Another no-sleep baby - advice please!

[mrsdarcy]

I know there's another thread on this but it seems to relate to different problems.

I'm going through a bad patch with my (almost) 6 month old dd. For a few months she was fine - I'd give her a bath at the same time as my 2 boys, she'd sit on my lap for their story time, then have a quiet feed and go to bed just fine. She was waking twice in the night for a straightforward feed.

However, a couple of months ago she had a cold and was very uncomfortable, so I brought her into bed with me and found that putting my arm around her raised her head enough to help her breathe through her snotty nose.

She is breastfed and we have recently started solids - not much more than baby rice at the moment. I have not had any luck getting her to try a bottle of formula (I'm rubbish at expressing) so her main source of nourishment is me.

The cold is long gone but the co-sleeping habit has stuck to the point where she won't happliy go into her cot at all. I lug her around with me all evening and we go to bed together at whatever time I manage to get myself ready for bed. She snuggles right up to me and grazes on me numerous times during the night. It doesn't wake me up as much as if I was getting out of bed to fetch her from her cot, but I still have to wake up enough to steer my ludicrous comedy boobs towards her . I suspect that being so close to me means that she can smell the milk and it makes her mouth water (a similar effect to sleeping in a chocolate factory!)

So, can anyone suggest anything that would:

1. get her to settle in her own bed at 7 - 8pm so I have my evenings back.

2. stay there for most of the night so I can get some sleep!

The cuddles are actually lovely although I miss my poor DH who is banished to the spare room whilst this is going on. Psychologically, I find the loss of my evenings most difficult, but physically I am getting rather feeble - tiredness headaches, poor reflexes etc and would really benefit from getting some more sleep.

My boys both slept through from about 6 weeks so I guess it's just my turn to feel the joy of sleep deprivation!

Any advice most welcome. Thanks

bump

Can you try to get back to a bath, book, boob routine to at least get you evenings back. Have you also tried putting one of your slept in T-shirts in her cot? My ds is 10 months and although I have never co-slept I have only just got him sleeping through by being tough and letting him cry, not full on controlled crying but my version.

ohoohohohoho
this is the bit that I have had some success on!!!!!!!
let me find the bit on my thread

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I would make a choice - co-sleep or not.

If you decide not that you have to be strict on yourself. Say today "I will leave her in her cot and not bring her into my bed"! No matter how tired you get - perservere.

I speak from experience because ds (who is now 3) used to be a bugger (and around the same age). He was always worse when having a cold or teething.

I would decide on a routine that you stick to every night. like Lilliput said. and then put her to sleep in her in her cot a wake (as calm as you can).
If she cries - go in, tuck her in and say "night night sweetheart" and leave again. Keep doing this (for the first couple of weeks you could be back and forth like a yoyo. But as she learns it will get easier until one day she will just fall asleep.
If this gets too much you could try the baby whisperer method. which is to stay in her room (you could put a chir in the corner) and then gradually withdraw.

When you are woken up and have to put so much effort in to teach her to sleep it will get tempting to bring her back in your bed. But dont because it will send mix messages.

It will work. I really feel for you as I remember only too well how exhausting it was. But for a ray of hope - ds used to sleep with us and I had the exact problems you have - but now is is in bed by 7pm and sleeps through until 8am rarely waking. so there is light at the end of the tunnel! good luck because it cant be easy with 3 children and lack of sleep!

here are some tips here