Persevere or what until another time??

[ColdFeetWarmHeart]

DD2 is 5 months old, and for most of her life so far we have co-slept. To begin with this wasn't planned. She'd start off in moses basket / cot every night, but would end up with us as I was too exhausted to sit up and keep my eyes open anymore, so I'd lay down to feed. But last few weeks we've quit any pretence and have had her in with us all night.

Now she's 5 months I decided to go back to her laying in her own cot. It's not going well so far. Last night she woke me 4 times (I was awake for 30-60 min each time). It's 2am now-since falling asleep around 11 (when I finally got her settled in her cot) I've been awake 12-12:30, and 1am onwards. I don't know how my eyes are staying open.

What do I do to get her to sleep for longer periods in the cot? She's breastfed and feeds to sleep. Absolutely refuses a bottle of milk. DH getting up to settle her is not an option as he'd sleep through our house being bombed. She doesn't like dummies either.

DD1 is 5 now and I can't really remember what we did with her, however she was on bottles by this point and would only wake for one night feed.

I can't have too many nights like last night. I have to drive DD1 to school.

Apologies if this doesn't make sense. I'm too bloody tired

Hmm. I think you either continue feeding to sleep and cosleeping for a bit longer, or if you really want her sleeping in her cot, you’ll need to stop feeding to sleep. That’s a two step process, starting with rocking instead of feeding to sleep, and then transitioning from rocking her to putting her down awake in the cot and her falling asleep by herself. It’s hard work though and you’ll need your DH to do it with you. It’s particularly helpful for DH to help with the first phase as he doesn’t smell of milk.

My DH was a heavy sleeper, btw, but he had to adapt after we had DS. I had to wake him up for a bit but he got better at waking up himself after a while. Now we are both able to sleep lightly when on baby duty and more deeply when off duty.

My little one is 13 months, we have always coslept and she has just started sleeping almost through so I’ll move her to her own room when that happens. I personally like the extra sleep so I would say wait it out!