It's funny how before you have kids you have this set of ideas on how you think your life is going to be and how you are going to raise your children once you have them. Once they are actually here though, all those strict ideas you had get thrown out the window and you do what you have to do to get by. I had a lot of those ideas.
When Cameron was born I was dead set against soothers, formula, and bedsharing. I lost the battle with the first two early on. Cameron was a good nurser, but he had trouble latching on properly, resulting in agony for me every time I fed him. It didn't take long before I started to dread every feed and I would run long errands with him in the car seat just to keep him asleep. I toyed with the idea of formula but I somehow felt like I was failing him if I gave up and so I started pumping. This gave me the break I needed from him but it was so much work.
One night when I had no more milk pumped and I was in tears from the pain, I broke down and gave him a bottle of formula. I cried the entire time feeling like a complete failure. The next day however I realized that I could do both for awhile, just until things got better and it really wasn't such a big deal. I didn't need to be quite so stubborn. Our nightly bottle of formula saved me from a great deal of pain and frustration and allowed me to get through a pretty rough spot. By 4 months old Cameron was nursing well and started refusing the bottle and we went on to nurse for almost 2 years. I realized formula was not the horrible thing I had made it out to be, but I was glad I was able to ditch it after awhile, man that stuff is expensive!
It was around the time that nursing improved that I gave in to the soother. For months my dad kept telling me to get him a soother and I kept telling him "he doesn't need it". I had heard they were bad for their teeth and that if not taken away at a young age caused speach delays. Since I was still struggling to breasfeed I just didn't want him to need one. Eventually though, I got tired of being a human soother stuck on the couch from 4pm-midnight nursing almost non-stop. I was going crazy.
The first time I forced the soother on him I felt guilty and I was actually kind of relieved when he rejected it, but as I got more and more tired of being stuck on the couch I got more and more insistent with him that he take the soother. The day he finally took to it, life became so much better for all of us. I could finally put him in his bouncy chair and leave the couch I had been stuck on for so long. The magic of the "nuky" as it was called, was powerful. It helped him sleep better, he was less fussy, and when it came time to drop his night feeds, it got us through with minimal crying. After he weaned just before his 2nd Birthday, the magic nuky allowed us to put him to bed without a huge struggle and when he hurt himself it comforted him. It did not hinder his language skills at all, in fact he was an early talker and was speaking in full comprehensible sentaces by the time he was 2. Soothers were not the evil contraption I had made them out to be, they were wonderful.
Shortly after Cameron's 2nd Birthday however I did notice that his teeth were suffering a bit of damage from his soother habit. His bottom teeth were starting to push in from him sucking so hard, so we decided it was time to let it go. I had been dreading this as he was so attached to it I thought we would be in for a huge strugggle, but it went better than expected. I resorted to bribing him with a fire truck he had his eye on and he said goodbye to his "nuky" a lot easier than I expected. It thankfully didn't take long after that for his teeth to straighten.
Unfortunately without the soother, bedtime was no longer easy. Cameron needed something other than his soother to comfort him, and now that comfort item was mommy again. At 18 months we had moved Cameron into a loft bed, and he wanted mommy or daddy (usually mommy) to lie down in his bed with him while he fell asleep. This was difficlut, especially after I was pregnant with baby#2, and so we moved Cameron into our bed. He would cuddle and fall asleep in our bed with me, and then when daddy came to bed he would be moved into his own bed. We were hoping to wean him off this by the time #2 arrived but it just didn't happen. At 3 1/2 he still falls asleep in our bed most nights, and then is moved over to his room once asleep. It's a bad habit but it works for us.
When Paige came along I thought I had everything all figured out, I had done it all before and I knew what I was doing now. I was in for surprise. Paige was a completely different child and all the things that had worked for us with Cameron, did not work for her.
When Cameron was a newborn he slept in a bassinet beside my bed, and when he outgrew that he was moved into a playpen at the foot of the bed until he was sleeping through the night. At 12 months he finally moved into the crib in his room. He was always a really good sleeper and had 3-4 naps in the day and slept 5-6 hour stretches at night. Paige I thought would be the same and we would try the same sleeping arrangements.
Right from the start, things were different. Paige was not much of a sleeper, would not take a soother no matter how many times we tried, and was a much better nurser. She spent most of her days awake, only having 10 minute naps here and there. I was exhausted. She made up for it at night though. At 6 weeks old she started sleeping through the night, 8 hours and first and then 12 hours. I could not beleive my good fortune. I was so sleep deprived in my early days with Cameron and here we were only 6 weeks in and I was getting a full nights sleep.
All good things must come to an end though and 6 weeks later she was waking every half hour. I had been spoiled those last 6 weeks and the ubrupt change from full nights sleep to almost no sleep was very difficult. This is when my final reservations against bed sharing crumbled. I was too tired to keep going and Paige was brought into our bed, and we all finally slept. Within a few weeks we were back down to 1 or 2 night wakings and my bleary eyed zombie days were over, well that is unless I have been up half the night with insomnia, but that's a whole different story.
So here we are in the market for a new bed, and Eric suggested getting a king sized bed so we can fit both kids if needed. I don't think that is the answer though, I suggested getting double so we have more of an excuse to kick both kids out. It is awfully nice having them snuggled up with us though, and it won't last forever, so for now we will keep our Queen sized bed and continue with what we are doing and enjoy them.
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