Help with side car cot

[Sunshinegirl82]

Hello,

I've written here before about DS's sleep. He is nearly 13 months and has never slept through (or come close really). He is rocked to sleep (after bath, story, breastfeed) and put in his cot where he settles fine for the initial part of the night (usually around 7pm to 10pm). He has a dummy and sleepytot to which he is quite attached.

He will then wake and want to breastfeed. After this he will usually resist going back in the cot so we often co-sleep from that point on. He generally wake a further 2 times (between 1 and 2 and between 3 and 4) he is up for the day between 5 and 6. When he wakes he won't resettle until breastfed.

Any attempts to get him to settle in the cot from awake result in lots of tears and him physically fighting to get up and reaching for me through the bars. He will not even lie down.

I have tried night weaning but he was distraught and still awake at 2am after waking at 10pm so it seemed to me that he was not ready and we decided to wait a couple of months before trying again. In addition I am returning to work (part time) in a couple of weeks and I felt this wasn't a good time to remove a source of comfort for him.

I'm not keen on sleep training or with anything that causes more than very minor crying.

With this in mind I think our only option moving forward is to sidecar a cot to our bed in an attempt to very slowly get him used to it whilst still providing the closeness/comfort he is clearly looking for. We have resisted doing this until now as our room is simply not big enough and we will have to completely rearrange who sleeps in what room and relocate half our furniture to get make it work. We will also have to buy a second, smaller cot.

How do people make a sidecar cot work? I'm concerned that he could wake up and crawl out of the cot if we leave him in it? But if we put him to sleep in his current cot in his room I'm not sure we'll be making much progress? What do people do about naps?

I was planning on getting him to settle in the sidecar cot and then slowly reduce the amount of support I give to him with this (over weeks or months not days) has anyone had success with this approach?

Any advice or experience welcome!

[FATEdestiny]

The difficulty you have here is coming to a sidecar cot way to late. I used a sidecar cot from birth. By 6 months the side was back on, by 10 months the mattress base lowered and by 12 months I was working at independant sleep. So you are coming to start using the sidecar cot at a time I would be ending its use. I therefore speak hypothetically here.

The issues you have at 13 months are going to be much he same as safety when cosleeping. I assume baby is mobile, is he climbing on and off stuff? Can he climb up stairs (that's a good indication he can learn to climb off the bed)?

To stop a baby rolling out of the sidecar cot without realising (like when asleep) you can use a pool noodle under the bottom sheet. It makes a sharp enough edge to wake baby when rolling over it.

You then may have the is due of baby climbing over the sides of the cot. You could do with lowering the base of the cot mattress to make the sides higher. This then means that baby's mattress is not the same height as your bed, so you can't cuddle up on the same surface.

It does still mean you can lean down into the cot easily for in-cot settling. You could put the side back on and do this more safely with the cot next to your bed, not as a sidecar.

Or if you want to maintain mattress heights matching, but with higher sides on the cot, you would need to raise the height of the whole cot. Placing it on boxes for example, so the whole cot is lifted to match your bed mattress.

There's then the question of baby being awake and crawling off the bed. The safest way to avoid this is to stay in the room with baby when sleeping. You could also consider a very sensitive baby monitor and leg-it upstairs as soon as you hear baby first stirting awake.

Obviously you would also need to stay with baby whilst going to sleep, until child is fully asleep. This is part of the whole point of a sidecar cot though, so I assume this isn't a problem.

You could also work on teaching baby to safely climb off the bed. Mine weren't far off this age when they could slide, belly down and feet first, off the edge of the bed and onto floor safely.

Add some cushions on the floor around the bed, to great any accidental falls. But remember that babies are fairly resilient. Of course yoy want to avoid falls off the bed, but actually loads of parents have stories of when their young toddler has fallen off stuff. It happens and usually isnt the end of the world.

[Sunshinegirl82]

I know it's not ideal starting now but he was in the Snuzpod until 6 months and I was hoping that he would naturally reduce night feeds and therefore night wakings as time went by and weaning picked up but obviously that's not happening!

Baby is mobile (crawling, pulling up and standing but not walking) and can climb stairs fairly easily!

I think our plan is to put our mattress on the floor with cot on lowest setting (we have a pretty deep mattress) and then possibly cut the legs of the cot down a bit if necessary! Hopefully that will still create the ability to settle in the cot and minimise the risk of a fall. I will also put a stair gate on our door. We have a video monitor so will keep an eye on him via that.

Other than sleep training or permanant co-sleeping I can't think of another option to try. I'm not against bed sharing but due to size of our bedroom we have a standard double which is pretty tight with two adults and a big rolly baby!

[FATEdestiny]

Putting your mattress on the floor is a great idea. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

[Sunshinegirl82]

Well, we've been to IKEA and bought the gulliver cot which is now in the toddler bed configuration next to our mattress on the floor! I have just got him off to sleep in it, had to lie across the divide and give lots of cuddles as well as repeatedly lying him down but he's asleep with only a tiny bit of whinging so we shall see what happens!

[Sunshinegirl82]

Anyone out there got any tips on how to get baby to learn to lie down?! We seem to have a real battle at the moment, if I lie him down he immediately springs up and starts trying to crawl/pull up on the cot. I'm lying right next to him cuddling him so it's not that he is lacking affection or attention.

I have tried putting a firm hand on him but he just struggles to get up and cries. He also cries when I repeatedly lie him down. I swear my child hates sleep!!

[teaandbiscuitsforme]

How blacked out is your room?

[Sunshinegirl82]

We have black out curtains and I shut the door but it isn't pitch black, I could probably black it out further.

[FATEdestiny]

if I lie him down...

Can he lie himself down? Physical developments vary from child to child, but I'd expect a 13 month old to be able to go from standing up sitting to lying down.

If he can then I woukdnt lie him down at all - for bedtime, naptime or anything. He is of an age now where he has his own mind, will understand lots of what you say even if he doesn't have the words to reply, and he can learn to follow instructions.

Practice instructions in the daytime. Bring me the ball, take this to the kitchen, put this on the table, put your you away in the toy box... and so on.

Then in bed, teach him to follow the instruction. Tap the bed and say "lie down", lots of positive reinforcement when he follows the instruction (likewise with all those above for when practicing).

Once lying down, could you put your arm over him in a cuddle? My cuddles would involve an arm over the torso and holding around the back. Face to face, get his attention and eye contact. Lots of positive reinforcement and keeping his focus on you.

[Sunshinegirl82]

He can lie himself down if he wants to. He will sometimes go from sitting to trying to lie down on me (I think because he is used to being held and rocked).

I will practise giving him instructions in the day and see if I can encourage him to lie down of his own accord. He just fights sleep so much (which is why we rocked in the first place). He'll keep himself awake even when completely shattered. He does things like taking his dummy out just as he is dropping off in order to wake himself up then crying because he doesn't have it!

[Sunshinegirl82]

Well 35 mins of laps round the cot, standing up then sitting down, throwing himself on top of me whilst I repeated "lie down, lie down" whilst laying on the bed and eventually he lay down and went to sleep! It's the closest we've got ever to self settling so I'm taking that as a win!