Does anyone who's baby sleeps in a co sleeping cot attached to the bed find that their baby wakes up more?

[Blake2313]

My son has never been an amazing sleeper. He's now 22weeks old and his sleep is getting worse and worse. I ebf him and he's a totally greedy chops so I found from early on that co sleeping was a life saver. However co sleeping with him in our bed made me really paranoid about squishing him or suffocating him, so a month and a half a go I ordered a co sleeping cot which attaches onto our bed. We have a super king size bed so it means once I've fed him I can roll away and snuggle up to my fiancé and there's a singe bed gap between us. At the start this was amazing! I didn't need to wake up fully to feed and we all still had our own space. He was doing maybe 6 -8 hours at the start of the night and then maybe up once or twice more for feeds, and this was good.

Now though he wakes up after the first hour and wants fed, then I'm lucky if I can get 3 hours out him. And this continues through the night. I'm not sleep deprived in anyway because I don't wake up fully for these feeds but it does disturb me and I'm worried that by having him sleep so close it might actually be me and my fiancé waking him. So, does anyone else who co sleeps this way find the same thing? Or is there light at the end of a tunnel and this is some sort of developmental leap/teething/growth spurt spell. I would love to hear that other peoples babies sleep this way and do long stretches of sleep! I love having him beside me, I hate it when he's in his cot at the other end of the room!

It's the 4 month sleep regression. It's totally normal and a real PITA!!

I co-sleep with my DS2. He did longer stretches from a few weeks old until about 4 months when his sleep went completely out the window. Combined with colds, teething etc.. He's 6mo now and it's still not great, but he's occasionally starting to do slightly longer stretches (3 or 4 hours).

DS1 did pretty much the same thing (we co-slept until 12mo, and had his cot in our room until about 18mo and he's now a happy toddler sleeping through the night in his own room). They change and develop so much at this point in time, something that is normal for 3 weeks changes again afterwards, and again and again.

I did read somewhere that when you co-sleep baby & parent tend to wake up slightly more often, but I'd take that tradeoff because it means I never have to get out of bed & fully wake up when I feed him. I just fall asleep again straight away afterwards.

Thanks for replying rrreow.

Yeah it was around 18 weeks this all started. It's really annoying thinking your making progress and then it all goes out the window! He's never really been consistent in anyway with sleep though but this is the worst it's been since he was new!

The whole reason I started co sleeping (apart from lovinghaving him right next to me) was because after any feed it would take me a couple of hours to get back to sleep and I was a total zombie! I love that I barely wake up now, so I can totally live with him still waking for feeds. Just preferably not every 1 or 2 hours.

How was it transitioning your DS1 from bed to cot? I go back to work around the year mark so I'll need to figure out what we're going to do!

I'll be following this thread.

My dd is 23wks and sleeps in a co-sleeper. For the last 4-5 wks her sleep has got worse with colds, teething and development leaps (she's just learnt to roll front to back).

I think sometimes she stirs in the night waking me up and I intervene too quickly when she could settle herself. Other times I'm obviously able to settle before she escalates and becomes a bigger task.

She's still bf, goes to sleep about 9 and I've now decided to only feed her once in the night and to try shushing/pat or finger to suck to get her to sleep. So she's not waking out of habit.

We have just got a mattress for her cot in her room and I've been putting her down for naps in there. Probably move her after Christmas. Although I'm not looking forward to going in there to feed/settle at night.

We do use white noise to help reduce the noise and potential disturbance to each other.

Thanks quinandthem!

Yes I find that too, that out of habit I will roll over and feed ds when he isn't even awake. I know that he can settle himself back to sleep as I've seen him do it many times on the video monitor during his naps, and on those nights where the dreaded insomnia kicks in and I lie awake and watch him.

Recently though he has started crying in his sleep, and it gets to the point where I need to feed him or he'll wake up fully. He used to wake me up by staring at me in the dark! I have no idea what's making him cry but I suppose it could be a combo of things.

How do you get dd to sleep? Feed to sleep? And did her naps get worse as her night sleep deteriorated?

