Help - DD won't sleep in crib

[zaffa]

Help! DD(6 months) just won't sleep in her crib. She falls asleep on me fine but when I try to transfer her to the crib she wakes up, or if she does go into it will wake up within half an hour. I was ok with this in the beginning and just chilled out and let her nap on me because she would transfer into her basket at night and was a fairly good sleeper but suddenly she got teeth and now it's all a mess.

I've ended up letting her sleep on me for part of the night and fallen asleep myself because I'm so exhausted (i know how terribly unsafe this is) but I just can't get her to settle in her crib, fall asleep in there or stay in it.

I can't do cry it out - I just don't agree with it but completely respect others choices on that - but I don't pick her up as soon as she fusses, I rock her and pat her and stroke her and sometimes she will settle for a little bit and then it will start again in about ten mins.

Is it a phase? Is the only way to fix it cry it out? What can I do? I know she won't sleep like this forever but what will instigate the change? And also I can't let her sleep on me indefinitely as it's unsafe if I fall asleep and she's very heavy.

Please mumsnet wise mothers, help me regain time and sanity.

Could you create a sidecar cot?

This is a full sized, normal cot or cotbed and you remove one side. Then wedge it up to the side of your bed. It being bigger than a crib means that you can lie with your legs in your own bed, but with the top half of your body on the cot mattress and cuddling close to baby.

The idea is that once baby is asleep, you extract yourself back to your bed and you have not needed to move baby. It's really important baby goes to sleep where she stays asleep and is not put down while already asleep.

Baby then learns to go to sleep independently in the cot, but with your physical help.

On occasions of baby being very fussy, you can pull baby over to next to you in bed to settle, then instead of having to lift baby up to move back to the cot, you sort of "scoot" him across the mattresses. It's all bout teaching the baby to go to sleep in the cot and that's always going to be harder (and more distressing for a baby used to being cuddled to sleep) if the cot / crib is a separate entity.

I could switch things around and bring the cot in but the way the room is laid out it would be next to the bed but further down (there's a bay window that that cot will need to sit in) think about bedside cabinet sized gap between top of bed and top of cot. But that could work. The problem is that she only settles on me - which means on her tummy. I've tried co sleeping by lying her on the bed next to me and had some success with that this morning after her feed at 6am - but she literally slept for 33 mins (I have a tracker app) and then was awake for the day. And it took a very long time to settle.

She won't take a dummy (always refused them as a baby and we tried loads of different ones) but she is a thumb sucker and if it's nap time and I lay down on my bed with her on my chest she often just sucks her thumb and falls asleep. I can't get her to do this on her back though.

I think I big part of the problem is now the front sleeping but I don't know how to change it. We once had tummy time on the bed and she just put her head down, thumb in and fell asleep and so I suspect she would do better falling asleep on her tummy but it's not safe. Also although she is 6 months she has only rolled over twice on a flat surface (the floor - she rolls about off me all the time but I think the angle helps!).

She slept best in her basket and I only took her out of it last month but she is a very big baby (91st percentile) and I think it was just too small for her - I wondered if the cot would then not be too much space?

Thanks for your advise and sorry for all the questions!

You could have a big, big focus on teaching her to roll. As soon as she's rolling both ways, she can sleep on her front safely.

It wont take her long to learn. Try to have all of her awake time (when she isn't feeding) with her lying on the floor. Literally every minute, prioritise floor time. Nappy off for this playtime gives freer movement and can help the gross motor skills. Dot toys just out of reach, but in her sightline, so she has to stretch out to get them. Its that stretching and reaching that leads to rolling. Lots of tummy time playing while stretching and reaching too.

I wondered if the cot would then not be too much space?

I'm a sleep consultant and would always advise using a full sized cot from birth. There's no logic, rhyme or reason to think having too much space is a problem. I also used a full sized (sidecar) cot for all four of my children.

So no, not too much space.

Thanks - I think I'll start with the focus on rolling. The reason I mentioned too much space is we first put her in a crib when she was born but she wouldn't sleep in it - only the Moses basket. Which is why until six months she was wedged into the basket inside the crib! I always thought it was because she hated the extra space.

I'm fairly confident she could roll if she wanted to - if I position her on her side she can flip either way easily and she can get from her back to her side independently. She hates tummy time though (which is weird given that she loves sleeping on her tummy) and so doesn't seem to want to roll over that way. She also mostly did tummy time on me until about four months as she would just cry on the floor. I just wanted her to be happy and as she is my only baby I adapted around her - I worry about what will happen when I return to work as neither my MiL nor the childminder will cope with naps on them!

Thank you so much for all your advice x