10 month sleep help anyone?

[rhythm12]

Hi hoping someone can help

I have a 10 month baby, just stopped BF her during the night a week ago. Until then, she was waking up to every half hour through the night especially after midnight. Read online that decreased day feeding, and bouncing round the bed at night, among other things, mean a baby is ready to be night weaned. So went cold turkey, she hasn't complained. So far, so good. Now she gets a BF at 6.30pm and another at about 6am.x Plus usually 2 day feeds/naps.

The next thing I tried to do is get her back into her cot. We co-slept to about 3 months, then she was in cot until 7 months. Then suddenly she wouldn't go in the cot of rove nor money. At the time I tried a few tactics e.g. ssssh pat methods, leaving room for any length of time. Didn't work, she would stand, screaming for an hour or more, and eventually throw up, urgh. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it and we have been co-sleeping. But I'd like to try again. Since she was 7 months I haven't been able to leave the bedroom 6.30pm-6am for fear she will fall out of the bed and it's started to make me resent her. I want some time back to do things.

Should also mention that I'm a lone parent, so there is none to help me with this, hold her put her to bed etc. Before anyone asks, none can come round for any night(s) to assist. It's just me. So, here's what I tried tonight and what happened...

6.30pm I put her down in the cot after BF and she stayed asleep - yay! I practically did a victory dance around the house, had my arms free OMG, could do things without someone crying if I put her down or went out of sight. Tidied stuff!!!

7.30pm she woke and screamed. This could be where I went wrong. I waited a couple of minutes, crying got louder so I came upstairs. She was sat in her cot dying. So I picked her up, took her to bed, she lay on me and fell straight asleep just like she usually does. Waited 5 minutes and tried to put her back in cot. Uh-oh. She woke and this time it was like when she was 7 months. Stood in cot crying loudly. This time, instead of pick her up, I stayed next to the cot saying sssh sssh and occasionally lie down. She just kept going. Til crying got quite jerky and I was worried she would make herself sick and didn't want to have to deal with that, so picked her up. Took her to bed, she lay on me and feel straight asleep.

This time I rolled her off me onto my mattress like I normally do, she stayed asleep but I can't leave the room and do stuff, the bed + mattress are high off the ground and I'm too scared she'll fall out of the bed. So I'm doing what I normally do, sitting on the floor next to the bed with the laptop while she's sleeping peacefully on the double bed.

Ok.. sorry for the long post, but can anyone offer solutions here? The way i see it I need to a) ideally get her sleeping in the cot permanently or b) have a way for her to co-sleep but safely so that I can go do stuff in other parts of the house until I want to go to bed. I don't have money for new stuff like special co-sleeping cots.

If you're still reading.. did I go wrong by picking her up? And suggestions? Thank you.... xxx

Hi rhythm, poor you - you must be knackered! I think maybe the first part of the problem to fix is her going to sleep on her own. It sounds from your post like you feed her to sleep and put her down in the cot when asleep? (Sorry if I've misunderstood). If she can get herself to sleep at the start of the night without you then she should be able to get herself back to sleep on her own through the night when she wakes up. Of course if she's used to you being there when she goes to sleep and through the night then this might not be very easy, but well worth persevering with as once you've cracked it then it should fix all (or most) of the problems through the rest of the night.

I did a bit of controlled crying to sort out bedtime, but of course if that's not your style you could try shhs-pat, or just sitting next to the cot and slowly moving further away each night?

I found the 'troublesome tots' website really useful for this (I have nothing to do with them, just stumbled across it and thought it was helpful, and all the advice lined up with everything a child sleep consultant friend had said to me).

Good luck!

We use a dummy for DD (same age) otherwise she wakes up all the time. I sympathise, DD has never been a good sleeper. I still partly cosleep and the cot is next to my bed, otherwise she won't settle.
Have you thought about putting your mattress on the floor? Then if she rolls off she's ok.

To answer your question about picking her up, I honestly think that no two combinations of baby+parent are the same re sleep. I would never leave DD to cry, I can't handle it and she's incredibly stubborn so it would just go on for hours. But it works for lots of people. Go with your instincts.

You could try baby whisperer pick up put down method? If you Google it there will be detailed explanations. Basically you pick up to soothe but put down before they fall asleep. I agree wity the person up post..aim should be for dd to settle herself to sleep so that she can do the same through the night.

