Attachment parenting too successful?

[KatieLily12]

Hello all

We have a gorgeous 10 week old who is a little knock out- feeding is going pretty well at last, naps are finally happening & at night only wakes once or twice depending on how early she crashes out.

BUT despite the fact she sleeps in her nester on the bedside fine for nap time, she won't go down & stay down at night unless she's curled up with me. We co sleep & I love it & clearly so does she! She either yells till I give in as she's in such a state or sometimes goes down but wakes up distraught after about 30 mins.

Any thoughts or helpful experiences? I want to co sleep but not at 6.30- I need time with my partner & my adult life!

Thanks

[HappyAsASandboy]

I would make the bed safe (against the wall and bed guards), go to bed with her, the get up again when she's fallen asleep.

[KatieLily12]

Yes that's what we're now trying but I'd love her to go down independently like she does daytime. I keep passing out asleep the minute I lay down....!

[AngelDog]

You could try a sling. My 13 w.o. DS2 is like this, and he has all his evening sleep in the sling. He sleeps fantastically at night with me next to him. It does get better, and they do grow out of it (usually sometime after 12 weeks or so).

[KatieLily12]

Oh that's interesting about them growing out of it. Someone else said that the other day. She's just started doing this adorable 'reach and check' I'm there at night which I'm hoping is a sign of space to come. I had to laugh the other night, I was trying to sooth her back to sleep by rubbing her back and 'thwack!' I got a smack on the nose.

Right, so I'll feed you then shall I? :)

[Girlsville]

10 weeks is very little for a bedtime. Both of my dds were in a bouncer in the lounge with us or in my or dh's arms at that age. By 12 to 16 weeks they were both settling around 7 or 8 pm in their cots - hangin there for another few weeks.

[attheendoftheday]

I think I used to keep dd downstairs on my lap or in a sling during the evening at that age and just carry her up when I was ready. But my dd woke a lot more than you're describing, and I'd have been up and down all the time otherwise. When she was a bit older (4-6 months ish) I used to lie with her until she was asleep then transfer her into her pram in the bedroom, and bring her into bed when she woke during the night.

[KatieLily12]

Thanks everyone, that's really reassuring. I'd assumed things would get there but when you're desperate for a little bit of an evening, you start to wonder! She's getting there & thankfully is finally starting to sleep more. I had to train her to nap in the sling & now the need to sleep is greater than her need to be involved in my every waking hour! She was only getting ten hours sleep in a 24 hour period poor thing.

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Oh, she's just tiny. It feels like forever when you're in it with your first, but she will grow out of it in a blink. Honest. You can't make a newborn "too attached" to you.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

My DD didn't wake only once or twice in the night at 10 MONTHS. I am so . She is only just, at 2, sleeping more than 10 hours.

She is doing really well is the take home message.

[KatieLily12]

Thank you

I think the NCT group I'm in made me feel I should be getting her down in the evenings. It's all very frenemy

[waterrat]

When my DS was about 12 weeks ish we went away in a camper van - and he started sleeping and going down at 'bedtime' - which btw was still8/9 ish - much better than ever, and I realised it was because he was curled up so near us.

At 10 weeks that is early for 'bedtime' - why not just keep the baby up in the living room with you. I don't think anything you do until at least 3/4 months has the slightest impact on what happens later.

Actually we did a lot of co sleeping/ sling wearing - then at 6 months put him in his cot in his own room and it was very easy - took a few nights but he took to it fine - I would just relax and do whatever is easiest for all of you. Bed time is a made up modern construct anyway!

For thousands of years - most of the time humans have been on this planet - babies would have just slept on and off in slings / cuddled with parents - so there is nothign 'natural' about bedtime ...

[waterrat]

ps obviously if your baby naturally wants to sleep at 7 ish then go with it - but maybe keep her in the living room? Or in bedroom but with door open/ radio on/ wander in and out so she can hear you all?

[KatieLily12]

It's funny isn't it? There's all this pressure for babies to sleep. I get asked daily 'is she good? Does she sleep?' To which the answer is always yes & a change of subject. I feel that really, we're very lucky with her & the worst nights are when we fight it & try to get her down. I should imagine it'll work like the napping- she'll just suddenly be ok with being in the nester. She still needs soothing but not nearly as much & often I can put her down half asleep & rub her shoulders till she goes. It's if she hulk smashes the swaddle I'm in trouble. My word she gets angry. I'd laugh if I wasn't so panicked trying to calm her.

[BertieBotts]

At 10 weeks I didn't have a "bedtime" either, I just kept DS downstairs with me - we didn't have particularly wild evenings anyway, so I was usually on the laptop, watching something on TV or just chatting with friends etc.

When we went up to bed we would take him up. I started a bedtime kind of thing at around 8 or 9 months when he wanted to crawl around and had to be removed from everything 4798 times!

[rrreow]

Similar to other posters my DS didn't have a bedtime at that age either. He'd either be asleep in his carrycot wherever we were or breastfeeding (he used to cluster feed in the evenings). Then when we went to bed around 11 he'd come into bed with us. We introduced an actual bedtime for him around 10-11 months (bit late in hindsight, but it worked for us).

[KatieLily12]

I got really excited by the idea of her crawling bertiebots