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Accidental co-sleeper desperate for help

8 replies

Missmummypenny · 20/01/2013 10:05

I really hope some of you expert Mum?s can help me, a clueless new mother, as I am getting desperate about my sons sleeping and my sanity. Before my son was born out of all the challenges that come with a newborn I hadn?t even considered not being able to get him to sleep on his own would be one of them. I?d not even heard any of my many friends with children mention ever having problems getting their LOs to sleep in their moses basket or an equivalent. I am desperate as my DH and I are currently co-sleeping with our son who is now 7 weeks (I know he is still very young), although I have no qualms about co-sleeping and have since read about all the benefits it can bring I am desperate for some sleep and some time without my son attached to me, I also desperately miss my DH even though we are still in the same bed. I really want to resolve this as I am starting to feel slightly resentful towards my beautiful, lovely son.

To give some background about how we came to accidently co-sleeping my son came by emergency C-Section which meant I couldn?t get up in the night to pick him up right away. The midwives in the hospital recommended I breastfeed my baby lying down while I healed, I should mention that although I am from the UK I am currently living abroad and they do not have the same reservations about co-sleeping as they do in the UK, therefore I started sharing my hospital bed with my new son. As I am from the UK, and have long heard about the dangers of sleeping in the same bed as your infant, I didn?t get any sleep as I was terrified I would roll on him so my DH and I tried to get him to sleep in the basinet provided by the hospital. As soon as we put him in he would just cry and cry, I have always been against letting babies cry so we would pick him up and eventual exhaustion would win out and he would be back in bed with me. I spoke to the midwives about co-sleeping and they reassured me that he would grow out of it after a couple of weeks.

He is still sleeping in our bed and he won?t be put down for naps during the day. I have tried everything, we have a co-sleeping crib attached to our bed, he won?t go in that, a moses basket, a sleephead and a car seat. While he has a few time slept for short periods of time in all of these the most seems to be 45 mins, and this seems to be luck of the draw that he decides that he will sleep, and then he just cries until one of us pick him up to soothe him, he?ll then go back to sleep but on one of us, if we try to put him back down he just cries again. I have also tried warming the basket or sleep head, putting him down when he?s sleepy, putting him down when he?s asleep, putting a t-shirt in that smells like me, white noise and Ewan the dream sheep. The one thing I don?t want to do is let him cry but it seems like if I don?t let him cry a bit I?ll never get anywhere but the very idea of this makes me feel sick with guilt. I should also mention he is mainly breastfed but we have started giving him one FF at night so I get a break and my DH gets some time with his son.

In terms of his sleep he sleeps fine during the day (obviously if he is on one of us) he has a morning nap of two hours, then again in the afternoon, then again early evening. All of these last between 2-3 hours. His night time sleep is more erratic and as the night goes on he sleeps less!

I am at my wits end as he seems to be getting worse not better. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the epic me me post can you tell I?m desperate??

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Collienova · 20/01/2013 10:36

I know exactly how you feel - I slipped into co-sleeping and bf to sleep for exactly the same reasons! My DD is now almost 10 months and she still doesn't go to sleep on her own. I have to tell you, he may grow out

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Collienova · 20/01/2013 10:40

...of it, but probably not before you lose your sanity! Some mums love the co-sleeping and feeding to sleep, but I'm now at a point where even that doesn't work so well anymore. DD is very mobile now and I have no plan B... If you cannot imagine doing this for another few months, you need to do something about it now. I would recommend the 'no cry sleep solution' by Elizabeth Pantley if you cannot bear the thought of letting your son cry. My thoughts are with you, I know how frustrating it is and how guilty you feel for wanting some time to yourself!

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SanneSannes · 20/01/2013 11:30

Hello, this sounds exactly like what we went through with DC2...the good news is that she is now almost 4 mo and things have improved tremendously! With both of my children i did not intend to co-sleep, but we were suddenly doing exactly that ... Especially DC2 was VERY attached to me, i initially enjoyed that but by the time she was 8 wo she started crying her heart out as soon as she was not attached to my breast and I felt that i need to do something about it (we tried a dummy but she spit that right in my face straight away!). We came to a point when she would only sleep ON me, not even next to me anymore and as i was terrified to harm her that meant i spent my nights sitting up with my eyes wide open for weeks, terrified i might drop her in a second of weakness when I would fall asleep. Needless to say i almost lost it during those days!! As all my friends seem to have miracle children who slept through straight away, i could not understand what was going on and felt like a massive failure. This is how things improved:
I binned the moses basket as it was obvious that she hated it. Got a thing called Sleepyhead where she seemed a lot more comfortable. I continuously tried to put her in there for her naps, but when she got too upset, allowed her to sleep on me to prevent that she would get overtired as then all hell would break lose....