Hi rhythm, Ah I totally feel for you as my DS has been going thru the same sort of thing (see my post - he fell out of his cot!!). My HV said to get him to settle on his own without b/fing and he does go to sleep in the cot with the sides up at first and he'll sleep for 2 hours but then later on usually after midnight he wakes every hour and I give up and move the cot back to the side of our bed. I just can't leave him in it in the day time as he'll find a way out. I can't afford a video thing and I haven't got a posh smart phone as we can't afford it either, but if you have one, you can get an app called Face time which you can then set to watch your baby. You do need another one to watch with so that prob won't work unless you've got someone else with one. Another solution someone suggested was put him in a travel cot that he can't get out of in the day time and then co-sleep at night. I might try the travel cot, but it does take some getting used to as our DS hated ours!
Good luck with it all
x

PS: Can I just ask how did you manage to wean your DD from night feeds? My DS still feeds every hour and it's always worse after midnight right to when he wakes up at 6-7am. It's like he's newborn and he's nearly 12 months!!

Thank you.. BooseysMom to answer your question well, I was getting fed up with the night feeds at about 9.5 months, because she seemed to be waking up more and more frequently (like yours more frequent midnight to 6am), having a little feed but not much and sleeping again so it was just for comfort. Also then started to be waking and bouncing round the bed. I read an article online that said if they start to eat less during the day (which she was) and become more awake/bouncy during the night like that, among other things, they are ready to be night weaned. And I had nothing to lose, it was knackering which I'm sure you know.

So, a week ago (this is one week off 10 months) here's what I did.. followed her normal routine of dinner at 5pm, bath, bed time (few books with a lamp on), BF. Once she fell asleep, rolled her onto the bed next to me and got off the bed, surrounded her with pillows and I lay on an old cot mattress next to the bed. Just waited. A couple of hours later she whimpered, but rolled over and slept again. She slept right through to 3.30am. When she woke then, I put her on me but didn't offer BF. She slept and rolled her off again, maybe once or twice. Until 6am when she woke and BF her then.

Have repeated this since. I figured that me being on the mattress next to her was disturbing her. At night, because I had my laptop there and could never be totally still and when awake I think I was moving, rolling in my sleep and waking her.

She does still wake sometimes, but nowhere near as much. And I rarely offer BF, only if she really starts to scream and won't sleep after about 10-20 minutes. So I BF maybe once on 2 separate nights. But nowhere near as much as before. Mostly I lay her on my chest when she wakes, keep as still and quiet as possible, keep the light off, wait until she is asleep, then for about 10 minutes+ afterwards, then roll her back onto the bed, surround with pillows, and I go back onto the floor.

I think she was ready to be night weaned. On the other hand during the day she still demands 2 feeds and gets really grumpy really quickly for those, and there's still the bed time / waking feeds..

And.. now I'm on the floor (which is where I am, typing this), she's in my bed not her cot (and see what happened when I tried the next stage, getting her into the cot!)

Does that help at all?

Hi rhythm, thanks for your reply. That does help lots thanks. Wow, your way of getting your baby to sleep is really clever - I like it! It just makes me smile to think that every mum and baby is different. That's amazing that your baby slept til 3.30am when you were next to her on the mattress! I tried moving mine in the cot away from the bed as I thought the same as you, that me being so close was waking him all night, but when we did this he woke every hour as usual so think it's a habit he has got into since birth.
I only wish my DS was still small enough to sleep on my chest as I used to love it when he did this when he was tiny and he would spend hours asleep on me. He tries to do it now but he's way too heavy and he just can't fit on me as he's too long!
I was thinking if you co-sleep, you can get a barrier thing that you attach to the side of your bed and that will hopefully stop the falling out of bed. We didn't use one of these as we have always had the cot next to the bed, but the other day, there was loud screaming and we ran upstairs to find DS on the floor face down. Naturally I freaked! He was ok, but I put all 4 sides of the cot up straight away and that night I didn't sleep a wink as he was far away from us in his cot. He wouldn't sleep in it either. I really thought he would sleep better away from me as mentioned earlier, but he is really stuck in the habit of continual waking and BFing for comfort. I wish I had tried a dummy now.
As UnwittingAccomplice says above, I can't cope with control crying. I'm not going to even try it. (So my DM can take a running jump! Ha!)
The joys of parenthood though! I never thought it would be so stressful but so rewarding at the same time - nothing can prepare you!

Collapse your bed frame and put the mattress on the floor! Then get some bed bumpers (Amazon do them) to keep her in place. We did that for a bit and it means you can leave the LO asleep on the bed in the evening whilst you get on with stuff, and you know that even if they did fall out, it isn't far down.

Hi pusspuss, thanks for your suggestion. I'm looking at the bed bumpers now. They look ideal for us.