Moving on from co-sleeping

[breatheslowly]

DD is 7 months and started to turn around in her cosleeper and give me a good kicking. So we have decided to move on. So far her cot now has the side put on and is next to the bed. When she goes to bed at 7ish she cries a little and goes of to sleep pretty quickly if I stroke her back or head. When we come to bed at 11.30 ish she cries - but doesn't seem awake. I have always given her a dream at this time so I pick her up and she drinks a whole bottle. If I then put her down she cries (again she seems asleep) and last night this went on for about 25 min until I managed to get her onto her side and stroked her back (this might be coincidence as possibly she was going to go to sleep anyway). If I pick her up and let her sleep with me then she is fine. She then wakes up at some point in the night - I used to feed her but I am trying to reduce her night feeds and am feeding her plenty in the day. If I pick her up and bring her into bed she seems fine and goes back to sleep. The main problem with this is that I don't even remember picking her up some nights - I just wake up and she is in bed with me. Any ideas to get her to stay in her cot and for me not to do things in my sleep?

i'm interested in answers to is question too

come on people, answer!

I co-slept with DS for 9 months. The only way I could get him to settle without sleeping with him was to have him in his own room. If he knew I was there when he was in a cot he would cry, but once in his own room he was very good at self-settling quickly.
I went on night feed strike 2 weeks ago doing walk in walk out, never leaving him for longer than 2 mins at a time and now he sleeps through. Hope that helps.

ooooh that is a big help! I've not tried putting him in his own room because I assumed that if he won't sleep in his cot in our room he won't go in a different room either! Thanks!

That is really tempting. We seem to be going backwards - this evening DD cried when put down at 7pm. So much so that we tried her on another bottle. It seemed to do the trick. Then she threw up everywhere and ended up in the bath. The thing I find hardest is being consistent rather than trying this and that.

Definitely go with own room. You will get much better sleep yourself, especially if you are like me and wake up if they so much as cough in their sleep! I also used the Little Sleepyhead white noise CD. If you do any form of walk in walk out, time the 2 mins on your phone as it always feels like longer than it actually is IME.

Please could you tell me about the walk in walk out. Does that mean that you walk in when crying then do something then walk out again. If so, what do you do? Do you ensure your DC is not crying when you walk out again or do you walk out with DC still crying? The only think we can't really do is let her cry too much as she does tend to throw up if she cries.

I walk in when crying, lay him back down again after having put his noise CD on. I keep my hand on his back for about 10 secs then walk out whether crying or not. I wait outside the room. If he is really going crazy I only wait 30 seconds. If not too bad, 2 mins. If he is stopping and starting I leave it a little longer. The theory is that they know you will come back as you are not leaving them to CIO, but they learn to settle themselves. Hopefully she won't get so worked up she'll throw up as you won't be leaving her for a long enough period of time. Good luck!

I moved ds into his own room at 5 months, and he did immediately sleep a little better. I can't really stomach controlled crying, even if you only leave them for a few minutes each time, so we did a bit of ssh-pat and pick-up-put-down.

Started off doing PUPD when he first moved into his room and it was effective quite quickly - now I just ssh-pat til he is sleepy but try to leave just before he falls asleep. Sometimes I have to go back in a couple of times and pat some more, sometimes he falls asleep straight away without any help.

Depends on the temperament of your baby definitely. RitaMorgan I originally intended to do shh-pat or PU/PD, but he got so much angrier if I tried to stay there to settle him, which is why I resorted to walk-in, walk out. He already knew how to settle himself to sleep as has always been put down awake. So I guess it depends on how reliant your baby is on you to get them to sleep.

Yes, does depend on temperament. DS would get very distressed being left to cry - he'd get more and more upset rather than "crying down".