Transition from cosleeping to bedside cot. Help!

[highechin]

I have a lovely baby of 17 weeks who is EBF. Initially as a newborn he slept in a bedside cot. However as we both got into the swing of BF lying down at night then we fell into cosleeping at about 6 weeks old. It worked well and lately he consistently slept 8.30pm to 3am (brief 15 minute feed) and back to sleep until 7am ish. Wonderful!

A week ago I decided to make the transition of him sleeping overnight in his bed side cot. The first 3 nights were a total success with him sleeping in an identical pattern to his cosleeping routine. The past 3 nights have been a nightmare with him waking every hour! Help!

I have the no cry sleep solution book and follow the "pantley pull off technique" of feeding him to sleep. I have (safely) enclosed him in the cot with a rolled up cellular blanket etc to give the illusion that he is still sleeping next to me. However it appears that he isn't as easily fooled as I would have hoped!

He feeds back to sleep in minutes at his hourly waking but I don't think he would go back to sleep without me leaning into the cot from the bed to feed him. So I suppose the crux of this is how do I give him the security he presumably had cosleeping that allowed him to sleep so reliably well...

Do I persevere as I am and hope he soon adapts? The last 3 nights have broken me (worse than the newborn stage!).... or if I go back to cosleeping for one night for my own sanity will I be back to square one? My main reason for trying the transition in the first place was tp give my husband a fair share of the bed back!

Looking forward to your wisdom!

Might it be the dreaded 4mnth sleep regression rather than to do with the cot? Mine was unsettled for 3 weeks with a v bad few days waking every 45-60 mins, starting around 17 weeks and recovering around 19.

Sorry, that's almost certainly the four-month sleep regression. Do whatever it takes to get through it with your sanity intact and manage your expectations; DD still hasn't returned to her best sleep of approx 3 months, but it's soooo much better than that four-month point!

Could you take one side off the cot and attach it to your bed for a bit so that he's in his own bed and can get used to it but you can still be very close? Then you can gradually move him further across the his side of the cot, then put the side on but still right next to you, then move it away! We did and it seemed to work.