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Sleep

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Am I doing this all wrong, rod for my back etc!

1 reply

SoundOfHerWings · 29/01/2012 23:38

DD is 4 months and has never been a great sleeper, although as I'm a very light sleeper and tend to wake 3x a night anyway its not really bothered me. DH sleeps through anything and is a nightmare on broken sleep so I do the night wakings.

She's EBF on demand, and has some issues with wind so feeds little and often. She can just about stretch to 3 hours in the day, but usually feeds 2 hourly. She cluster feeds in the evenings, from about 9-11, meaning that bedtime is about 11.30pm. She was waking 3x a night, but the 4 month regression has hit and it's now every 2 hours. We cosleep, so she breastfeeds back to sleep with no fussing each time and I hardly even have to move, so we're coping fine with this. BUT she will not sleep at all in the night unless she is touching me. We have a cosleeper crib and she won't let me put her into it, she just screams, even if I slide her over gently. We wake up at about 9.30am, and she doesn't nap until 2pm on the dot, when she has a 2 hour nap and then another catnap at 5-6pm. I've tried to get her to nap more often, but she just won't, she's awake, happy not grouchy and seems not to be tired and will just lie there grinning and playing. She falls asleep on her own for naps, usually on a blanket in whatever room I'm in while I'm in and out tidying etc, or in the sling if we're out.

All this is working well for us, she's a really contented, alert and happy baby and despite the broken sleep I'm doing fine. I'm reluctant to start a set in stone routine as my husband works away a lot and I need the freedom to see friends etc without feeling I need to always be at home. But whenever I mention her sleep to anyone I get a chorus of sighs, eye rolling and muttering about bad habits. Am I ruining her sleep patterns forever with the cosleeping, feeding to sleep, no fixed routine etc or is it fine to carry on as we are while we're all happy and hope that at some point things sort themselves out?

OP posts:
Beamur · 29/01/2012 23:49

If you are happy and your baby is happy - then carry on as you are. Change the subject with people who have different ideas.
Every baby is different - I co-slept with my baby for several months, and whilst I would put her to sleep in her own cot, she usually ended up in bed with us after a feed in the night.
Once she was in her own room though, she rarely slept in with us again (14 months old) and started sleeping through (at long last!) - as a toddler/small child she did not want to sleep with me either and would come in for cuddles during the night if she woke but would then ask to go back to her own bed - so, co sleeping as babies does not automatically mean they will always want to sleep in with you.

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