Really need your advice ,pleeeeeeease help me

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Right sorry but this is going to be a long one ! Since coming home from hospital this time last year after a fairly traumatic crash section , i have been sleeping on the sofa with my baby ,well now he sleeps on a folded duvet on the floor next to the sofa till he wakes in the night and then i cuddle him back to sleep or make a bottle and cuddle him back to sleep . Well he is just over one now and i would really like to make some use of the cot i bought six months ago ! Its going to be hell isnt it ? How am i going to do it ? I would really like to go to bed and maybe have a couple of hours in the evening baby free , at present he settles anytime between half eight and ten at night . Any advice greatly appreciated .

Not sure. But try changing your thinking.

Instead of feeling that it is "going to be hell', think "it is going to be fine". Set a date to do it, (tomorrow) and just calmly and quietly go for it.

I had this.....though I wasn't sleeping on the sofa with my son. However, I did have big problems trying to leave him and tried a slowly slowly approach. I used to bath him and put him in his cot 10 mins earlier EACH NIGHT. Only ten mins but......so it took a while but, before he knew it he was going up to bed at 8pm. Trouble was he owuld be up 2 or 3+ times a night and I had to endure coffee mornings with all those mums whose babies slept 10 hours at night!!

Presumably, the cot is next to you, in the bedroom so that it's not such a shock to baby's system.

It goes with the territory being utterly knackered as a new mum. It won't make you feel any better but that's the way it is.

Good luck to you and don't forget to snooze when you get the opportunity maybe in the day.

Yes your right ,although tomorrow isnt a good day as its the first night out i have had for about 18 months , no drunken debauchry though ,just a 60th birthday meal .
What time in the evening do you think i should try putting him down to sleep ? i guess i need to go along the controlled crying route , i dont mind getting up in the night and i dont mind him coming in with me for a few hours ,i also dont mind getting up early ,anytime after 5 is fine in my book ,but then i get up then when im working .

I must sound like a broken record, but try swaddling. That helped us do the transition from co-sleeping to cot sleeping.

Im not really a new mum wendihouse ,i have two others aged 8 and 16 . With the 16yr old i was on my own so coslept for a long time ,and with the 8yr old i co-slept for a long time because i BF until she was 13 months . This little man was BF till about six months ,but for a variety of reasons he is FF now ,although i feed him formula as though i was BFing so basically on demand ,wasteful and expensive but there you go !

The cot ,or clean washing store ,is in our room and next to the bed .

The other problem to add into the mix is that he can only go to sleep in the cot at night ,not suring the day ,as my DH works from home and uses the bedroom as an office during the day time .

Would swaddling work at over a year old ?

Never tried the swaddling but I know mums who did and swear by it! Might be a bit big now though. Not sure.

Sorry! Thought you were a first time mum. I've only had one so, you could tell me more, I'm sure!

Hmmm....my husband (then) used to have his office in the bedroom so that's a non-starter for a nap in the day. Have to say my son didn't do that either.....he's just nod off for a bit wherever he happened to be.

You know, in some cultures, co-sleeping is the ONLY way to go. I think you have to do what feels best for you and him but, you do need that time to "separate" as well.

What's a reasonable time for bath and cot? It varies but, they do just HAVE TO GET USED to being separate from you and the longer it goes on the harder it is. My son used to be fed to the gunnels and then just go off (eventually) but because BF he wasn't full for that long.....hence up several times in the night.

What's you health visitor suggest?