6 month old believes I am a sofa

[Ilovebrie]

My (exceedingly fat and heavy) 6 month old has two main problems:

1. she believes I am a sofabed and won't nap anywhere but on me
2. only sleeps 9 hours at night (wakes every 2 hours, rocking to sleep) and makes up for it with 5 hours of naps a day

I've narrowed down my choices to a few options:

1. go cold turkey with the naps on me and start transferring her to cot asleep (she would only get three 40 min naps a day max instead of her usual 5 hours)
2. try PUPD at night to teach her to self-settle but stick to usual naps on Sofa-Mum and hope she starts sleeping better in general
3. a combination of the two options above with PUPD at night and transferring her asleep to cot for naps
4. PUPD for night and naps and ride out the screaming misery
5. have myself upholstered and accept my new position in life

Any thoughts?

If her sleep ends up horribly disrupted as a result of sleep training, do whe stick to her normal 3 nap schedule regardless of how overtired she gets (I don't want to make the imbalance between night and nap sleep even worse)?

We have nice sleep routines in place and she does go to sleep quickly when rocked so hopefully just needs more of a chance to learn to settle in bed. CIO/CC techniques are not for us so hoping PUPD is a slightly less traumatic option...

My vote is for (4).

I would tackle both at the same time. Otherwise you are only ever half solving the problem and prolonging the agony for you both.

Get yourself lots of support in place for a week or two - Your partner at home needs to be on-side so that you can share the misery and support each other. Also get anyone else who might be willing to come over and watch baby for an hour while you have a nap ready. I'd even go for getting my DH to take a week off work to help.

For some children PUPD can be too over-stimulating and makes it harder for them to sleep, not easier. Many babies do not want picking up when they are tired, they just want help to get to sleep and by picking them up you can make them more awake and more frustrated.

I just mention this because you won't necessarily know which is preferable to your baby until you start. An alternate but similarly less traumatic option is Shush Pat. You stay with baby constantly reassuring through the screaming misery with shushes and patting, but do not pick baby up. Basically the same as PUPD but less stimulating.

Incidentally, my 5 month old has recently started appreciating being swaddled when over-tired. I've not used the swaddle since she was about 6 weeks old. But now she has 'found her hands' I have found she rubs her face a lot when tired, and this over-stimulates her. The swaddle calms her right down almost immediately.

The swaddle is a great way to replicate that tight, secure feeling when being held. It also makes transferring from being held to being put down easier.

Shush pat sounds like a good idea. Think we'll do a combination and just pick her up if she gets very upset.

But this board doesn't give me much hope. So many people with sleep issues! I can't help but think it's a bit cruel to attempt to force my baby to be less inconvinient when it's not natural for her to want to sleep alone.

Going to give her the chance to learn for maybe a week or two but if it's a screaming struggle with no improvement, I know I will cave. Poor little one will be so unhappy that I don't want to cuddle her while she sleeps. :(

It's no help to you now, but her not wanting to sleep alone is learnt behaviour, not inherently natural behaviour.

It has become natural behaviour for her now because since she came out of the womb and for the last 6 months she has been on you or held by you to go to sleep and so this is all she knows, so of course it comes naturally to her.

If she was put down and went to sleep independently from birth, then this would be what comes naturally.

Sorry.

Good luck with shush pat.

We spent the first three months religiously putting her down for naps and she just screamed and screamed. Every baby is different and it's not as easy as your post makes it sound. Otherwise there'd be no need for a message board where exhausted parents go for help and support.

Oh interesting. My initial reaction was tackle night sleep first so she doesnt get too overtired by potentially not sleeping for naps as well. But now I've thought about it longer I think FATEdestiny is right - if she's napping more during the day because she's not sleeping much at night you need to tackle both at once to create a reasonable sleep pattern.

Also, don't let this board depress you. Some of us have (eventually) got to the point where our babies sleep pretty well. It's just that we don't tend to post about it for fear of someone suffering from extreme sleep deprivation giving us a virtual slap for being too smug! [Wink]

Good luck with the shush pat and don't worry, sleeping cuddles can be replaced with awake cuddles which are much more fun (although quite squirmy)

Its a fine line to tread between giving pragmatic and practical sleep advise, and not being smug

Sorry if I came across that way.

Fact is, I learnt many, many, many lessons over the last 10 years with my four children. I have been there with sofa child, with breastfeeding clingon, with I am not the sort of mother who uses a dummy. I have rocked to sleep and learnt my lesson. I have breastfed to sleep and learnt to separate milk and sleep. I have had no more than 2 hour sleep in a row for more than 2 consecutive years.

I do understand, so hope I can help. Feel free to ignore me though OP.

I fully accept that many parenting and sleep lessons can only be learnt through experience.

Before you do anything I would record her sleep patterns religiously for a week. There is a really good chart in the Ferber book for this. I know he gets a bad press but the book is worth it just got the chart. I did this and it was illuminating and has helped me make decisions.
You spend five hours a day cuddling a baby?! You should contract it out!