dd side sleeper wont sleep thru the night!!!!! help!!

[er1507]

ok this is my very 1st post and i have a sneaky feeling i have prob made a rod for my own back!

my dd is 6mo never slept thru and has never been able to settle herself to sleep (i probably didnt give her the chance, she is my 1st and i wont make the mistake again!) and is breastfed with one bottle of formula at bedtime 7pm (used to give this as a dreamfeed at 10.30is although im not sure if it actually helped and she started waking up so stopped around 2 weeks ago. when she was 10wk i started bringing her into my bed 2 feed around 4ish and this has gotten earlier and earlier and now its 10pm but she wakes every 20min frm bedtime until then, she is fairly quick to settle, most of the time i can turn her on her side and she goes straight bk off. she prefers 2 sleep on her side and wakes quicker if shes on her back. i think she wakes because in her sleep she falls back and this disturbs her. she used 2 take a dummy to go 2 sleep with but has started refusing it, sometimes shes happ 2 go without, othertimes when she wakes in the night she'll only settle with my boob in her mouth!
tonight is the first night iv used controlled crying as i know this is the only thing to do. i actually dont mind cosleeping but she cant have a cwtch, my bed and my boob right?!
whats yout thoughts and how do u deal with diff sleep positions??
sorry for the long post. :)

Many 6mo don't sleep through the night. DD didn't sleep through consistently or settle herself to sleep until she was 14mo. Your DD is normal :)

You cannot make a rod for your own back with your baby, please don't think that. Co-sleeping is not the only option - you can continue to co-sleep, or have a try of The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley.

Why can she not have a cuddle, co-sleep and be BF at 6 months? Many babies use the breast as a comforter instead of a dummy.

As a thought, at 6mo, she could well be teething, which could be causing her to wake.

Is it possible for you to put a rolled-up blanket or something behind her to stop her rolling from her side if she wakes up when she rolls over?

Ok, contraversial but....will she sleep on her front? Will save her rolling from side to back and then waking. DS was on his front from 8weeks, slept through immediately. I personally think you are doing the right thing to get tough with the sleeping, and have picked a good time to do it, young enough for habits to be not to firmly entrenched, old enough to know enough about your baby to understand the difference between crying for food/ nappy and crying out of tiredness / frustration. A good time to teach her to self soothe.

At 6mo and as she's rolling, she'd be OK to sleep on her front, so not controversial :)

i know its normal for babies to want cuddles and i wudnt mind if she didnt wake 20min later for another one, then again and again and again! thought it might have been teeth in the begining but i really dnt think it is as shes already done a bit of it and her wakings arent crys more like moans cos im not there, most of the time her eyes dnt even open! tried rolling a blanket once but got scared in case she grabbed it and threw it over her face somehow in the night lol. shes rolled onto her belly in the night a few times too, im happy 2 leave her like it but shes not too keen on that either. she cried for half hour and i went in every 10min 2 settle her, the 3rd time i out her on her side and she settled straight away!

it it is just moaning and groaning you could actually be waking her up and making things worse when you go to her.

i think she is waking through the night because she is a little baby, not because she is in bed with you or because she likes sleeping on her side.

it's just what babies do.

controlled crying certainly isn't the only thing you can do. if you want to do a kind of sleep training there are much kinder versions of it (no-cry sleep solution for instance) although none of them will be a quick-fix

for what it's worth though, my lot were all fed to sleep and they all learned to sleep through and self settle by themselves! so if you just give her a bit of time I'm sure she'll get there anyway

also, she might just be hungry/thirsty

i did think im prob distubing her now and again, i have been known to sleep talk now and again lol. i dnt mind cosleeping and dnt mind if she wakes up once or twice but somtimes its every hour-2hrs and cos she cant/wont go 2 sleep on her own it all makes me a very tired mummy! i know my boob is for comfort cos more often than not the milk will flow and she splutters and spits it out but if i try putting a dummy in her mouth she screams! oh i dont know maybe im thinking this is a bigger prob than it is. motherhood aye, all trail and error!!

Is she learning to roll? That could be why she's falling back ass she practises in her sleep. DS started sleeping on his front at this age after being a side sleeper so started putting him on his front after he flipped over and slept til 3am! So you could try her front (clear the cot first) or prop her on her side with a rolled up blanket)

There is a lot going on at 6 months - growth spurt, teething, developmental leap, all of which mess with sleep. Another one is the introduction of solids or new foods if started earlier. Tummy trouble as they get used to it can give wind.

As she's waking so often I wonder if she wants you for comfort so could be low level teething? First teeth on average turn up now.

As for self settling - well it's pointless pushing it if your baby needs you as something is up. Once DS got his first teeth at 6 months, he started consistently self settling. I didn't do much just fed and rocked as usual. It didn't always work straight away so I'd stock on his cot and he'd drift off with me in the room making low level noose so he knew I was there. But there were plenty of things later down the track which meant he needed more help to sleep. Now at 2, I'm confident that giving him that help makes him pretty secure (as he tells us to go when he's tucked in bed, age 2).