How did you stop co-sleeping, and night feeding?

[alittleteapot]

We have happily co-slept with dd for her first year - it's been wonderful but, along with her inability to fall asleep without breast, it feels time to move things on. She still wakes frequently and I wonder if she's partly woken by us.

I'm wondering whether to go the very slowly slowly approach of trying to night-wean in the family bed or whether to go the whole hog and move her into her room. I'm not sure the former is possible as I'm bound to feed her in my sleep (and her to help herself) as is our habit. Feel sad about idea of moving her out of our room but think that might be more about her than me.

Hoping to try for no.2 v soon and want her to be more independent in plenty of time.

Would love to hear the experiences of others.

Thanks

[alittleteapot]

Sorry, I meant more about me than her...

[alittleteapot]

Bumping for those in bed when i posted last night!

[luvaduck]

have no experience of this but what happens between her going to bed and you -does she sleep alone for those few hours??

hopefully someone will be along shortly with advice

[alittleteapot]

Hi, yes she does though is fed to sleep and wakes every hour and needs to be fed back to sleep. it used to be every half an hour so things have improved alot. during the night once we were all in bed she used to sleep very well but since teething started is much worse. she has molars at the mo and last couple of nights it's felt like she's sucked all night long!

[luvaduck]

you must be exhausted
come on wise MNers!

[alittleteapot]

sure am

[soremummy]

Same situatiion as you atm. My dd is 14mths old and I have just bought the NO Cry Sleep Solution book and hoping that it will work It has good bits about b/f co sleeping babies and last night she only fed twice instead of her average 4/5 times only problem is trying to read the book to start with

[soremummy]

MrsBadger is using the book as well she told me to try it

[Tippychick]

Still have this problem at age 22 months so am VERY interested in responses. DD has never slept in a cot, not through my choice as such.
I likd the No Cry book but she was a bit vague on the co-sleeping/bf weaning front I found.
I'm hoping that when my daughter moves to full days at nursery at 2, she will be so tired she will fall asleep without feeding and it'll sort itself out. Or I will be feeding until my baps drop off

[MrsBadger]

I read the book in Costa while dd was asleep in the pram

I found the advice did sound a bit woolly if you don;t know what you want - you really have to work out what you want at each step, Make A Plan and choose your own strategies from the ones she suggests

and it does take time.

[soremummy]

MrsB we got some improvement last night from her.

[alittleteapot]

Hi, yes we read that when she was about 7/8 months when things were really bad and we considered sleep training before. Was persuaded after posting on here that i should hang in there and i'm really glad i did for the first year. the delatching has vastly improved the length of time to get her to sleep on the breast but has not got us closer to her self-settling. i think things are worse at the mo tho cos of the molars.

My current homemade strategy is to try and teach her a bit of sleep vocabulary so for example now when I say "big Yawn" she opens her mouth and pats her hand on it. I'm also doing a lot of stroking. But she is so determined to hang on to my boob, grabbing it in her sleep and pushing my hand away if i try to delatch that i think the only no-cry solution would be to wait till she's 5 and i don't want to do that!

i will re-read no-cry as DP read it last time - I didn't have time as was always in with dd!

[alittleteapot]

PS Tippychick, your nursery plan is probably right. dd is certainly alot more knackered since she started walking.

just thinking, i should wait till the latest molar is through. it's always when things are particularly bad that i think of doing something but actually we should do something when things are quite good, so it's not as hard a journey for any of us...

still interested to hear from ex-co-sleepers on whether they went just to cot or to own room.

[alittleteapot]

PS Again

Did any of you who've used No Cry successfully introduce a transition object? (Lovey doesn't she call it?)

[PhDlifeNeedsaNewLife]

hi alittleteapot, sorry to hear you are still having probs. my ds has settled down a lot very recently - once he passed 15m - but teething does set us back badly. And he only has the 1st 8 so we've a looooong way to go

good luck with it

[MrsBadger]

we tried and dd was mildly attached for a while but it wasn't the huge sleep cue we'd hoped for

[alittleteapot]

Thanks MrsBadger
Hi PhD - glad things are improving for you. how's the rest of it going? It's feeling like things are getting moving for me at last.

