My co-sleeping high needs baby fell asleep on his own for the first time. I cried.

[cosmicdancer89]

I've been posting around for a few weeks now in desperation of getting my 6.5 m.o DS to sleep better/fall asleep without a boob-and-arm-numbing-rock routine. He's high needs, very active and determined, never ever slept in his cot, never fell asleep without an aid (stroller/sling/boob). Co-sleeping became shit (he would still wake 4/5 times a night ,sometimes to comfort suckle, sometimes he wouldn't resettle til he was rocked again), doesn't take dummy, etc. Textbook high needs bad sleeper.

I saw my NCT friends yesterday and all their babies go down without bottle/breast/rocking, two of them STTN, the breastfed one feeds twice a night but definitely doesn't wake every hour. They take naps in their cots so the mums can actually CLEAN the house, make food, etc.

My baby only slept in my arms, would wake up right when he was put down. This meant I got nothing done, had to go to bed with him at 8pm, no intimacy with DP, no chance to work on my freelance writing (that was the plan - work from home once he's 6 months.. Hahahaha).

Anyway, something snapped in me last night and I did our usual bedtime routine, bath/feed/walk around the darkened room calmly singing to him, except then instead of getting into bed with him and letting him nurse to sleep, or rocking him and then laying beside him, I..... Put him in his cot. I got a chair, put it beside the cot, and.. Well. The next two and a half hours were NOT fun. He screamed. Cried his heart out. I cried too. But I made up my mind - no picking up. I bent over into the cot to kiss him, I stroked his cheek, kept my hand on his belly, he thrashed and freaked and just wouldn't have it. After two hours of this I was ready to give up. But he eventually got tired, and fell asleep. He woke a few times that night, but was easier to resettle.

Today, he went down for a nap in his cot after protesting for 25 min. Again, I never left his bedside. His second nap he didn't cry as dramatically, more fussed.

And now, bedtime, he went down with 15 min of crying (again, not leaving his side).

I'm amazed. I never ever ever ever thought this would work. I felt shit knowing if I rocked him he'd stop crying and sleep but honestly our co-sleeping situation was NOT making him or me happy -- sure he'd fall asleep, but he didn't stay asleep, and I was knackered and starting to get really irritable at my lovely DS.

I know people say - oh they just want cuddles and contact, just enjoy it, they're little -- well we did enjoy it until it stopped working for us and made everyone feel like shit. What's the point in persevering with something that doesn't work well anymore?

Anyway, I wanted to post this for reassurance for anyone who's in my situation. That first "cot sleep" moment will be horrible, be prepared to be dysfunctional for the following day and get HELP from friends and family. I'll keep everyone updated on how our week goes. But I can only hope it'll keep improving as I've already seen improvement in just one day.

Oh and I would never ever just leave him to cry alone in his room. I mare sure he wasn't hungry etc., goes without saying I think. But he did get tired in the end and now he knows he is able to fall asleep without mummy and man, do I feel a massive weight lifted off my shoulders !!!

53rd - you must've mastered that art by now! well done you! at 6m I already felt I couldn't co-sleep for, I suppose what could only really be called "selfish" reasons as well as impractical reasons of DS squiggling around the bed and pulling my hair off/kicking my back. I think if things would continue to be relatively peaceful I would continue to co-sleep.. I'm weak for anything that gets me enough sleep, really! That's why I did it in the first place. Does your LO go down to sleep without you present in bed though? Because when I co-slept, mine didn't. Which meant an 8,30 pm bedtime for mama... O.o

FATE - I know it's not just about the milk, you're completely right. It's everything around it - set times for food = more predictable nap times = more predictable evening sleep times = more predictable night wakings etc. I think BFing on demand reinforces 'feeding' when they're not actually eating/hungry but just suckle a bit for comfort = it quickly becomes a habit = very difficult to break it! My DS spits the dummy out because he can't be fooled anymore -- managed to use it up until he turned about 12 weeks though. What I meant that if I put my DS on formula I would actually KNOW how much milk he was taking,would be able to have a more structured day and, as a result, would have a better understanding whether the night wakings are due to general hunger or just comfort seeking habit. I know it's not a magic fix, but two friend's of mine that have introduced night-time formula feeds and eventually formula weaning have had way fewer night wakings so I don't know. Maybe it's just coincidence really.

