What would you do? 5 month old

[Firsttimemumhere1]

Hi,

I'm a first time mum and have heavily depended on mumsnet since my DD was born nearly 6 months ago. It's really helped with my anxiety, so I'm asking for a bit of advice here.

MY DD is nearly 6 months old (2 weeks to go)
Still sleeping beside us in bedside cot. We changed to a bigger cot because she was unable to stretch out etc and I cannot believe the difference. She is settling straight away when we put her down and seems to just fall asleep. Wish we done it earlier.

Last week noticed she was going a lot less time between feeds so spoke to hv who said start with porridge and baby rice before bed.

Has baby rice before bed and 8oz of milk. Finishes the lot and goes to bed between 6 and 7pm.i have tired to get her later but it doesn't matter how many naps she has during the day, she wants this time or she gets over tired and the whole street knows about it

Anyway, so she sleeps until about maybe 2 or 3am and then starts this leg thrashing. Lifts both legs up and slams them down off and on. It's so loud but she's still asleep when doing this so I tend to just try ignore it.

A few times she has woken up at 3 and seems wide awake. She's past the point of the dummy helping because she's so awake. Nappy isn't needing changed and she isn't hungry. I'm usually so tired that I've been lifting her into our bed and she sleeps until half 7 or sometimes half 9 . The problem is, I don't want to start this. It's my fault for doing it, but been going to bed so late that I know if I bring her in beside me, she will sleep right through and to be honest, I absolutely love it. It makes my heart feels so full.

I'm just a little unsure of what to do here, if anything. What would you do? Take her for a feed to top her up and send her back over?

She is formula fed.

Our routine at night is

Bath about 6 pm
Relax until rice and milk time
Sometimes a story, but sometimes she actually cries when k read to her haha, so it depends what mood she is in and then bed about 7 pm.

sorry if this is so long and doesn't seem like an actual issue. I know I'm lucky with her sleeping compared to some mums and dad's x

Well I'm no expert but if co-sleeping is working for you then no need to change it! You're happy and so is little one 🙂

Just my opinion though 🙂

My Ds exactly same age as your daughter! (Turns 26 weeks in 2 weeks!)
He’s ebf though I have been offering with purée and porridge, rusk and banana as finger food just to see, not that interested but he does enjoy gumming the rusk and banana (probably he’s ready for blw now but gonna wait a couple more weeks!)
He too thrashes his legs (makes me chuckle) up they go and crash back down, also turns heads side to side.
He goes to bed with a feed 7ish, has a feed 10/11 when I go to bed (and wake him up by getting to bed) I usually bring him into bed with me about 3/4am when he wakes for milk, after I change his nappy(or he gets leaks). Thing is, I know it won’t be forever and it works for us. When he’s older and in his own room I’m not going to look back and regret all the snuggly sleep so I think you should enjoy it guilt free! They’re still small little humans 😊 when he stops waking for food and is not in our bedroom then I’ll miss it! X

My DD is 6 months old and refuses to do snuggles in our bed now - so definitely enjoy it!

My DD also sleeps in the side cot, still, and does the leg-thrashing around 4am. Like you say, she’s not hungry or anything like that. We put on white noise and also wrap a blanket around her legs, pulled really tightly all the way round the mattress so she can’t pull it upwards onto her face - MWs showed us when she was a newborn, it’s like a blanket cocoon. The restraint and white noise seem to help send her off to sleep again. Other than that, like you, we are lucky that she sleeps well.

We had this slightly! DS went through a leg thrashing phase (in the end I would sleep with my hand on his legs as he was waking himself up)

And then he wouldn’t settle so in my half asleep state I’d pull up into our bed when he wouldn’t settle. I was terrified of creating a co sleeping habit (I know this works for some people but I just didn’t want to continue with it) and in the end I just went with it. It was only a few weeks and he didn’t need it every night so I’d say if it works for you then go with it. Just follow the age co sleeping guidelines and enjoy the sleep

Safe not age

On the flip side I’d love it if he would just settle by getting in our bed now but absolutely refuses to sleep anywhere that isn’t his own bed...so don’t worry about it too much

Is everyone getting some sleep? Then crack on.

One word of advice on the baby rice, generally advice with weaning is to start solids in the day. Mainly incase they have a reaction. If it's a new thing since starting the rice, perhaps give it earlier in the day?

Tha ks @Fatted, I did this. Didn't even realise that would be a problem, just assumed it would make him fuller before bed and sleep better.

Tha ks for all your replies. I am going to embrace these baby snuggles.

With the leg kicking, as hilarious as it is watching her do it, I might use the blanket trick with holding the legs a little tighter. See if that works. X