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

I found this article very helpful. DD was in a cot but joining us in bed really early (2am). I used these kind of techniques and she slept through really quickly.

[alittleteapot]

Ah, thanks for this. I've come across it before but it's great to hear from someone it worked for. I like the sound of it because he's attachment-parenting friendly, which is up my street.

[alittleteapot]

How many tears, Norma?

[luvaduck]

i've just looked at the website and listened to the radio piece with noah wyle about attachment parenting
just lovely

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

not many at all. One bad night. which was horrid and sooooooooo tiring. DH was a big help. But we are all nicer people as a result

[UpSinceCrapOClock]

Just to add our story (although not to say it is right you and your family!)

At about one yr old, we moved dd onto an adult single mattress on the floor, pushed right up against my side of the bed (duvets on the floor on the other side for the first wk or so but actually she never rolled out!) She was about 10cm lower than me (our bed is quite low) and was an early walker so was able to wake up and climb into our bed between us when she needed to.

We got her own room ready a couple months later and put all her toys in and another mattress on the floor and that was her playroom (should also point out that we live in a flat which has one big 'everything' room and the bedrooms coming off that in a row, so she could easily play in her room when I was cooking or something and we could still see each other and 'chat').

At about 18 months, we started putting her to bed in her own room (can't remember if she indicated that she wanted to, or if we just thought to give it a try and it worked). We leave both bedroom doors open at night and she just wanders in if she needs to in the night (rooms next to each other, and we have a nightlight in each room). Sometimes she sleeps the whole night in her bed, other times she comes in middle of the night (say 1 or 2 or 3), other times she comes in at 6 or 7 and will often then sleep an extra hour or so - it varies.

For the night feeding, at about a year I was only bf her when she woke at night (she just started drinking more from a cup and the bf reduced accordingly) and at about 15 months (? - shockingly bad memory I have ) she suddenly stopped waking at night for a feed and that was that. But I'd be inclined to put that down to her and the way she is rather than any parenting or techniques on my part.

For the record, ds was born earlier this year and we are co-sleeping with him. Dd still likes to come into our bed now and then (we have a swapped our bed with our guest bed which is actually a double futon and then have the spare single mattress next to it, so it's like triple bed - am tempted to keep this even after the children have left home as the space is lovely!) so it now goes, from left to right, wall, ds, me (on double futon) dd (optional extra ) dh on single mattress - dd will either snuggle up to me or dh.

This seems to work for us so far.

[alittleteapot]

UpSinceCrapOClock that sounds a lovely way of doing it. When you moved her onto the adult mattress was she already waking less at night to feed? Did you have to forcibly reduce that at any point? We already invested in a completely brilliant superkingsize mattress which is on the floor but she still ends up tucked into me.
We also have one of those side car cots which she didn't want to sleep in when she was little but we are thinking of getting ourselves a new bed and trying that again.

I would definitely co-sleep again with another newborn and will never have any problem with children coming into our bed in the morning, or sometimes in the night.

I've just read the Jay Gordon article again. Need to talk to DP but also found out today our downstairs neighbour wll be away for 3 weeks in Sept so thinking then might be the time and I might start Jay Gordon style, although I don't completely understand his 7 hours thing.

[UpSinceCrapOClock]

She was just waking once at night as far as I remember - I certainly didn't force anything or do any sort of specific sleep-training (am far too lazy for that!)

The only problem with our way of doing it, is on the nights where she isn't ready for bed at bedtime, iyswim. Ie, is still wide awake and can't settle to sleep. I'll admit right now, on those nights, I usually just let her play and then she often gets tired and will go to be bed quite easily afterwards.

Just remembered as well, when we 'made' dd's room for her, we tried moving her then, but she wasn't keen to settle in there at night (we only tried once), so we just left it and she moved in quite happily a few months later. I generally go with the philosophy of testing the water, and not pushing it if it doesn't seem to work, just keep trying now and then if you feel the time may be right - she'll soon tell you if it isn't

I think you just have to try out different things and see which way seems the best compromise between all of you