How do I blackout a cotbed?

[OoohOnly90CaloriesIllhave10]

We are living in a house that's temporary. But the whole side of it is a window. You have to climb a ladder to reach the top so it's impossible to use a blackout blind.
We are here for a few months and I need to make the room darker.

With the best will in the world, we cannot put him in another room, there is no room to do so.

His sleep is horrific but I've got a plan with a sleep consultant, it's going to cost me hundreds so I need to get this right.

He has a cot bed, how can I make his small space blacked out for this sleep training (not CC) to work?

There is a black out cover for a travel cot. But that means buying a travel cot and £50 for the travel cot cover which I will do if I have to but I'd rather not spend even more.

Is there anything I can use to black out my baby's cotbed itself?

What about getting one of these to put beside the cot?

I totally understand that you are on your knees with exhaustion - my own baby didn't sleep for more than two hours together, and usually woke hourly at night, from birth to ten months and honestly I thought I was going to lose my mind. So I understand how you feel on that score. However - and I say this as someone who did end up spending lots of money on a sleep consultant - I don't think you are going to have a lot of success at this moment in time, not just because of the window, but with moving etc - a lot of upheaval for everybody over the next few weeks/months. So you might end up wasting your money there.

That said, I would attempt to cover the window. Blackout fabric tacked to the window rather than travel black out blinds, as they would be too expensive to cover such a massive area. Maybe try to get the viewings scheduled as close as possible/on a particular day in the week so that you aren't up and down the ladder as much? Or, heavy duty black bags but they are much more of faff to remove.

Just a warning on the tin foil - it can crack double glazing panels if it gets too hot, so take care if the window gets direct sunlight (speaking from experience here).

I've just noticed that you said baby wakes every 15 minutes.
Have you ruled out underlying health problems?
My son was a terrible terrible sleeper and it turned out he had reflux caused by undiagnosed CMPA.
We cut out dairy, the reflux stopped, then sleep trained. But if we'd tried to sleep train before getting the reflux sorted it wouldn't have worked at all.

I asked upthread if health issues have been ruled out but I don’t think OP responded.

OP, I know exactly what you’re going through and that you just want the quickest fix possible that will lead to sleep. I honestly think that theres something else going on for your little one - assuming your comments are accurate (almost no sleep, wakes after 15 minutes) there must be a reason for this. Doctors will fob you off and say “babies don’t sleep well, deal with it” but such little sleep isn’t right. I don’t think sleep training is what you need, I think you need medical advice.

Allergies, reflux, apnoea, adenoids and other things are all possibilities and I’d be pushing to have them ruled out.

We have a local private children’s therapy centre who offer things like SALT and OT - they have an OT who’s a qualified sleep specialist who can do sleep studies. I don’t know what it costs but it’s worth looking around locally to see if there’s anything like that if your GP and HV aren’t any use.

SinkGirl, yes absolutely - I agree. All of those need to be investigated. In our case, after many months of back and forth to GPs, dieticians, HVs, even osteopaths (hmm), we eventually got a referral to a paediatric gastric consultant to eliminate any possible medical issue before even attempting sleep training at 11 months.

Anyway, OP - I know you are desperate but I would hate to see you throw lots of money at a sleep consultant, and then have it not work.

If your baby is under 6mo it is a complete waste of money to employ a sleep consultant, spend the money on the curtains!!

You must be mad to be considering putting a cover over a cot, i have never heard of such a thing and it sounds awful.

I had a non sleep till aged two and i understand how exhausted and miserable you are so not judging but i wouldn't have been able to sleep if his cot had a cover on it, it just sounds dangerous.

"Did you even click the link the PP shared?
It's literally the solution you were asking for."

Did you even read my title or OP?
I have a cotbed. And if I wanted to go down the route of getting that kind of cover then I would need to get a travel cot or another cot and new mattress which I was hoping to avoid. My apologies for not realising it was called a Snoozeshade and missing the link

To answer some questions he is 8 months and has reflux which is well controlled with Ranitadine. He has the max dose for his weight which is checked regularly (last week most recently) and he hasn't got any of the other tell tale signs that it's flaring up - such as vomiting and hiccuping.
I do believe the initial months of colic and reflux has caused these in going bad habit sleep issues though.

Waking every 15 minutes sounds exactly like uncontrolled reflux despite the absence of other symptoms.

Also, people keep telling me not to put a cover over the cot or put a lid on it.

I'm going to have to read back over my responses to understand why people thought that's what I wanted to do?

Surely if I wanted to do that I could just stick a blackout blind directly over his cot?!
(I have no intention of doing that.)

You propably are OP,but is the cot propped up head end?

I don't think it is at all. But I'm not here for an argument.

I just want to teach my baby to settle without using me for a dummy or having to use CC because I have to go to work soon, shift work and my DH doesn't have breasts.

Maybe he needs another type of medicine to control the reflux?

No it isn't! 😳
I only got the cot a couple of days ago, I will do that though thank you.

Also if it was his reflux then surely his day naps would be awful?

(Mostly) they are fine, although we had a recentlt blip of them being bad but he just cut 4 teeth.

It's evenings and nighttime's that are bad.

I've tried all meds, it isn't his reflux and I'm using a SC so he can go bed without my breasts and without having to CIO

Have you posted in Sleep to see if anyone can help with your night routine? I honestly believe a sleep consultant at 8 months is a load of nonsense and waste of money and wonder exactly what they will suggest that you aren't doing now.

I got my dd a blackout travel cot tent when small. Unfortunately it gets too hot to use unless it's freezing I.e camping. I fit inside so have tried it out myself.

I know how to implement a bed time routine. It's way beyond that.

A friend of mine used this exact person when her baby was as 6 monthsc breast feeding and she was going back to work and sighing a fortnight she was only waking once for a feed then later down the line sleeping through the night.

So clearly not nonesense.

Excuse the typos he's just woken up and in my arm

Could you get a couple of folding screens to make a 'room' for the cot? It wouldn't be perfectly dark and they would have to be a bit away from the cot to keep the air flow but it might help make him feel secure and more settled.

Just buy a couple of gro blinds. They are not overly expensive and stick with suckers

I was looking at those folding divides yesterday, but I figured I'd need quite a few to get all the way round.
It has to accommodate me as well because I sit with him as part of the plan to get him to self settle.

I really hope you get the results you want with the sleep consultant but please don't pin all your hopes on it working, your friend's baby might well have settled anyway.

IKEA do cheap blackout blinds. Less than a tenner, they stick on with double sided tape. They are excellent

Don’t blackout the cot. It’s not safe to drape fabric over a baby like that. It won’t allow enough air circulation and it could get very hot.

Use paper or foil and blutak.

The gro anywhere blackout blind caused our double glazing to crack because it made the glass so hot on a sunny day. I would definitely avoid them if the sun shines directly on the window.

Just co-sleep. Save your money.