Help with 11mo boob monster.

[MrsUnderwood]

My DD is nearly 11mo. We have been cosleeping and breastfeeding practically since birth as this was the only way we could get her to sleep.

I desperately want her out of our bed and into her own room. We can get her to sleep in her cot if she is breastfed or cuddled until dead asleep and then put down. She'll then sleep 1-2 hours on average before waking. We usually end up taking her into our bed at around 11pm as it's so hard to resettle her and we're knackered. Then she nurses all night.

We have tried putting her down when she is relaxed and sleepy but she immediately goes nuts and no amount of patting and stroking will calm her- when we tried this she got so wound up she was screaming like she was being murdered and shaking, I felt really evil so ended up picking her up and cuddling her.

I've also tried putting her down and then picking her up when she starts crying, putting her down again when she's calm. She just explodes as soon as her body touches the mattress.

This also means that every time we go out and my mother in law babysits, she has an absolute nightmare getting her to sleep.

I'm back at work now and I really need my own space, and I am sick of the constant night feeds. Can anyone help me? What I want is for her to be able to go to sleep in her cot without us breastfeeding/ cuddling to sleep, and for her to self settle.

She has a comforter which she doesn't have any interest in, how can we get her interested in it? We give her painkillers when she is teething and as far as we're aware she has no other health issues- very healthy, and a happy wee thing most of the time.

I could have written this post! DD is nearly 11 months old and co-slept/BF from birth. Has never been able to settle without boob or being rocked to sleep and usually wakes at least every 3 hours. Has slept through on just 3 occasions. At one point she was waking every 45 minutes at night for over a month

I was hoping it would sort itself out. I have been putting her down in her cot asleep then bringing her to bed with me on first wake up. I tried Jay Gordon's night weaning technique but found it too easy to give up and BF.

Against all my parenting instincts we have started controlled crying 2 nights ago - mainly because feeding to sleep had stopped working and bedtime was turning into a battle. I figured the only way to break the feed to sleep cycle was to go cold turkey on the boob and co-sleeping at night. I am sad about it and already missing the cuddles but I'm back at work in a few weeks and need to be alert for my job, plus DH and childminder will have to start settling her too and co-sleeping has given me awful back pain.

The first night was tough - crying for about 40 mins before tapping out, she woke up about 4 times taking about half an hour to get to sleep. Similar last night but with only 2 wake ups each lasting nearly an hour. Tonight took half an hour to go down but eventually settled herself. Fingers crossed for a better night tonight!

I've already noticed an improvement in her naps - I can now put her down sleepy but awake and she'll be asleep within a few minutes with just a hand on her back - not reached the point of being able to leave the room before she's asleep yet but an amazing improvement! Her naps have also lasted longer - today instead of waking after the usual 45 minutes, she just grizzled a bit then carried on sleeping for another hour and a half.

She's been her usual happy self during the day. I was worried she might become anxious or clingy but she was absolutely fine.

I've been doing a lot of research looking for a solution but it seems that whatever you try involves crying at some point - cc seemed to be the quickest and most effective though.

Bit of an epic post but our situation sounds identical to yours so didn't want to leave yours unanswered. Hopefully somebody else will be along soon with more gentle suggestions!

Plummy, thanks for taking the time to write back! Your situation sounds exactly the same as ours. I really didn't want to go down the CC route but I don't think anything else is going to work at this stage.

With the night weaning, did you offer her water instead of milk? Did you notice her eating more during the day after you night weaned?

Yes I offered water, sometimes she would take it but I would always have to pick her up and rock her back to sleep. It wasn't reducing the number of wake ups though and I found it more difficult to get back to sleep afterwards. Sometimes she would become really alert and I would have to feed her. I think I stuck at it for about a week before I gave in and started just feeding her at every wake up.

I'm still not happy about doing CC (mainly because I loved the night time cuddles) but I think we both need sleep now and I couldn't see dd wanting to change the status quo any time soon.

I think it might be working though - she just woke up at 10pm, cried for about 10 mins (with DH popping in at intervals to settle her - we're not doing CIO) and went back to sleep on her own.

And yes she did eat a bit more during the day when I wasn't feeding as much at night but she is quite a good eater anyway.

I think we're going to start CC tonight as I had an awful nights sleep last night and, like you, am getting a very bad back from co sleeping. Will post back with results :( not looking forward to it, I'm going to miss the cuddles and she gets so, so upset.

Well last night she woke up at 1.45 and 5.20, both times she was standing in the cot crying - all I needed to do was go in, say it's sleepy time, lie her back down with a cuddly rabbit and within 2-3 minutes she'd drifted off to sleep again. I also heard her grizzle a couple more times during the night but didn't need to go in to her as she settled herself. Eventually she woke up at 6.45.

