How did you manage night feeds without co-sleeping with a newborn?

[TTCbabynumber22025]

Posting for traffic.

but I’m desperate to know, if you didn’t cosleep with your baby, HOW did you manage that?

I have just had my 2nd DC, he’s three weeks old. EBF.

During the day it’s fine but at night, he’ll go into his snuzpod at 11pm and do a couple of hours sleep in there. But when he wakes up in the night it’s hard to get him to sleep back in it.

Ive found myself just pulling him into my bed and feeding him back to sleep. It means I’m only awake for about 5 minutes and he goes straight back to sleep.

But I hate cosleeping. I hate it. I’m paranoid that something will go wrong, I have quite a lot of health/death anxiety at the minute anyway and cosleeping makes that worse. I coslept with my older DC as well and hated that too but it was the only way I could ever get any sleep at all: I don’t want to do this with my DS.

Ive already been awake an hour now after his first wake up because he will feed and fall asleep no problem but as soon as I put him in his next to me he will wake up. I’ve even just tried dangling a boob in there and he fed and fell to sleep and as soon as I moved slightly away he woke up. He’s fallen asleep and woken about 4 times this hour.

if you never coslept with your babies, how did you manage it?? How do I get him to be happy sleeping in his next to me? I lay right next to him with my head close to him while he’s in there, he’s basically no further from me than if he was in the bed anyway so I don’t get it!

Could the issue be that your baby can smell you from the snuz pod and that's why he's reluctant to go back to sleep in it?

Maybe, if you have the space, try putting him in a crib or cot just a little bit further away from you.

Many years ago when I breastfed my baby, I often fell asleep sitting up in the bed with my child laid on my front, not next to me until he was a good few months older. That way I couldn't turn and squash him if I dosed off. Then I just put him back in his moses basket when he fell asleep.

We did not cosleep at all with my eldest, who is 3 and a half now, because I was so anxious about it. It was really, really hard, but because I was so anxious we did just consistently keep putting him back down and eventually he got used to it and it got easier. But it was exhausting! When he was a bit older and didn’t necessarily need to feed with every wake up, my partner and I started splitting night shifts between us with one of us sleeping half the night in the spare room, but at 3 weeks, it did all fall to me.
With my second I was a lot less anxious, but had in mind that putting the first down had eventually helped with him sleeping through in his own bed, so we essentially did the same except I would take him into bed if he woke after about 5am as that was the only way to get him back to sleep after that point. We always followed the sleep safe seven tips when doing this. Once we’d started doing that, we did sometimes bring him in earlier in the night if it was a particularly bad night or I was especially tired.
I still used to let both of them fall asleep in my arms and lie there sleeping for quite a while before I would attempt to put them back down, and then I would do it INCREDIBLY slowly, like it would take 5 minutes for me to ever so gently lay him down, and then I’d put my hand on his chest and leave it there another 5 minutes. It’s such a tough period, especially when you already have a child as you need even more energy during the day for them. But I just kept remembering how quickly it had passed in the end, even though it felt like forever when in the middle of it.
i did for a time worry that the second would get used to being brought into bed and never sleep through in the cot, but now at 16 months he sleeps there all night and usually wakes around 6:30, so I think maybe if you try to consistently put him down but don’t worry too much if it’s sometimes not possible, you may get there in the end, accepting every child is different and what works for one might not work for another!

Sorry, I realise the ‘don’t work too much ‘ isn’t possible with health anxiety- I was diagnosed with post partum anxiety after my first and was compulsively checking on his breathing whenever he was asleep. Have you tried the trick of sleeping with his cot sheet so that in smells of you?

Some babies are just like that I think. I had my twins in a full sized cot next to the bed. I would just feed them and put them down again.

I got my husband to co sleep, so baby had comfort of someone there if they stirred a little and husband could just pop his hand on baby to settle a little. Then for full wakes I would go through, sit right up (to keep myself awake)and feed while scrolling on my phone and then when baby fully asleep gently put them back down on the bed and sneak away. Sometimes it would fail and I would start again 🥲. They were a TERRIBLE sleeper waking 12 times every single night for about 18 months (some nights even worse) so I was often having only 20 min naps in my own bed in-between. It could take me ages to get settled back to sleep in my own bed. Particularly in winter as bed would be cold now. In hindsight I look back and wish I just coslept. I used to feel that I simply couldn’t sleep next to baby as brain wouldn’t relax but I think after 3 nights or so it would have been fine. It’s always strange when you have someone new in your bed, but then you relax. So that’s what I would try now!

I think all babies are just so different. In the night I would pick up my baby when he woke, feed him, and he’d fall asleep in my arms. I’d usually wait ten or so minutes until I knew he was in a deep sleep and then put him back in his cot, and he’d always stay asleep.

I had all mine in a Moses basket beside the bed. Maybe I was just lucky, but they would nod off at the end of a feed, and I was able to slowly put them down. It probably helped that we never had any light on at night, were quiet as mice ourselves, and never spoke.