How My Wife And I Compromised On Co-Sleeping With Our First Baby

The following was syndicated from Quora for The Fatherly Forum, a community of parents and influencers with insights about work, family, and life.

I do not believe in co-sleeping but my partner does. I believe mom and dad’s room is their room, not the baby’s. How do we compromise?

The hanging crib.

Although we got ourselves a hanging crib for our firstborn due to the size of our cramped apartment, having a crib suspended above the foot of the bed turned to be a blessing in disguise. Whenever my wife needed to breastfeed our son in the middle of the night, I could press the crib — suspended from the ceiling by rope and a long spring — against the bed and my wife could lift him from the crib and put him to her breast. When he was returned, the gentle rocking and swaying on the ropes put him to sleep.

Whenever he woke up during the night, we could simply nudge the crib with our feet to set it swinging to rock him back to sleep. My in-laws had a bigger apartment when their first son was born, but they liked the hanging crib so much that they borrowed ours to hang it suspended from above the foot of our bed. When our daughter was born years later, in another apartment, we didn’t even have to think about another crib than our hanging crib.

Plus, since it we also had hooks in the living room ceiling for our hammock chairs, we could easily put the hanging crib in the living room.

I think this is the best compromise — your baby will sleep right over your bed, able to hear you and allow you to respond instantly, but without danger of getting squashed, soiling your bed, or keeping you from your sleep.

Martyn V. Halm is a fiction writer and professional confabulator. You can read more from Quora below: