Putting co-sleeping BF baby to bed alone

[JacqueslePeacock]

I have a 4-month-old DS who is EBF and who co-sleeps. Until now, we have all been going to bed at the same time as DS (out of sheer exhaustion!) at about 8.30-9pm. Now that DH and I have recovered a bit from the early days, though, we would like to be able to put DS to bed a little earlier and have some evening time to ourselves.

The problem is that whenever we try this, DS wakes up after about 10-15 minutes and cries. We cuddle him/BF him back to sleep but then the same thing happens again another 10-15 minutes later. And again. And again. Even when we're sleeping in the bed together in the night, he briefly wakes up frequently (every half hour), but he will go back to sleep quickly when I am lying next to him, so it's not a big problem then.

Has anyone else had similar problems putting a BF co-sleeping baby to bed alone? Any tips for overcoming this?

Hi, I too have a 4 month old ebf co sleeper (ds2).
My ds2 does not like to sleep alone and wakes after 5 mins of being put down, pram stopping etc. I started swaddling him about 4 weeks ago, really tightly in a cot sheet so he cannot move his arms - he was waking himself up by waving his arms about and does a lot of startle reflex movements as he falls asleep. So what I do now is place him on his side, swaddled, and prop him up with quilt/pillows then bf him to sleep and when he's asleep I move away. He sleeps like that a couple of hours in the evening now most nights and it's great to eat my dinner with 2 hands now!
It was a retired mw at the toddler group I go to with ds1 who suggested it - after she held him for a bit and said he needs to learn to be still.
I sometimes put him to sleep on his tummy too as he cant throw his arms back and wake up and means any wind comes out either end. I did this last night as he'd been up and down like a yoyo for 45 mins and was exhausted. He was asleep in 2 minutes.
good luck
x

I've got to be honest peacock, this is a tricky one - at least it was for me. My DS has just started going to bed alone at 16mo for the evening (one of us shares with him overnight as he sleepwalks!).

For us, it took a combo of things - him getting older, stopping bf at 16mo and him learning to sleep for more than three hours. This has only happened in the last month.

For most of his first year, if we wanted any evening, I had to breastfeed him to sleep on the sofa and whisper. He was a terrible sleeper and needed touch at almost all times. Without one of us hugging him, he would go crazy.

Now however he is happy to snooze alone for hours and hours.

I'm sure more helpful people with babies nearer your DS' age will be along but I just wanted to say that it is possible to have a co-sleeping, incredibly needy baby and they will one day sleep in their own bed. So if nothing works, don't despair - it won't be forever. Good luck!

Our DS2 would nap on the bouncy chair if he was with us in the sitting room. It would be in shortish periods but enough to let us eat. Otherwise we'd just hold him or I'd feed him, or if he was awake he'd just mooch around and play with his toys.

Eventually the length of time he'd stay in the chair extended until he'd sleep there most of the evening (prob by this time heading towards a year - way over the age the chair is supposed to be used but he still loves it and naps in it at 19 M!). He is a very high needs child and would generally not be put down at all other than for these few minutes in the evening.

We'd then take him to bed when we went.

When he was around a year he started to fall asleep regularly between 7 and 8 in the chair and stay there until 9 or 10. We then started to progress to settling him in our bed at bedtime which worked ok, although it took 1/2 hour or longer to settle him (unlike DS1 who you can just tell to go to bed and off he goes - always has - I could practically throw him in the cot and he'd just settle off).

We still do this, and mostly it's fine. Sometimes he stays asleep, sometimes he wakes at around 10ish and needs cuddling or bringing back down, and sometimes (like last night) he won't settle at all so after an hour of both DH and I trying we brought him downstairs and let him play/cuddle/feed etc until he fell asleep on the sofa.

From our perspective we get time together most evenings, and when, like last night, we don't, we enjoy our cute little boy being with us. Either way is fine.

On my 3rd DC now, and with all 3 of them, I have let them sleep on my lap in the living room in the evenings until I go to bed - until they are about 7-8months old. DD 6 months now, so shortly to begin the going-to-bed alone process with her.

What I did with the older two, was to BF them to sleep in a chair next to their cot, and then put them in the cot asleep. To begin with they would wake up after only about 20-30 mins, I would go and settle again, and gradually their time sleeping would increase until it was about 2-3 hours.

Your DS is a bit younger and waking up after only 10-15 mins. Is it possible for you to let him sleep on your knee downstairs for a few months and try again when he's a bit older? Worked more easily that way for me.

my first was as you describe and i used to try to sneak off and would be back in half an hour. this went on until she went in a child's bed at 2 (and she slept through)

with this one when she was 4 months i instituted a bedtime, took her into dark room, put on a playlist of nature sounds, fed to sleep and put her in amby hammock next to bed (she ends up next to me after 2 or 3) but she will mostly sleep for 3 hours and sometimes i can wake her at 22.30 and she'll go for another.

this was after the period of being chained to the sofa until midnight period

plus she has a different temperament

good luck. i read the No Cry Sleep Solution. a lovely book, more designed to stop the parents crying than the babies ... but there are some ideas.

the two elements i think made a diffrerence are darkness and white noise. she can (doesn't always) settle herself with this

Wow, thanks for all the replies! Mona, I'm a bit reluctant to start swaddling now at 4 months having not done it since DS was 3 days old, especially as I think I heard it could be bad for them as they grow bigger. When would you plan to stop swaddling?

Ruby, 16 months?!? Aaarrrggghhhh!!! That is so not what I was hoping to hear!! I'm hoping DS won't take quite so long - I'd prefer him really to be sleeping in his own bed by then too.

Loopy a lovey is a good idea but I think might work better when he is a bit older. Not sure about sleeping on the front - he can't roll at all yet so I do feel a bit nervous. I will think about this.

For those who said their DCs just slept downstairs until you went up to bed (OrganicCarrotCake, Wolf etc), did you have any kind of bedtime routine? We've been doing a whole "dim lights, musical toy, change into PJs, night light" kind of ritual for the last month or so, which seems a bit mad to then bring him downstairs into all the lights and noise again!! But if he really won't sleep on his own at all then this may be our only option .

NHS sleep guidelines say it is safest that under 6 months babies are in the same room as you when sleeping, both during the day and night. (They would also prefer baby to be in their own cot, but we ignore that bit ;) )

Plus safe co-sleeping guidelines say not to leave a young baby unsupervised in a parental bed, to avoid rolling out etc.

For these two reasons we keep our babies downstairs until we go to bed for the first 6 months minimum.

When they were tiny they sleep either on my knee, in a moses basket or in the pram in down stairs hall. As they get older they sleep in pram or on sofa. Eventually going to bed on their own.

We don't bother with proper fixed evening routines for under 2 yo's.

Around 6 months, we introduced a bedtime routine which has been fantastic for everyone - simply dinner, bath, breastfeed, book, bed. We try not to feed her to sleep, instead the aim is to put her down when she's drowsy then SHE gets herself to sleep.

The first few times we tried this, she'd cry when we tried putting her down. We'd give her a quick cuddle and put her down again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. But we persisted with the routine and it has been a GODSEND. Now at 9 months old, most nights she'll roll over and go to sleep on her own when she's put in the cot.

My main advice is - whatever 'tactic' you're going to try, STICK WITH IT for several nights in a row. Kids don't learn overnight, it takes a little while.

PS. I used to adore the intimacy and convenience of co-sleeping, but when my daughter was around 6-months old it was getting cramped in the bed. Plus she was having difficulty sleeping if I WASN'T there. So for me, getting her to sleep in her own cot has been a really worthwhile project.

It only took about a week for her to adjust, but that frustrating week was absolutely worth it - I feel like we're all getting better sleep now. GOOD LUCK!

With DS1, didn't introduce a bedtime routine until around 7-8 months. With DS2 and now DD, they had a bedtime routine from earlier, because they joined in with the older one(s). Don't think it really makes a difference for under-6mos.

The feeding to sleep is the best bit of breastfeeding and I use it every day/night as long as possible !

Please don't worry about encouraging your child to 'go to sleep awake', just enjoy the feed to sleep option whilst you can. As sadly one day they will naturally outgrow this option all on their own. No encouragement needed.

Just enjoy easy evenings with your little one, when your milk can put them easily and happily to sleep with zero hassle for either party and don't worry about creating fictitious 'rod for your own back'

Agree with babieseverywhere on everything. DS grew out of ability to feed to sleep at 15mo and my secret weapon was gone.

Happily this coincided with an ability to sleep for longer periods in general, having never slept more than three hours at one time since birth hence 16mo finally offering us a decent night's sleep or two.

I know 16mo sounds terrible OP when you are so tired now but all our attempts to get him to bed alone before that ended in endless trauma for all involved. When he was ready to sleep longer by himself, it was relatively painless.

So as babieseverywhere says, don't worry too much about a "rod for your back" at this stage. My child was the restless, needy type who wanted a boob in his mouth all night and never slept a single night in a cot and now bedtimes are no longer the struggle they were. Good luck.