is five weeks to young to create bad sleep habits?

[tomatoandcheese2009]

Five week old DS goes to bed pretty happily at 7.30 after bath and feed and has his longest sleep following this (still only 3-4 hours, although he once went 6). Then wakes up every hour of so until 4. The only way to get him to sleep after 4 is to let him sleep on me on the sofa bed. If I give in and let him do this we both get another 2.5 to 3 hours so he clearly is still sleepy, just won't settle in the cot. The extra sleep is pretty crucial to me getting through the day, but I'm worried I'm creating a bad habit that we will struggle to break. Anyone know when babies start to develop bad habits? He clearly has sleep associations already bearing in mind the success of the bedtime ritual.

It just seems a bit daft asking him to give up his bed for the whole night versus me sleeping on the floor/sofa bed for two hours. I'm not working currently and of course when I go back we will split nighttime duties more equally (although I'm hoping it will have gotten a bit easier by then). But for the moment I don't see the point in both of us being sleep deprived. I wouldn't get much extra sleep anyway as DS is bf and will only take a bottle of expressed milk during the day. Having one of us relatively well rested makes family life much calmer. I appreciate this isn't how everyone does it but it makes sense for us.

It's not just sleep, it's about your baby's safety while cosleeping. Him insisting "only cot" just isn't helpful as it doesn't solve the problem.

Sorry littlebear just saw your message. He has pulled sofa bed out. Just couldn't do it last night because he was at work.

Ok. Appreciate everyone's comments and I know you are just trying to help. But I'm not really looking for an in depth analysis of how helpful or not DH is. I'm happy with his support and our little boy is thriving. I'll talk to him about the cot issue and explain all your advice and I'm sure he'll come around. Still won't be kicking him out of our bed though if we have a safe alternative.

it was the ISIS guidance I was thinking of last night. Maybe check out whether the futon can be safe now it is open? If that works then great. Otherwise maybe your DH could move when you bring DS into bed? It would only be a 2 minute interruption. Obviously you on the floor isn't an answer. There must be one that works for everyone.

Good plan. Although I think the reccomendation is that the safest way to co sleep is to put a mattress on the floor so we might see if that is a good compromise. We'll manage something. Hopefully it won't be for too much longer! Thank you all for the pointers.

Yes. Way too young to worry. Just do what baby needs.