Hi all,
I am a new mama and new to the boards. I started reading The Baby Book by Dr. Sears during my pregnancy and felt that AP makes the most sense to me -- it feels the most natural and "right" Anyway, we didn't intend to co-sleep from the beginning, but we had a really rough start breastfeeding and he lost a bunch of weight, etc so co-sleeping worked the best for us so I could get to him when he woke up but before he started crying, to promote skin-to-skin and bonding, and also to get us all in a horizontal position for more than an hour. Now we're addicted and our little boy is 12 weeks old and growing and thriving. There's just nothing better than waking up next to a smiling baby!

I do have some questions though....and please forgive me if they are dumb questions, I am new to this! Right now he doesn't have a set bedtime. Because we are co-sleeping, he just goes to sleep when we are ready to go to bed (or later...haha). So we're talking like 10:30, 11 or later most nights. He doesn't really have consistent naptimes either. I am not trying to put him on a schedule, but I think a little more structure would be good, yes? How do I get him to go to sleep without having to put myself in bed at the same time? I don't know how this works when co-sleeping. I would like to put him down at like 8pm and then come in a few hours later to retire for the night. Does this make sense?

And how do you do naptimes when co-sleeping? It seems like he will only nap in my arms or occasionally his swing.

I don't believe in CIO at all, but no one seems to have any advice other than "Just put him in bed when it is bedtime, let him cry himself to sleep. It'll be terrible but you'll get used to it." That's just not an acceptable solution for me.

So I kind of rambled...in short, how do I put him in bed without going to bed myself? He only seems to sleep when touching me.

Thanks for your help!!!