Co-sleeping/feeding through the night and daytime napping

[PrettyCandles]

A question for mums who co-sleep and allow the baby to feed through the night: how do your babies nap?

I find that if I co-sleep with ds2 he ends up feeding through the night - which I don't mind - but he then doesn't nap for more than 30mins at a time during the day and gets hideously overtired as a result. He also needs to be fed to sleep, but if I do so he wakes more often. Whereas if I put him down in his cot awake, and only go to him when he calls me, he is more likely to 3h between feeds, and nap for 1-2h during the day.

So is there a way that we can co-sleep (so that the night feeds aren't a bother) and still get decent daytime naps?

I used to feed mine to sleep for naps too - unless I took them out in the car or the pushchair, when they went out like lights. But I has my second one after my first was at full time school, so I had all the time in the world to lounge around sharing naps! Sorry I can't be more helpful!

I was getting by with buggy naps, as school-run times more-or-less fitted with his nap times, but they don't any more. I've got one more term of an extra school run in the middle of the day before both my older two are in full-time school.

dd will sleep in her pushchair. she does at nursery and her p/c gets shoggled from side to side in one spot.

at home if i don't go for a nap with her, i take her out for a quick walk in the p/c and bring her home asleep. i would park her in the kitchen or where ever i am and when she comes into that light sleep, i give the p/c a shoggle from side to side before she wakes up usually after 30 mins as you say.

I need him to have at least one long nap - he needs to have a long nap! He's a different child when he's had 1.5-2h nap in the afternoon.

i found if i shoggled her when she started to twitch, she stayed asleep. ususally had t re-shoggle 30 mins later. dd also needed 1.5 hrs until just lately. it mostly worked but then again, i guess it happening at nursery made it easier for me on the wkend. i take it you've tried this already?

If you think the co-sleeping is causing the problem, is it really worth continuing??

As you know already, night feeds will get less frequent with time, and quicker too, and when they're in your room, I never found it that much hassle, especially if it means you have a rested, happy son during the day.

Just a thought......

Once in a blue moon he sleeps longer than 30mins in his buggy without it being walked outside. Shoggling does nothing for him. He's not in any childcare (he's 9m), so I have to fix all his habits.

I've stopped co-sleeping, but I'm so tired that I often fall asleep or forget to return to my bed, and then when I wake up with him next to me (in the spare bed in his room) I love it so much and miss it so much.

I'd go back to co-sleeping. He's going to be much more active soon, and therefore more tired, so his naps will probably lengthen.

You wouldn't believe how active he is already! Crawling, cruising, climbing, he's constantly on the go. Except when he finds some paper to rip up and eat LOL.

Ah. Maybe when he's walking then?

I can't wait...I can't cope much longer on the amount of sleep I'm getting. I have two other children who need a comptetent mummy, one who doesn't descend into screaming banshee-mode at the least thing.

Will he have a decent nap in your arms? That way you get to rest a bit too...

I cannot normally rest with him - I have two others to look after as well.

I know what that's like. I have 4. Can his naps coincide with snuggle up/story time? So at least you're not running around.

I know it sounds pessimistic, but I don't see that working.

Sleep deprivation is awful, isn't it? Seems to affect everything. Babies' routines are quite fluid, perhaps he's due for a change.

I've co-slept with both dd1 and dd2. Dd2 is now 9 months and for naps I lie on the futon and feed her to sleep then leave her there =works for us! For us the big thing that helped was trying not to move after asleep. Also if you catch them quick when they wake up, a little feed will often put her back to sleep for another 40 mins [if we're lucky ]

He is - but the other sort, so I'm off! Thanks for your suggestions. Please talk to me some more, but I have to get him to bed now, I'll be back much later.

i've done the same as mamado too when she was younger. fed back to sleep when dd woke up after a short time.

My dd used to always wake 30mins into a nap, you could set the clock by her. Getting to her quickly and feeding back to sleep worked a treat for me. Now I feed her to sleep on the bed and creep away. She'll nap for 1.5 - 2.5 hours

I'm also feeding back to sleep at the moment. DS wakes up 40 min after falling asleep, I rush in, feed him and he sleeps for another 2 hours .