleeping with her, but I recognize that I’m no good to her on no sleep. Ha! So, this is an experiment to see how she sleeps on her own. I’m partly trying to get a little more sleep for me, but also making sure that she is getting the best sleep also. If she ends up waking me at 2am and 4am and 6am then I’ll bring her back to bed with me. But if she sleeps well through the night then I’ll know to trust that this is a good sleeping arrangement and we can cuddle during her many daytime naps.
So far she’s sleeping well! I think this first night I won’t get much rest, but we’ll see. I’m sure we’ll have many more Sleepytime Adventures over the course of her life. 
this is only the beginning.