I'm dreading moving to the cot as I feed ds to sleep and usually when I move him he wakes up and it's a tiring process getting him to sleep all over again. It was the first attempt at the move from the Moses basket to the cot which made me get the co sleeper in the first place. Although for 3 nights in his cot he slept from 9-7 but it all went downhill after that. I still remember those full night sleeps fondly.

Thats a good idea about limiting the feeds at night. I think ds might have switched his night and day around feeding wise as he is too distracted during the day to take full feeds. The only time he'll feed properly is at nap time. Otherwise he wants to see what's going on all around him!

Oh I just don't know what to do. I've read sooo many different bits of advice but when it comes to doing it I always end up taking the easy road.

Have you managed to stick to one feed a night? And does the white noise machine work? I bought Ewan the sheep but he only stays on for 20 mins!

Morning - I'm doing my night feed now.

I usually bf to sleep at night and then transfer her across (which is getting harder the heavier she's getting).

She does suck her thumb so if she stirs as I've transferred I usually shimmy & sush her or if she's woken I'll give her her thumb to suck and that usually works.

Regarding day naps she's actually sleeping longer in her cot compared to out & about where I think she's being distrurbed.

She needs a nap every 2 hrs, usually these were just 30mins but over the last 2 weeks they are getting longer. She's full of cold today but slept for 2 hrs in the afternoon.

I do get a bit concerned that she might be sleeping too much during the day - but since she's ill I think she needs it.

For naps I out her down and sush/pat and give her her thumb to suck.

I have a white noise app on my phone that just runs continually (you can set a timer but I don't bother). It's called dream pillow and there are lots of different sounds - I like a heavy rain shower. With the app you can still go on the Internet with it playing in the background.

I also find she doesn't feed that well if out somewhere busy and had wondered if she was catching up at night - especially as she's going longer between feeds during the day. So I now feed her more regularly in the evening to top her up before bed.

Right she's asleep again so back to sleep for me.

Hope your nights been good.

Ps. I decided that I wouldn't feed on the first wake up and would try the sush/finger suck first.

Most of the time this works and means she's not associating waking and getting food.

Last night was a good night! I sadly never made the most of it as I was up til 1, but hopefully ds is sorting his sleep back out. He slept 730 (with a couple of stirs until 8) then never got back up til 2!!! Success. He then got up once more after this (couldn't tell you what time as I never woke up) then up for the day at 8. A much better night.

Oh lucky you getting a thumb sucker - the ultimate self soother. Sadly ds never took to his thumb, he found it once but he made so much noise sucking it I think he freaked himself out. He does take a dummy and will settle himself to sleep this way but during the night he absolutely must have breast or he wakes right up. Fiancé has even tried to give him bottles but he wakes up for 2 hours every time.

I read the no cry sleep solution and apparently Ds is meant to be take 2 2 hours naps then a 1 hour nap. I can't imagine this at all as it does seem like an awful lot of sleep. There's a baby in my swim class that does this though and sleeps through the night, same age as ds. He is bottle fed which definitely seems to make a difference, and he weighs 7lbs less than ds so he looks tiny. I have to look at my big healthy baby boy before the sleep jealousy takes over! Ds naps for 45 minutes to the minute every time. Sometimes I can feed him back down but mostly I can only get the 45 out of him.

I will definitely try the white noise app, and I think I'll give not feeding him a go. I have to admit though I've got quite used to only half waking to get him into nursing position then going straight back to sleep. But fixing the problem will definitely be worth it in the long run.

So how long is your dd sleeping? What's the longest stretch she does?

We did a real gradual thing with DS1 to get him into the cot. First we had the cot right next to our bed and would put him to bed in there. If he cried in the night I'd feed and then try to resettle in the cot. We didn't want to do controlled crying really, so there was definitely a bit of time investment needed, sitting next to him, shushing and patting etc. Then we moved the cot further away (still in the same room), and then eventually moved it to his own room.