Took her about a 2 weeks/when she was ca 10 weeks and since then she does only sleep in the Sleepyhead, also at nighttime.

To be honest i think a lot of it is developmental ... Some children are more attached to mum than others and whilst i was ready to kill anyone at the time who would tell me that eventually they would grow out of it, it is true, they do!!

Hang in there, but if co-sleeping is not something you enjoy, try to regularly give her a chance to fall asleep somewhere else than next to you and hopefully she will get used to it as my daughter did.

Also, i read various books on sleep to understand baby's sleep patterns better-the mixed bag ie the no cry sleep solutions book, millpond's sleep training book, etcthis all helped me understanding whats going on a bit better.

Sorry, way too long a post from me, hope this makes sense and helps!!

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SanneSannes · 20/01/2013 11:48

Sorry, just saw you have tried the sleepyhead!
In terms of naps, 45 minutes is actually a pretty good nap time for morning and afternoon naps, basically anything between 20-45 minutes counts as a nap, as long as he manages ca 90-120 minutes around noon time. How long does he stay awake between daytime naps? Usually they would be ready to sleep again after only 1 hour being awake after their nap at that age.

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Missmummypenny · 20/01/2013 13:32

Collienova it's good to hear i'm not the only one to have fallen into co-sleeping. Funny you mention the No Cry Sleep Solution I've just started reading it with hope...

SanneSannes you've made me feel hopeful, the Sleeplyhead is definitely where he has had the most sleep. Do you mind me asking where you put her down at night on it? Also did you pick her straight up to sooth if she started to cry on the Sleepyhead? And last question (sorry) did you put her to sleep in different places in the day and night?

I have been thinking that maybe I let him sleep to much during the day. He is not on a regular pattern but generally he has been waking about 7:30ish, he then has a nap from 9:30-10 till 12:30-1. He then is awake for about 2 hours and goes back to sleep, all his naps are between 2-3 hours with a waking time of 2 hours. After I read your post I got him up just now as he had been asleep for over 2 hours. Do you think he is getting to much sleep during the day?

Thank you both for your responses.

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SanneSannes · 20/01/2013 15:30

Hi Miss, she sleeps every night in the sleepyhead which we initially put in our bed between DH and myself. since last week we put her still in sleepyhead, but in her cotbed (still in our bedroom though).

Like you I cannot let her cry...however i actually believe that we disturbed DC1's sleep at the time by immediately picking him up at every grunt he made so i try hard now to give our daughter a chance to fall asleep by herself when she wakes at night-which works surprisingly often! If she does really cry, i pick her up, calm her down by holding her (we started out walking to sleep weeks ago, then slowly reduced this to rrocking and now holding until drowsy, then put her down into sleepyhead-if it doesn't work, back to holding her and repeat...it is a loooong process, but DC1 taught me that sleepless nights really do end at some point, and even better- you will forget how horribly exhausting they were!!

Re. Where my DC2 sleeps-i wanted to make sure that she is flexible and able to sleep in various places, without confusing her too much, so she usually has one nap in the sleepyhead, one in a sling, plus she only does the 2 hour midday-nap in the buggy. This works at the moment, but im bracing myself that it will all go to pots with the next sleep regression or when she just changes her mind....as i guess babies do sometimes ;)

I think it is very difficult to tell whether your son naps too long as i strongly believe that every baby is different, and i have heard of some who do not nap at all -but if i understood correctly, your DS wakes up by himself after ca 45 mts when he sleeps in the sleepyhead, but only longer if he sleeps on you? In this case I would let him stay awake after 45 mts, watch him closely for any signs of tiredness around 1-1.5 max hours later and then let him have another nap ideally in the basket/sleepyhead. Think most babies of that age will nap ca 5 hrs in total during the day, but as said, they are all different(and they dont read the books!!)

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iloveholidays · 20/01/2013 16:00

You poor thing. Have you tried swaddling? None of my DDs would sleep on their own without being swaddled until about 3 months old when their startle reflex subsided.

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Collienova · 20/01/2013 16:24

I have found that the better my DD sleeps during the day, the better the night sleep turns out, so I would be doubtful that your DS is sleeping too much during the day. I would watch the last nap, though, to make sure it's not too late.

SanneSannes is right about disturbing the sleep by picking up too early/at the slightest noise. The 'No cry sleep solution' also covers that along with some really helpful info about sleep cycles.

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