Does attachment parenting mean that you won’t have free evenings for years?

[Orchidsndaffodils]

My 10.5 month old cosleeps with me and she is breastfed to sleep (please no advice on this, I am fully aware of safe sleeping advice and this is something we have chosen as a family that works for our baby and for us).

She is a light sleeper, wakes up every couple of hours and repeatedly checks that I am lying next to her during the night.
Things change all the time and sometimes she will come off the boob quite quickly by herself and turn away to have her own space, but at the moment with long-standing colds over the autumn and winter and having been away and out of routine during the Christmas period, she fusses when she wakes up every couple of hours and has to sleep on me - at the moment her favourite position is to sleep across my shoulder and throat, cheeky thing!

If I respond to her needs for reassurance back to sleep - sleeping on me, letting her help herself to boob, stroking, cuddling - as I have been up to now, 90% of the time we both sleep with very little disturbance. When she wakes up every couple of hours, we do what’s needed and both of us go back to sleep within 10 seconds. I also love that she is very affectionate and loves to cuddle both my husband and me and is gentle with people around her. She is generally a very happy baby with a fairly easy temperament.

The problem is that I’m now struggling with my needs not being met.
We go to bed around 7pm and I pretty much haven’t had a relaxed evening with my husband, or just without her, since she was born.
I tell myself that I should consider myself lucky that sleep isn’t a struggle as such. But equally it’s come at a sacrifice of my time with my husband and time for myself.

Did any of you with a similar ‘gentle’ and baby-focused sleep approach manage to have evenings at this stage and how?
When did you manage to have some of your evenings back?

Thank so much for the support. Struggling with the feeling that I never have a break, feeling like my choice of approach means I am not allowed to complain, that it is too restrictive but equally I’m unprepared to do anything that means my baby would not have her needs met or responded to.
Help please...

I bedshared pretty much fulltime from 6 mo to around 15 mo (and even then we moved onto a floor bed and I got DS to sleep then rolled away)

It only really improved after night weaning but I didn't want to cause upset with that so did it extremely gently around 21 mo after a lot of preparation, and didn't stop bedsharing or send DH instead. I am happy to have usually 2-3 hours of evening to myself now and I am happy that we approached it this way. My DM was this way with me and I can't imagine having done anything else. Bedtime itself improved after we dropped his nap

Interesting that it’s after night weaning that it improved. I’m not sure how I feel about doing night weaning at this stage and I’m interested that you did it extremely gently.
How did you prepare for it? Any advice from what you learnt through that process?

@bluebluezoo I love it! Thanks for sharing, it’s so nice to hear it from someone who’s been through the same thing and has come through the other end.
I tell myself that when I start feeling doubt. ‘Independence comes from dependence’.

Sorry I haven't rtft. I was VERY gentle when it came to sleep with my 2. I did a very slow gradual retreat with ds1 at 13 months , solely because I was pregnant again! But both children co slept, before starting the night in their cot (sidecar to the bed) They are almost 3 and 4.5 now, sleep in the same room, and I sit with them for 10 minutes after lights out. Mostly they fall asleep in this time but if they don't they're happy for me to leave them. They sleep through the night with the younger joining me in bed around 5/6am most mornings.

We didn’t co sleep but I can relate to the loss of evenings

Until DS was 6m I would effectively go to bed when he did at 7pm as he didn’t sleep well unless I was next to him (he was in his next to be crib). When he turned 6 months I started putting him down in his main cot for the first part of the evening so I got a couple of hours back with DH and then when he had his first wake up for a bottle I’d transfer him back to our room for the rest of the night until he eventually stayed in his room all night (with me going in and out for feeds throughout the night etc)

My DS won’t sleep unless I go to bed with him. Also he isn’t an early sleeper, we struggle to get him to sleep before about 10.30pm. So that scuppers any chance of a child free evening because he’s up and about. It’s destroying our marriage because we literally have no alone time. I’m not sure what the solution is because we can’t force him to sleep earlier? He goes to bed with me and gets up with me so I don’t have a single second away from him.

@Orchidsndaffodils Didn't night wean to 21 mo. He definitely wasn't ready before that. We prepared by reading 'Loving comfort- a toddler weaning story' every bloody night for probably a couple of months and talking about Jack the boy in the book. Tried to stop feeds back to sleep a bit sooner, counting down and delatching him if he didn't anyway then cuddled off to sleep. Then on judgement tried to cuddle rather than feed back to sleep, explaining mummy was very tired and so were milkies and got down to maybe a couple of feeds a night. Then we went for it, milkies were sleeping and no there wasn't any. He asked a couple of times the first two nights but basically no tears and then from the third night, that was it, he stopped asking.

His sleep improved after that- fewer wakes, occasional sleep throughs. We then reduced and stopped the bedtime feed about a month later (he hadn't fed to sleep for ages though). Bedtime was a long and annoying process until we dropped his nap about 6 mo later. Now, he has bath and story with daddy then I come in, put Moshi stories on and sit with him til he's asleep although I'm working up to bobbing out to the loo/ get some handcream etc and sit in a chair rather than on the bed etc. I was putting the laundry away tonight and he virtually fell asleep without me beside him. He is 2 and a half now. He doesn't sleep through every night and I do often still bedshare when he doesn't as he tends to magically realise when I've left and I just cannot be bothered to go forwards and backwards.

But I'm currently sat downstairs watching crappy TV for a bit before I go and get into my own bed for probably at least half the night, maybe all of it.

Have to wake him every single morning too. Unless of course we have no plans like on saturday and he was up at 7. He slept til 9 on sunday (I'd got up from my own bed and gone out rowing already!)

@Orchidsndaffodils

So to summarise, wait! DS had stopped feeding to sleep for bedtime and stopped BF in the day and had much more understanding at almost 2. I didn't stop bedsharing at all and sending DH in, while a much lauded alternative, didn't work for us, and I intuitively knew this.

As i've just been talking with DH about bedtime tonight, I've not pushed anything, done it all on DS terms when he's seemed ready. I can't bear him crying for any length of time and don't believe it's right to do it.

Trust your gut and trust your baby

I could sneak away (pillows on the floor, video monitor, dashed up if she stirred etc, just in case), once she was asleep, not sure what age that worked from, but maybe 9 months?

She didn't sleep through until after 2. I weaned at 23 months because she was comfort feeding from 3-7am and it was killing me.

She's reliably slept through from just over two and now happily sleeps in her own bed 95% of the time at 3.5.

If I'm totally honest I sort of miss her!