LO boycotted naps today, possibly due to a mess up in schedule (awake at 6 as opposed to usual 7,30/8). I managed to kick my ass out of the house to go to a baby group and I am soooo glad I did. Met two other mums with 7mo and 10mo that are still waking 4/5 times to feed so I didn't feel like such a failure.
ppandj - it's really hard not to feel like you're the one that's at fault, but there are plenty of us mums out there waking all night to feed... I just keep repeating a mantra in my head 'this won't last forever this won't last forever' and try to get plenty of walks & air & baby group time and it's the only thing that keeps my sanity!!

Does your LO go down to sleep without you present in bed though?

Heh, no, she still doesn't do that. I feed her to sleep or her dad cuddles/pats her. The only change starting around 6 months was that I could sneak out of the room again once she was asleep in the bedside cot, which I definitely couldn't for the first few months.

I'm not saying that cosleeping is The Way, though, just that when mine was going through a sleep regression nothing worked. Cosleeping she'd wriggle and kick all over me, try and keep her in a separate cot and she'd be either laughing or screaming but either way wide awake, didn't matter how much she was eating, didn't matter what her daytime naps were like, it was a miserable time of misery. But! They didn't last, and once she got through them things that hadn't worked during the regression would start to work again. So don't feel like it'll be this bleak forever, even on the most horrendous of nights - sometimes they just seem to turn a corner out of nowhere and everything changes again.

I've jumped on to watch this and take part a bit even though I've been telling myself I'm much more relaxed about sleep this time with number 2....I hate talking about sleep in real life, mainly cos it is boring and soul destroying to hear folk say how tired they are after one wake up!!! That is positive luxury to me. I haven't slept through the night since some point in my first pregnancy!!
My five month old seems to want to spend a large part of the night attached to my boob which is getting increasingly uncomfortable. She used to be okay in her sleepyhead next to me but now I seem to have created this association with feed back to sleep. It's crept up on me and wham! I don't know how to undo it.

Working hard on getting her to accept a dummy - for weeks she just pushed them out with her tongue but seems a bit better so I am hoping this may be my saving grace!

A bottle of formula has made no difference to sleep but at least allows me a break and some time with my toddler. Nor am I holding out hope for a great improvement with weaning. It does pass, snuggles and night feeds can be lovely but a baby constantly attached to a boob in order to get back to sleep and stay asleep is getting bloody exhausting. She is so happy in the daytime if she has her naps out walking and gets enough sleep but she can be so furious when she wakes I think she may give herself early wrinkles

Cosmic sometimes it helps me to think of other mums up feeding in the night because when I'm tired all I can think of is those people whose babies are sleeping and somehow make me feel a bit inadequate like I am doing something wrong, when actually I've been doing what felt like the right thing.
I think breast feeding on demand as you pointed out may have caused me to offer a feed when in fact she is tired / bored / just needing confort so I am trying to consider what I'm doing a bit more.

Really don't think you need to worry that feeding your months-old baby on demand is setting you up to be a MIL from hell in the future. If you're still doing it when he's 18, then maybe

I spent this morning crying on the sofa. Thank god DP had the morning off work. DS was up the standard every 2 hours and when he woke at 5.40am he refused to go back to sleep even after a feed and cuddles and refused his morning nap at 8.30/9am and just screamed. I left him in the cot for 15 minutes and went downstairs to the lounge and cried and cried and cried. My body is aching from the exhaustion, my mind is foggy, all I want is 7-8 hours of sleep, even if it's with 2 wakings, two 4 hr stretches of sleep.. Is that really asking for much?....

Anyway we are going to shell out for a sleep consultant, I think DP was very concerned seeing my state this morning. The consultant I had my eyes set on is booked out til January, don't think we will survive til then though.. Looking into other options...