When trying to settle him in his own cot I found the nights actually worse than the current 1-2hr wakeups while co-sleeping, because at that point I'd actually have to get out of bed and sit there with him. Worth it though in the end. And when it comes to sitting & comforting (rather than feeding) DH was also able to do it, so that was handy.

Wow, Thank you!! I just posted a thread about my lo. I read your comment and googled 4 month sleep regression and it is my ds to a tee!
I feel so much better now :)

Rreow, what made you transition at a year? Do you think it was easier as ds1 could understand better?

Also, when did ds1 start sleeping longer, did he ever do this while co sleeping? Or did he start sleeping longer eventually when you moved him to the cot?

Did the grandparents ever take ds1 over night? I'm a bit concerned that if my ds's grandparents took him he'd be up all night and wouldn't settle in a cot in a strange place.

DS1 was moving around too much in his sleep (punching us in the head in his sleep! Lol) and everyone was just keeping everyone awake. Despite having a king size bed it just wasn't really big enough for the three of us anymore at that point.

I think for the longest time he'd still wake up for 2 or 3 feeds in the night (we were giving him whole milk in a bottle after 1yo (formula before), because with breastfeeding he'd just literally wake up every hour during the night, with cow's milk/formula at least he'd only drink if actually hungry), especially while teething.

It was actually moving him to his own room (he was about 22 months at that point) that got him sleeping through the night properly. The transition was tough for a bit as he needed a lot of reassurance at bedtime, and sometimes during the night as well. But I think once he got through that, he slept a lot better because in our room any noise was waking him up (and I was pregnant and going to the bathroom 10x a night!), whereas his own room was quieter. He had a little regression a few weeks after DS2 was born, needing settling in the night again, but overall he sleeps through now every night (except when ill).

My experience with DS1 sleeping anywhere else (nursery, with his aunties, no grandparents around unfortunately) is that he just adapts to whatever routine they set. We'll let them know the general routine of bedtime/naptime, but they just do what they do, and he tends to go to sleep OK.

Shameless marking of place too, same issues & queries....

Just thought I would update this. Ds is now 8 and a half months old and things could not be more different. At around 6 months he was waking every hour and the boob wasn't getting him back to sleep and I had had enough! I just could not bear not getting decent sleep anymore.

So with the cot in our room I put him in it, with a dummy and left him. I was still in the room but he couldn't see me, and I would let him moan for a few minutes, then go see him and settle him then leave again. Never let him cry really, I could tell the difference between the moaning and the real cry. If he was really crying I would pick him up and soothe him. After the first night he started sleeping 6-8hours and then would have a feed then back down sleeping 12 hours total. After a couple of days he didn't even need the dummy, as soon as he went in his cot he knew it was sleep time and would turn his head into one of my tshirts and sleep. Honestly never thought he would do it but now I think he was up so much in frustration at not knowing how to get himself to sleep.

A chest infection then hit and set us back, then his two front teeth came in and brought back the need for the dummy. But at 8 months he randomly slept for 10 hours and I decided that I would try cutting the night feed. Ever since then he's slept through 12 hours most nights. Obviously there are set backs but from what I first posted I could not have imagined such a change in his sleep. We need to work on loosing the dummy, and sometimes he gets stuck at the top of his cot and needs my help but we have definitely come a long way.

He won't sleep beside me now, he prefers his cot. I did love the snuggles but I wish I had started him in the cot a lot younger and persisted.

Things that also helped

Sleepytot dummy bunny

Hipp organic goodnight milk

White noise

One of my tshirts

Not bathing before bed (makes him hyper)

My DD absolutely hated the bedside clip on cot in the hospital, thank god we didn't shell out on one for home. The first night she was born she was in the "fishtank" cot, settled fine. The second night we moved wards and got a clip on cot, had an awful night, she would not sleep so I asked for a fishtank back for the next night and she was fine again. She was the same when we got home with grobags, hated them and was very hard to settle after a couple of weeks I gave in and got cellular blankets and she slept much faster. I think some babies just have definite preferences from the start.