5mo cot aversion - it's like a switch goes off! Help!!

[politico]

my DP has just performed an experiment (he's a scientist). He put our DS into his cot - screams, tears, to the point where we were thinking he needed calpol for his teeth; then moved him to our bed. All smiles, cooing and finding his thumb and settling down to sleep. Back to the cot - instant crying and tears again. Back to the bed - angelic. Back and forth, same reactions. ARGH.

The bed thing has been from the start because I was really anaemic for ages and this was the only way I could feed for a while. Since then I try to get up and sit on the sofa to feed him, but I have been breastfeeding him in the bed occasionally a lot when I've been super tired - then waking up with him beside us hours later. He is 5 months old and still only managing about 4 hours at a time during the night, occasionally 5-6 on a rare good one, and it can be up to an hour to settle him. We often cave and bring him into the bed, just to get a bit of kip. I have nothing against co-sleeping, but it's not the route we wanted to go down. We just want some sleep! And we think him settling in his cot is probably one of the main hurdles to getting him to (one day, someday) sleep through.

How the flip do I get out of this one please? Anyone been in a similar boat?

thanks in advance.

Are you trying to settle him awake? I'd start by putting him in asleep after bedime routine then cosleep after the first waking. Then gradually put back after one night feed etc until e gets used to it. That's how I got mine in their cots. But while they're waking loads (and 4-5 hour stretches are bloody great going) easier to be near you TBH.

But he's 5 months old, most likely going through a developmental leap. The only thing your "experiment" has shown is that your baby wants to be near you, all normal!

Same happened here but I just gave in and co slept. They are babies and just want warmth and comfort from their mothers. I reasoned that we don't sleep alone so why do we expect our babies to?

Try putting him in completely asleep, perhaps? I'm afraid I'm much better at putting my ds down than my dh - although he's better at other things than me maybe it's the same for you?

It does sound like he wants to be near you, our ds does the same, he'll only nap during the day if he's in someone's arms or one of us has a kip next to him on the bed. We also co-sleep, which we didn't plan on doing but ds had colic and we all needed sleep and closeness. Ds is now 10 months and we're aiming to put him in his own cot when we've constructed it soon. We expect he'll be just as angry as your ds is.