Is this insanity or could it work?

[Whatsmytea]

DD is 8 months. She goes to sleep fine. I feed her and play lullabies and she nods off without a problem on my bed. The problem is if I want to go to bed and try to move her she wakes up and won’t sleep in the cot.

I absolutely hate co sleeping, it’s destroying my back, it’s uncomfortable and I get really poor quality sleep. We just disturb one another constantly.

I am wondering if I should just let her have my bed and get a cheap single bed for her room and sleep there so reversing the rooms if you like … madness to let one small baby have a double bed to herself?

So currently you are leaving her alone in a bed?

If so this is very dangerous, she could sustain a very serious injury, or even worse. She needs to be in a secure place to sleep. When people refer to co-sleeping they are constantly with the baby.

I appreciate we all make mistakes, you need to urgently sort an alternative arrangement.

Please don’t leave her alone in a double bed. That is really risky and she could get hurt.

you are going to have to persevere with the cot. Stop breastfeeding if that’s what’s causing the night feed issue and power through, yes you’ll habe a shit week but needs must.

you certainly can’t leave her in a double alone/

The fuck.

Health Visitors can either give advive on or refer to people to give advice about sleeping routines, but also safe sleeping, which sounds like an issue here. Op also mentioned she was concerned with the weaning.

I'm afraid you're going to have to sleep-train her in her cot.

You'll have three weeks of hell, but she will learn how to do it. My first was very hard to sleep train, my second was easier.

Good luck!

Well at best it's a temporary solution as the minute she can roll or crawl it's impossible.

It's crazy how many people are telling you that you ''must'' sleep train. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to leave their babies to cry alone. I never would.

When I wanted to stop co sleeping I got a floor bed in DD's room for her, that way you can do normal bed time routine and not worry about them falling out.

I haven't read every post so sorry if it's been mentioned but how about side-carring a cot to your bed - we took the side off an IKEA cot and did this (instructions online), or a floor bed, so you can feed then roll away and go to your own bed? You can use from birth (look up Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram she has a highlight on it) and if they roll off they don't have far too go.
Definitely doesn't sound like you need to sleep train.

How about putting a single floor bed in her room now? Then she can fall asleep in the same way she is now, but she'll be in her bed, not yours, and not far to fall if she rolls or crawls off. You'd need to baby-proof the room, but you'd need to do that eventually anyhow.

I think there's an IKEA bed you can hack as a floor bed now and then it becomes a regular bed (or maybe a mid-sleeper?) later, so it could be her bed for years.

Get her a floor bed! That way you can cuddle her to sleep and just get up, she’s safe and she has her own bed. Don’t leave her alone in your bed, it won’t be safe.

This.

Although there are some quite extreme sleep training methods out there (Ferber or extinction for example), they are not recommended. Most good sleep consultants can help to sleep train without this.

OP, I would really recommend to you the Facebook group The Beyond Sleep Training Project where you will find loads of help, advice and information on how to create a safe sleep set up (and also on what normal childhood sleep actually looks like!).

It is completely normal for an eight month old baby to fall asleep with an adult caregiver. As you've experienced, it doesn't mean they will wake up constantly! Our two year old is breastfed or rocked to sleep, placed down and sleeps through. We did no "training", it's developmental and they all do it when they're ready. I sit with his six year old brother while he falls asleep, we listen to kids' meditations and he then also sleeps through.

It's also really normal for a baby to need milk at night!