Hope everyone's having a better day than me!! Shiteforbrains, do whatever you're comfortable with! If mum is happy feeding all night and cosleeping past 12 months then great, keep doing it! Don't let anyone ever make you feel like you're doing something "wrong". I loved feeding on demand and cosleeping, I just really wanted / needed my evenings back (I'm trying to get back to working from home so need those 2/3 hrs in the eve to focus and not have a baby latched onto me). I have the evenings back but am too dysfunctional to use them productively!! It seems like everything has a downside to it doesn't it.. Can never really win..

I literally can't imagine what it must be like to have a baby that sleeps well. I feel like I'll never get there, no matter what I do :(

I don't have any ideas I'm afraid, DD was just like this. DS I only BF for 6 weeks because he cba, he slept through the night from 7 weeks, dd was solely BF and didn't sleep through until she was 24 months.
My mum said lack of sleeping was a sign of intelligence- my response was that she'd have to live long enough for me to find out!
I think it sounds like he's hungry, at least if he's formula fed DH can do some feeds while you have a rest?

24 months! Pink, I don't know how you survived that! Although I guess 'sleeping through' is relative... I honestly think I would be functioning OK if I had an 11pm and 3am feed for however long he needed it. It's the frequency of wakings / early risings / that inability to fall back asleep around 4/5am that is the ultimate killer.

The formula thing is hit and miss with him, he'll drink 50ml when he's sleepy only then as if to realise it's not boob milk and starts thrashing around angrily rejecting it completely. Tried different variants of bottles and formulas, too. He'll drink out of an NUK and will only have Hipp Organic, but like I said, it is truly rare for him to drink more than 50ml of the thing...

I know the way to go about all this is to just ignore his requests for feeds when it's not feeding time (i.e anytime it's not 10/11pm or 3/4am) and either offer water or soothe him in another way BUUUUT I know my stubborn stubborn DS and he will just cry and cry and work himself up to an awake state so I'll just end up with a wide awake baby for 2 hours and an even more exhausted me (although, is that even possible at this point?!)

Hi Cosmic, I've drunk too much wine tonight to read the full thread but from what I've grasped you are still struggling like I was with my DS1, who is now 2.3.
At 6mths I was very very low as he was only BF to sleep, a good night was every 2hrs, bad was 20-45mins.
At 6mths I met Andrea Grace and she was lovely. The best £250 I have EVER spent. She taught me BF him to sleep was my problem and to cut a long story short it meant that the last feed of the night, after bath, boob, book, in that order, he must go down asleep, that he was not to be fed again until 7am.
I never left his side and picked him up maybe twice, more was not needed. After 2 nights I saw an improvement and with less than 2 weeks he slept through.
Like I say, I haven't read every post but whatever you do, you must stay consistent. There is no point in letting him cry for 1hr to then give up and feed. That isn't teaching him, and has just wasted both your time.
Feel free to PM me and I'll help as much as I can. Or search my username, it's all I bang about on here.

Cosmic I hope you feel a bit better for letting it all out this morning. I let rip at DH about how tired I am. Not that he's got any suggestions nor is jumping to do any night bottles!
Pink how did you know your baby wasn't hungry at night when you did that work with the sleep last? Not criticising, genuinely curious?
Anyways, I'm keeping watching but going to get some sleep as DD presently snoring gently beside me. I really have given up on any thoughts of a life in the evening for now. When I'm exhausted I feel quite down about that but when I feel a bit more robust I'm more accepting of it!

This is probably not what you want to hear, but both DD1 (6) and DD2 (4) co-slept with us until about 10 months ago! DD1 was bf until 10 months at night and 13 months in total. DD2 was bf at night until 8 months and 18 months in total. They would go back to sleep with a cuddle in bed, but cio never worked as both would get so worked up it made them sick.

I enjoyed co-sleeping as it meant we all got a decent nights sleep. Before that, they would wake up and broken sleep = grumpy mother in the morning. They both sleep through from 7.30/8pm until 6/6.30am! I know everyone says it should be from when they are younger, but that's what works for us.

Sorry - can't be more helpful!

