Help! Don't want to bedshare

[northdownsouth]

I will try to keep this as short as possible! My DS is nearly 7 months and we put him in his own room around a month ago. At first it went quite well, he slept all night in his room, with me occasionally bringing him in bed with me at around 5am, to try and prevent an early start to the day. But, for the past couple of weeks he has been waking up whimpering gradually building up to screaming any time between 10.30 and midnight and the only way to get him back to sleep is to bring him in bed with me. Probably like lots of people, I swore I would never co-sleep but here we are! I'm finding it very hard to go with the flow and accept that this is what he needs right now and just worrying that I've created this habit and it's going to continue indefinitely. I barely slept while he was in our room because as a new born he grunted all night and once that stopped he started leg thrashing (which he still does), so I was so pleased he seemed to accept his own room and I was starting to feel more human!

What I am asking is, are there any gently ways of helping him stay asleep in his own room or if not, please tell me this phase is short! He is not fed or rocked to sleep, we usually just sit in his room with him until he falls asleep so I don't feel he has any negative sleep associations. I definitely don't want to do cry it out, but I feel I have tried everything else - patting, stroking, shushing etc. TIA!

Exactly the same problem here.

Never been a good sleeper, moved to own room seven months, few good nights then awake constantly. I am a solicitor and was involved in a horrific co sleeping case, I do not want to co sleep. DD does.

I'm trying to ride it out just now but am fairly broken. In fairness, fingers crossed we peaked last week with waking every half hour. Last night was three hours then three then in with me for one.

I'm just doing as you, sitting shushing, cuddling if really upset, rocking. Singing, stroking.

It's so hard though. I'm so sick of people asking me if she's sleeping yet. Makes me feel like such a failure

@homemadegin I know what you mean about feeling like a failure. I am just completely at a loss as to how to help him sleep better now. I am sure he will get there in the end but right now I am just filled with worry that he never will and that I am doing everything wrong!

@northdownsouth what's your nap schedule like? I'm wondering if that's part of my problem. If out she does two twenty minutes in the car in morning and an hour three to four on me. I've just been reading stuff today and it's saying she should be having two and a half to three hours? Plus eleven at night.

I wonder if I encouraged more naps more sleep would follow?

@homemadegin we've started to get quite a good nap schedule going, after months of cat napping. He normally has a long nap (1 hour +) at lunch time and often he has a long nap in the morning, but that is not guaranteed, sometimes it's only 30 mins. He then has a short nap in the afternoon. He naturally started to do this on his own but I haven't seen it make much difference to his nighttime sleep. Sometimes he can have a day of short naps and sleep really well, other times he can have 3 good naps and be really wakeful! Last night he stayed in his room until 5am. Not sure what I did differently, he just seemed to settle easier each time he woke up. Wish I could replicate it!