co-sleeping sleep problem..

[helsbelles]

i've been thinking of moving my 6.5 month ds out into his own room as feeding him so often during the night is wearing me down, and needing to start working again means i need to get a night's sleep. BUT i do feel very sad about moving him out of my bed..and would love a solution not too!
if I try not to feed him and just 'sooth' him, he so quickly reaches 'i'm being murdered' mode that I give up.. so those co-sleepers out there, how did you manage if ds/dd still waking every 2.5-3 hrs, or do they magically stop at some point? (he doesn't take a dummy - just chews it and plays with it, no sucking!)

Papillion is good for this. I'm lucky as dd usually settles herself or i dont even wake up properly to feed her anyway.

My DS2 moved out of our room at about 5 months and I actually found that he woke less when I wasn't there. He seems to be a pretty light sleeper and could hear or smell me when he woke up a bit and then thought "Ooh great - I'll have a bit more please" (obviously I don't know what he thought but it seemed to be that! ) I did feed him once or twice a night after he had moved but it certainly became less frequent. he's 12m now and sleeps 12 hours usually. HTH

dd just used to feed and I dozed and when we stopped bfeeding I wore a really bra to bed so she could not just latch on but at 6mths she just used to snuggle up and to be honest I think I just dozed through her feeds. possible you could try water in a tippee cup and see if that works but if you are bf then it is possible easier to learn to doze whilst he feeds

hi helsbelles

I think that making it too easy for them to get a bf definately encourages the protesting and murdered yells. Try giving water, and try to talk to him quietly and simply. Basically you want to introduce other forms of reassurance and sleep associations than just the breast so that he learns to settle more himself. He is still quite young. Try not to open your eyes at all - thats wot I do and stay in a sleepy mode yourself so that you go back to sleep asap.

my dd is 10 months old and likes the midnight snacks too. She is in a futon right up against our bed. Just this week I have started giving her, like gothicmama suggested water from a bottle with teat. I pick her up, give her a hug and then a drink. Did try once last night giving her the water lying down, but don´t want to make it too pleasant! She has had no problems with this new idea. But I feel she is not hungry and ready now.

The other thing I do is use the same language to tell her what is happening. e.g. Go to sleep, Mama sleeps, daddy sleeps, dd sleeps etc. I have frequently delayed giving her a bf while alternately being silent, telling her to sleep, giving her a hug etc. I also lay her on her stomach to stomach on me. She is alot quieter now and does not protest much anymore at all. But I did find I had to go through a stage of lying there for up to an hour (that was my limit before bf) with her being noisy and demanding.

good luck

just talking to my wise mother and she said water in a tippee cup is better than teat as it continues the nipple habit