This morning she went down tired but awake for a nap after a quick BF and was asleep within a minute after a bit of grizzling (not crying) whilst lying down - something that would never have happened a week ago - before it would have been either feeding to sleep or rocking for about half an hour. I stayed with her until she was asleep before leaving though as daytime naps aren't really a problem.

I can't believe really how quickly things have improved. I still feel knackered but DH is on the sofa doing the night duty tonight and I'll be in our bed with ear plugs in hoping for the first uninterrupted nights sleep in 11 months!

Good luck tonight Mrs will be interested to hear how it goes.

I have to say your posts have certainly given me hope! Especially that your daughter doesn't seem to be unhappy during the day- that was one of the things I was worried about, that she'd suddenly become fearful and clingy! It sounds like your little girl has made a huge improvement- hope it continues and you get a decent night's sleep.

I might have to warn the neighbours as my daughters room is on the adjoining wall.

Well it's going terribly so far! She is screaming blue murder and attempting to pull herself up and out of the cot every few mins so I couldn't leave her alone as I'm scared she'll hurt herself. How do you deal with that?

DD would just standing up in the cot shouting rather than pulling herself up and down. I think if I thought she was going to hurt herself though I would have gone with my instincts and wouldn't have carried on. The first night she wouldn't lie back down when we put her down but would struggle to get up. After about 30 mins she would stay lying down, it was only when she left the room that she'd get back up again. Eventually she would just lay down herself and go back to sleep.

Now as soon as we go in an lie her down she will stay there, I guess it's just cracking the going to sleep when we leave the room bit that needs to follow.

Last night she had 3 wake ups, at the last one at 4.30 she really wasn't settling when she lay back down so I figured she was hungry and fed her then she slept until 6.30 (my earplugs had fallen out so I got woken up!). I It's still taking about 20 mins each time for her to get back to sleep but we have noticed that she is self settling in between proper wake ups - now waking up about every 3-4 hours rather than every 2 hours.

I think the first night was the hardest but once we'd started I felt it would be unfair not to commit to it. Although she's still not sleeping through, there have been a lot of improvements - longer chunks of sleep, settling herself in the cot, going down easily for naps and she's exactly the same happy baby during the day plus the back pain seems to have magically disappeared!

How did you get on for the rest of the night Mrs?

It was pretty horrendous- we 're kind of stuck at the moment as I don't think we can do CC properly until after the weekend, as she's being babysat on Sunday night, but our old methods of getting her to sleep are not working anymore- this week has been her waking up more and more often after we try and settle her. She's still sleeping with is after 10:30- 11 when we go up to bed. In the end we stayed in and patted her head while she screamed her guts out. Currently trying to get her to nap. She is going fucking crazy.

Oh no sorry to hear it's not going too well. Mixed results here - woke at 12.30 and 5am last night having gone down at 7 so longer stretches than ever before but still taking 45mins to settle in the night. Has just gone down after only 5mins of grizzling though so maybe the worst is over! Have you thought about trying gradual withdrawal? Might be a start to getting her used to being in her cot?

Well got a bit of an update! I think the problem was a lack of consistency and the fact we kept cracking. We started doing 'proper' controlled crying last night and it seems to be working well, gone cold turkey with the breast feeding at night, she's did some self settling last night and didn't need us at all between 12-6! She keeps sitting up quietly in her cot and playing with a soft toy, should I put her back on her back when I go in or leave her to it and trust she'll lie back down when she's ready?

How are things going for you, plummy? Making more progress?

6 hours - that's amazing! Nice to hear that she's happy to just sit and play in her cot too. If DD wakes up and is standing I lie her back down, just so she gets the message that she needs to be lying to go to sleep but if your DD seems quite happy maybe you could just wait and see what she does?

We're still making great strides here. I was worried it would all go to pot last night as DD is coming down with a cold and was a bit clingy all day. I put her down awake at 7.30 and within a couple of minutes she was asleep - no crying or grizzling at all - it seemed like she was almost grateful to be put in bed so she could go to sleep! She woke briefly at 11.30 so I just went in gave her a quick kiss and lay her back down but waited until she was asleep before leaving as she's out of sorts. Only took her about 5 minutes before she was fully asleep (again no crying) and then she slept until 6.15 - her longest stretch of sleep pretty much ever!

I completely agree that consistency is the key. We also found that she settled more quickly if we made the checks brief rather than staying for a couple of minutes and extended the timings a bit to 2 and 5 minutes.

Fingers crossed she'll actually sleep all the way through soon! DH is already asking when I fancy having another one ...