I knew because I timed the feeds, some were just minutes long and most of the time the milk was pouring out of the side of his mouth!
Andrea Grace also convinced me that at 6mths he was big enough to go through the night. He was about 50-70 percentile so pretty average. She explained that each time I fed him I was kick starting his kidneys and raising his sugar levels so that was effectively just disturbing his sleep more.
I know these methods can be frowned upon here and I've been slated for it in threads in the past but it had to happen. My sanity was rapidly going downhill and I couldn't have coped much longer.
I now have DS2 5mths who I FF from 7 weeks, mainly so I didn't get myself in the same situation. While his sleep isn't perfect (2-3 feeds a night) my god it feels totally different and I feel sad that I had resentment towards my DS1 because I was so tired. If he doesn't sleep through soon I will also sleep train him before he can stand in the cot as I believe that makes it much harder.

Shit I've just read my 1st post. The baby must go down AWAKE, obv.

Pink, how do you go about cutting them though? Just cold turkey no feeds or did you reduce them or offer water instead ?

The thing is I know this is what I should do but my DS has a difficult temperament and I know how the night is gonna go.. I'll refuse a feed, he will freak out, cry inconsolably for at least 2 hours (if I don't pick him up), pass out, wake up an hour later and the cycle will repeat.. Basically I need to be geared up for a LOT of crying and absolutely no sleep for 3 nights and I don't know if I can handle that right now...

I stopped bfing at night when DS was 10 months. He wasn't going to sleep after a feed so I thought it was pointless carrying on when it wasn't hunger that was the reason why he was waking/staying awake. I just delayed the time I would feed, e.g. no feed before 12am for a few nights then no feed before 12.30am for a few nights then delay it further to 1am etc. It sounds quite slow but what sped it up a bit was a couple of times he would go back to sleep after waking before the designated feed time, usually with bum patting, and didn't wake up until 2/3am, which meant I knew he could last that long without feeding so I jumped to not feeding before 3am.

I hope that makes sense?!

I also did what Queen did. Cut out the earlier feeds first, and slowly cut the rest. However, it was easier for me as I was co-sleeping, so would shush-pat and cuddle them back to sleep.

I wasn't co-sleeping but did shush pat also to settle if it wasn't time to feed.

I might wait a bit to cut his feeds entirely but I think once every 3.5/4 hours should suffice him. I'll try using your tips once I manage to get enough rest in the day. It's really awful when you get into a cycle where you're so tired you can't do any real sleep training anymore but in order to get better nights you have to be consistent and consolidate the training...

DS woke up at 3, assumed it was for free but after usual boob/ cuddle routine that normally settles him down quite fast he started thrashing and screaming in my arms, put him down he seemed quieter but then cried on and off in his cot for 30 min so I picked him up to comfort him and he just wouldn't settle. After an hour and a half of this I put him in bed with me again to try and see if that works -- cue HYSTRRICAL thrashing, hitting me in the face, hair pulling.. Honestly I sometimes feel my son physically abuses me, haha, anyway I lay next to him trying to cuddle him to calm down but again, 10 min of this and it was a disaster so now he's back in the cot and marginally calmer than he was next to me. RIP cosleeping...

This is the thing, I'm so tired I am desperate to get him to fall back asleep asap, which means I'm not entirely consistent in what I do with these night wakings. If only I knew that a nanny would show up at 7am and take him off of me for 4 hours so I could sleep, I think I would be able to have some kind of night training in place.. But, alas... God I wish either mine or DP's relatives were around to help. This is what you need them for!!

I'm booked in for a phone consultation with Ann Caird sleep consultant in a week's time (she's currently away). Hope she'll have so valuable insight. And for now, I need a plan on how to survive the week..... :/

Cosmic I did indeed just go cold turkey. Andrea Grace advised me to be ready for 2-3 nights of hard work, and to be honest I was so tired I couldn't see how it could be any worse.
She told me to start on a Friday, then Saturday morning my DH take over and for me to go back to bed, not till 9 or 10am but 4pm (with no guilt) so you are ready for the next night!

Hi cosmicdancer89. Sorry to bring this thread back again. But I am so desperate and lost.
Wondering how your little
One is now ?Has he started sleeping through ? When did the whole high need thing get better ? I am so tired and depressed. Hoping to hear it gets better.