cosleeping friendly support, reassurance and advice please.

[Littlemai]

Hello, I think most of my posts on here have been sleep related, and normally when I'm in a panic. I'm not so much in a panic in fact i feel weirdly quite happy about his hopeless sleeping, I think its because of the sunshine as the only way I can get him to sleep in the day is taking him for a walk in the buggy, lo is 6 months. And at night he feeds to sleep and sleeps pretty much on me.
I have just started blw, which is going really well.
Anyway although am not sad (maybe gently concerned) after yet again tryig to get him to sleep in his cosleeper crib today with reading story, singing lullaby and gentle patting- he stayed happy kicking his little legs etc for quite a while but then disintergrated into very upset crying, i tried a little bit of pick up put down, but i find he instantly returns to extremely upset when I put him down, did manage to get him calm enough that i was able to put him in his buggy and rock him to sleep.
I was hoping some more experienced mums of bad sleepers could tell me there stories of how they managed to gently turn their babies into amazingly good sleepers???? The one thing that is getting bit tricky is he is getting heavy and i am waking up with a dead arm. Thank you

[hairymelons]

I co-slept with DS on and off until he started sleeping all night. He is 21mo and only starting sleeping through regularly a couple of months ago. He had been doing it on and off for about 6 months, with weeks where he slept well and weeks where he was in with us every night.

All I can suggest is that you keep doing what you are comfortable with in terms of how you encourage DS to sleep better and what you can cope with in terms of lack of sleep.

I couldn't ever do any CIO/controlled crying- not because I think it's a terrible thing to do, just because it wasn't right for us and our situation. I felt like I was being a bit soft at times, and that I couldn't complain about being knackered because DS's sleep problems were ALL MY FAULT.

So we just kept trying to get him to fall asleep in his cot rather than in my arms, or settle him back in his cot at night rather than bring him in to our bed, etc. etc. but if he got really upset or we were too tired to deal with it, we just followed the path of least resistance.

Eventually, it has paid off. He sleeps well now and bedtime is lovely. I stopped bf a couple of weeks ago so he has regressed a bit (wants to fall asleep in my arms rather than in the cot) but that's fine. We have stories then cuddle until he's alseep. In a couple of weeks we'll go back to him drifting off in his cot, eventually I won't even have to be in the room when he falls asleep!

Just keep giving DS the opportunity to 'move forward' with his sleep and he will get there, slowly but surely. If you reach the point where you can't cope with his waking or settling down habits then you can do some sleep training. 6mo is teeny tiny though, so if you're happy just keep doing what you're doing. Forget about what anyone else and their babies are doing, they are all so different.

And that is the sum total of my advice! Hope it is of some use.

[Littlemai]

its lovely thank you, he sleeps really well at night- well he still wakes up once or twice but he doesn't wake up properly normally until about half nine. and as I am trapped underneath him i get a good lay in most days. so i am lucky that I have never gone through the absolutely shattered phase and I have an amazing mum who comes over one day a week so i get a bit of a break and a clean flat which helps stopping me feel overwhelmed.

[hellymelly]

I co-sleep.But I have no advice re turning bad sleepers into good sleepers as my dd is three this week and still wakes a couple of times a night.

[Littlemai]

How long did you cosleep for Helly? And how did your dd nap? Its always interesting to know x

[stottiecake]

Well.... my baby/ toddler is perhaps not what others would call an amazing sleeper but I am pretty chuffed with where we are right now! I don't think what we did is for everyone but I will share with you anyway - am sure you will get tonnes of great advice and support!

My little 17 mo boy was never a 'good sleeper' (I've come to the conclusion that good sleeping is not on the agenda for the first year unless you are willing to 'train' which I discovered I am not.)We co-slept from 4 months when it became clear he didn't want to go sleep in his cot. Around about 6 mo we put the double mattress on the floor of his room and I slept with him there. I bf him when he wanted throughout the night. It all started to get so much better when he reached 13 mo. He stopped feeding as frequently and I found that I didn't have to be quite so rigid about my sleeping position as he was getting bigger. He started to take naps on the mattress - about an hour and a half after lunch - unheard of - until then he had only napped on me or occasionally in the pram!

So now I have just weaned him at night - I couldn't be arsed any more with the frequent muggings but he took it fine, hardly complained.

In my (tiny bit of) experience babies don't really have sleeping by themselves high on their agenda for the first year - there is just such a lot to deal with - growth spurts, teething, separation anxiety, crawling, walking. So we just did what we had to do to make it as painless as poss for everyone.

On an evening now he has the whole bedtime routine thing tea/bath/bed/ stories. I feed him to sleep (but he unlatches now and settles himself) I leave him and then go back around 11pm. He sleeps til about 7am and I feed him for a bit before we get up for breakfast.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is if you want to continue co-sleeping it does get better and I think it is lovely (although looking forward to the day I get back into my own bed!!) I found getting dh to stick a couple of pillows under my back and one between my knees helped a lot when I was stuck in the same position all night.

All the best and I hope you find a way that suits you and sorry for the massive waffle!!

[kalo12]

my ds is worst sleeper in the world - stressed about it for about a year then gave up worrying. fed him to sleep and co slept til about 21 months, when he was still waking up every hour and half. eventually did dr jays night weaning, took a couple of months. now still co sleep at 26 months, dh sleeps in another room. ds still wakes up a few times a night but goes back to sleep with a cuddle. he wriggles alot so sometimes i get no sleep. i work full time too. but just given up worrying about it.

[babyphat]

my experience v like stottiecake - dd now 20 mo, sleeps through (though not this week as has a cough) after night weaning over easter which worked like a dream, not traumatic at all and took 2 nights. she was very like your little one though didn't sleep on me but next to, but as she got older i could carefully wriggle away a little without waking her - i do remember the nights of not moving though!

i used to ponder 'sorting out' dd's sleep but it always seemed like the solution was more hassle than the problem, so I never really bothered. i just couldn't bear the constant back and forth trying to settle in the evenings, i felt like i was losing my evenings to some futile battle of the wills. in the end i settled for letting her stay up in the evenings and drift off to sleep on my lap. it doesn't seem to have done any harm and also meant she saw her dad in the evenings

dd still sleeps with us in a bedside cot, but because we all like it.

i'm glad we went with the flow. i am sure sleep training can get them sleeping through sooner but for me it wouldn't have been worth the effort and stress.

i agree with hairymelons - if you try stuff you can tell whether they might be ready or not - we night weaned after noticing that she was settling better, things like being able to transfer her without waking up, settling after a feed and not wailing when i extracted the boob!

[Littlemai]

I am happy too especially as randomly this week he has actually started moving himself off me! He does a strange head bobbing thing and throws himself to one side, last night he stayed asleep for 6 hours on his own, so he is making his own baby steps towards new sleeping patterns.
Although in the day I can still only get him to sleep with movement (buggy or carseat) he has started staying asleep a bit longer, well sometimes, I don't know if its because of solids or just him changing as he develops so I feel a bit more relaxed about stuff again. Thank you for sharing its good to hear from other cosleepers non of my baby friends are. I hope everyone has a good bank holiday x