Feel a bit at sea and overwhelmed.

[saltyair]

Hi,
I feel rather overwhelmed with the idea of changing my boy's sleep habits, but it needs doing, I think.

Where we are now
Boy is 13 weeks old (preterm by 4 weeks if that makes a difference) he naps usually .3 times a day, but only on me or my partner. It has got to the stage where I don't even try to put him down because he wakes, cries and then won't settle back down so ends up really cranky and miserable.
Evening routine is bath at 7ish, feed (I am bf on demand), then he is rocked/walked/cuddled to sleep. He then sleeps on me for the evening - he will sometomes stay asleep if i put him on the sofa next to me, never unsupervised - until I go to bed at 10-10.30. Usually he then feeds and we co sleep. Usual night waking is around 12.30, 3.30 and from 5ish he noodles around until I give in and get up - don't mind this bit as he is full of smiles first thing, he lies in his basket (you know, the one he won't sleep in! ) and we chat whilst I feed the cats and make breakfast. That gives his Dad a chance to see him before he leaves for work. We then go back to bed, but increasingly he won't go back to sleep - he used to have another 2 hours then, which was a life saver.

Where I would like to be
I'm relatively happy with the amount of sleep he gets in the day, but am desperate for him to nap in basket/cot/anywhere other than on me!
Night - I'd like to stop cosleeping, for him to be in a cot in our room - and for feeding to go down to just the 3.30 one would be great. Tbh, I wouldn't mind carrying on cosleeping if he would go down in his cot at bedtime, so I wasn't holding all evening.

I feel really,really incompetent as I have no real idea how to change things and I feel as though I have set this pattern up. I don't want to do CC (he's too young I think anyway?)

Thank you in advance!

Ah, I feel your despair! DD was the same from day one, wouldn't sleep anywhere other than on me. My suggestions would be using a sling, my sling was a lifesaver as I could get up and do all the usual stuff around the house and DD was happy napping. We used a Moby Wrap and will be using it again for the next one!
For night time I took the side of the cot off and had it up against the bed, so that we all had our own space, but she was still right there next to me which worked for us.

She's now 15 months old and sleeping in her own room in her own bed and napping there too - I didn't really do anything to change it, she just gradually grew out of it :)

Totally agree with Swiss ... My dd exactly the same. I used a sling too we have the close one. We did the same with the cot too. We've just moved her into her own room which has caused some chaos with sleep but I got to the point where I had to change things!

So I started putting her down when already asleep into the cot - she will sleep for 1/2hr before waking. I then go back, rock etc and put back until she has had a decent nap.

This might sound rubbish but considering what we started with I think we are progressing quite well! She also hated the Moses basket so we went straight to the cot as I couldn't face getting her settled in the Moses basket then her out growing it and then having to start all over again with the cot!

My dd is now 5 months and we only started all this about 2 weeks ago so even though it feels like it's been like this forever she is making progress!

If I were you I would just start putting him in his cot when awake and just chat to him in there and do jobs around the room to get him used to it. Then you could try putting him into cot when already asleep and see what happens. If you are feeling v brave you could even try when awake but tired (never yet worked for us but I live in hope)!

Also we use White noise and swaddle - think she feels much more secure, you could try that too.

Thanks for this - I have a sling, and he will sleep in that which is great- At least means I can make a cup of tea!

He'll go in his crib quite happily awake, or his Moses basket - he'll happily chat and play and beam at me. If I put him in either when I see he is tired he immediately cries. If I put him in it asleep, he wakes after 15mins - that's on a good day with a prevailing wind, usually it is instant...sometimes I swear he wakes up if I even think about putting him down! Then he is difficult to settle - if I settle and put him down again he wakes and then won't go back to sleep and is grizzly.

I don't know if I shouldbe tackling it all at once or sorting naps first and then nighttime or vice versa........

Well I'm no expert - as you can tell from my millions of posts asking for help to sort out dd's rubbish sleep. But I have read A LOT about sleep etc. in desperation.

I was advised by many wise mumsnetters to sort daytime sleep and night time will follow. Lots of people say good daytime sleep breads good night time sleep. I rather stupidly thought this meant they should sleep as often as they like in the day so went merrily along doing this. However, sleep got worse as she was sleeping too much during the day!

I just googled and it says a 3 month old should have 3 naps totalling 5 hours. So you obviously want him to get enough daytime sleep or it will all go wrong. I might try putting him in his cot or moses basket when he is asleep for the 1st nap of the day. Then if it is a disaster you can let him catch up on sleep during the day.

I wouldn't worry too much about night time yet as everything seems so much worse at night. Putting him back a million times during the day will be much better than having to do it at night. Maybe if you could get him to have a little nap in his cot/ moses then you can increase and start night times.

Aw your routine sounds lovely! I know it's an oft mentioned phrase but enjoy this phase, it's only a wink and a blink before they're poking the cat through the letterbox and covering themselves in Sudocreme (which is incidentally impervious to any known removal technique, as is banana and weetabix).

I think 13 weeks is a bit early for CC but if you're wanting to know more about sleeping routines you can start from 6 months, there's a good book by Angela Henderson you could get. I had it recommended by my HV and have never looked back since. It suited us perfectly and by 14mo sleeps like an angel (it's the waking hours that are tantrum riddled battles to separate toddler from cake).

Thanks Zamboo - dealing with the first nap of the day sound like an excellent plan. I shall try that tomorrow....we have a coffeeandcakedate at 11 so if it all goes wrong I can sob on the shoulder of my friend!

queen you're right, he won't be a baby for long - he was hard won too, so I should remind myself of this and chill. I think I have somehow been convinced that he should be sleeping in a cot in a routine by now, even though we're not a very routine based family.

Gah.
My resolve to work on the morning nap disappeared after little boy woke at:
Midnight
2 a.m (awake for an hour)
4a.m. (awake for an hour)
Got up at 6.20....

Morning nap involved us both going back to bed and feeding/dozing until abut half nine.....

Oh no you poor thing, sounds like he's been listening to my dd... That's one of her favourite things to do!

Can't remember if you said you were doing this but play White noise - we have a cd of waves on all night! Really helps & a swaddle blanket - one with Velcro so she can't escape!

Hope you have a good day and a better night tonight.

Keep trying; if he's anything like my DS, he'll be ready one of these days. I posted here a while back about the same problem: preterm (and refluxy) DS would only sleep in our arms. He'd wake up immediately if we set him down. He had a similar pattern to yours in that his best stretch of sleep was in the evening - he'd go to sleep around 6/7pm and then solidly sleep until about midnight (in our arms, of course). Once by chance (and at exactly the corrected 3-month mark), I put him down in his cot around 7pm, and he just stayed there and slept until midnight. From then on, we were able to put him down at that time for the evening (and I'd run right to bed). we'd have to do shifts holding him through the early morning hours, until eventually we could get him to sleep for that stretch as well. Now at 7 months he sleeps quite well (fingers crossed), usually 8pm-6am, so i guess he just needed that closeness for those first months. After all, he did miss out on a whole cosy month in the womb...