Baby Led Sleeping

[VerityClinch]

I'm not co-sleeping with my almost two year old against my own volition and against my better judgement because I am too soft to do controlled crying and if he wakes his three year old sister that's the whole house up and everyone will need a story before they go back down and although it is hilarious that DS rattles his cot bars shouting "awake, awake" it is not quite so hilarious at 4am for the fifth time that night...

Oh no. Not me.

I am doing Baby Led Sleeping,

(It's all about the branding dontcha know)

Well of course you're already there.

You are doing BLS and are therefore a superior, nurturing, intuitive, serene, effortless mother.

Our ds is 3mo and in a bed nest in our room. Should I be introducing dh to the concept of bls now do you think or is it best to wait a few months until bls is well established and then tell dh it had a name all along and is a well known sleep technique?

I'd say, wait for him to protest about the sleeping arrangements (whatever they are at the time of the protest) then tell him "but DH, we agreed we would do Baby Led Sleeping way before DC was even born; it's been going so well, we are textbook BabyLedSleepers, why on earth would we rock the boat now?"

Get a bit trembly-lipped if he tries to naysay you. We are, after all, just putting our babies' needs first...

Wow! I hadn't realized I was so on trend! Chair bed on order for the nursery, can shush in my sleep, naps are unheard of and bed time a moveable feast! Fabulous to know I am bang on course for success in BLS :-)

Got it Verity, thanks for that, I'm sure once dh has read the book he'll be totally on board with bls.

Oooh! Having missed out on most of the exciting new trends I am elated to find out that I was one of the pioneers of BLS!

Anybody remember my one woman and one baby BLS marches around supermarkets at 6am 8 years ago?

I am soooo loving this thread!

Thank you for giving me a much needed laugh this evening!

[written from mattress in DS's room where I have been sleeping since DP got fed up with forgoing his place in bed for our half-human-half-starfish child]

I thought it was just me...!!!

I needed you 21 months ago. Would have saved a fortune on counselling fees.

I just laughed so hard reading this thread that I woke up my sleeping 9 month old - she's asleep on me obviously, since I too am following BLS
Might as well read the rest of the thread now she's awake...

I love this thread. Dh and I are going through a tough patch of bls. Ds is taking the baby led awake approach as mentioned above. Being in our bed is too interesting when there are eyes to poke and hair to pull. The cot is ok if followed by a cuddle every 45 minutes and possibly being awake for a couple of hours at a time.

@ half baby, half starfish.

This thread is brilliant! I've been BLS for 14 months now.

I don't think DS is a bad sleeper at all, in fact I think he's really good. He's always been fantastic at going to bed, I didn't have to do anything to get him into a bedtime routine, until about 6 months I just plonked him in his moses basket in the living room when he looked tired and carried him up when I went to bed, from then on it's been: story, song, light off, door shut that's it. Like magic every night, however he has some, shall we call them quirks!

Until he learnt to put the sodding things back in himself I became adept at finding and re-inserting dummies hourly without opening my eyes. I quickly discovered that even though he woke at 5am if I then put him in with me he'd go back to sleep, after half an hour of faffing obviously, and wouldn't wake till gone 8. His current MO is to wake up at 3:30, stand up in his cot and start singing Elmo's song at the top of his voice (he's only 14 months so pretty much the only word he knows is soooooooong). If that doesn't wake me he throws things at me and says "oh dear".

Bollocks to shush-patting at that ungodly hour.

My mother constantly says "is he in his own room yet" whilst simultaneously pulling her best cat's bum mouth and hoiking her busom. Not that she's judging you understand, just asking. I am so going to tell her it's BLS next time. She can stick that in her sneery pipe and smoke it

I have been in tears (of laughter) over this thread. I was on the cusp of a nervous breakdown regarding the failure of our baby to use his own bed and sleep. He is 15 months old and only manages up to half an hour in it at best, before snuggling in between me and DS. I cannot do CC, I just can't, and I can't allow him to shout 'boob, boob!' in between squealing at 3am, he will wake the other children. He is a total nightmare but now I see I am not alone and that makes me feel ok about the 3 in a bed, not in his own room either (similar comments in our camp Randall!), and still nodding off at the boob scenario. We are doing baby led too Thank you OP, I could kiss you! Can't wait to tell DS about BLS later when I'm struggling at bedtime, he loves that sort of thing.

Although, I do still fantasise about sleeping more than 2 hours straight

I'm doing Four-year-old-led sleeping at the moment - do I count as a BLS graduate?

Graduate definitely. Or maybe "veteran" is the word. Straight to the top of the class with you.

Ahhhh I knew I was wasting my money on all the other books at the time of purchase

you've cheered me up

In the spirit of BLS I have pursuaded dp that we should just move the cot into the other room and get a massive super-king sized bed for us all to sleep in. I assured him that BLS was soooo the thing to do, after all we are doing great with BLW so how can it go wrong.

Glad we only spent £30 on the cot on ebay as dd has slept about 3 weeks in it in all her almost 7 months.

I finally know where I belong! Oh thank goodness for BLSing!

It's a bold concept, but I think I'm going to stick to purees.

HearMyRoar I am wincing at the cost of DC2's vair vair expensive cot compared to how many times he has actually slept in it (14mo and I can count the number of times on one hand).

And the little angel had the audacity to chew the rail one time he was in it recently, which means I have to knock about £50 off when I sell it on eBay .

I am not on a blow-up bed in DS's room. Oh no. I am in a proper bed in DS's room. So that DH can get some sleep and so that DC1 does not get disturbed by DS's waking.

My DC1 was sleeping through the night by this age .

Ok, it's 9pm, past our my bedtime, nightynight all!

BLS forever! pleasgodnoooomakeitstop!

TBH I think the future of family bedding is to get a huge inflatable airbed-style floor upstairs and the ability to add dividers as needed on a given night. Most nights we (me, DH, 2 DCs) would probably all be asleep together in the middle.

Oh oh oh, finally, I've found a place I belong!! My name is ThePieSmuggler and I'm a BabyLedSleeper

I am on my second bout of BLS - dd only started sleeping properly when she started school & like someone has already mentioned we haven't even bothered with ds because we know we'll be wasting our time on more traditional sleep techniques. BLS all the way

Another BLS expert here. I shall write the BLS Bible and make my fortune

We are doing bls for the 5th time now, if only i had known it had a name when we did it with ds1, ds2, ds3 and ds4!