Help.. no sleep co sleeping!

[BetT95]

Hi guys bit of a long thread but I am getting desperate. My baby is 17 weeks old today and we have always co-slept as breastfeeding in the early days seemed easier this way. He has always been a rubbish sleeper, I’ve tried many times ‘getting naps in’ as this is suppose to help them sleep better, but a lot of times it would fail. Anyway, at night he will only go off to sleep with nipple in his mouth (even after trying formula before bed the only way of getting him sleepy after is boob) once asleep he will wake every hour or so rooting for nipple then fall back asleep after a few minutes. This ISN’T a faze, he has always woke frequently and each week I have just thought this will get better. I have tried multiple dummies to which he just cries more at, I have tried bum patting and he falls asleep and as soon as I slow down/stop he will cry. I have tried pinky finger in mouth too, doesn’t work. I have tried a snooze pod which he hates, tried getting him use to his cot by putting him in there in daytime for his naps which sometimes he’ll stay down for half an hour, but at night seems to know he doesn’t go in there. I have tried putting down asleep, half asleep, awake - doesn’t make a difference. Have tried just placing a hand on his chest and shhing, have tried leaving him alone for a few mins but couldn’t take the crying. I’d like to add I live on my own so getting someone else to settle him isn’t available. I am desperate and open to any advice... thank you! 😔😫😊

You're going to hate this but ... some babies are just like this - 'velcro babies'. It honestly won't be like this forever, and you are sowing great psychological seeds for him in the future by making him feel safe, warm and loved. No advice just my sympathy. Can you get someone round in the day to let you get some sleep?

...couldn’t take the crying

Sounds like you need advise on long term, slow gradual changes to make. You need realistic expectations on time-scales here. If you cannot deal with any crying (even when you are comforting baby and know you are doing it through compassion and care), then you need to re-set your expectations of how long term these sleep habits will be.

Have a read up on attachment parenting sleep techniques. It begins with finding ways to maximise everyones sleep without any expectations that baby will sleep independently. So making cosleeping work for you long term.

Some tips:

• Get a large (super) kingsized bed and appropriate bedding to suit you and baby together.
• Set up a sidecat cot
• Sleep without a top on
• Teach toddler to find the breast herself and self-latch (entirely reasonable to expect this at this age)
• Stop waking properly when baby does. Try to keep your eyes closed and move as little as possible
• Remove/turn around your clock - seeing every hour won't do you any good.

Then for long term stopping of feeding to sleep, it involves unlatching baby when in a very deep sleep. Jaw muscles relax when in a deep sleep, so this happens naturally. Then over time (like, many, many months) unlatch slightly earlier when toddler is slightly less deeply asleep.

I don't know if this kind of thing suits your parenting style? But unless you have the emotional resilience to be able to deal with some crying from your child, you're not going to achieve anything else. It comes down to priorities - what is more important to you.

You know what I did? I wrote all that assuming your baby way 17 months, not weeks! Sorry. You can largely ignore it all!

OK, so 17 week old...

The first thing to tackle is overtireness.

I would suggest, in order to get out of the over tired cycle you are in, that you do all daytime naps (that's right through until 11pm when you go to bed) in something that moves.

I favour a bouncy chair, that you bounce up and down using your foot (while sitting on the sofa). I'd also keep going with the dummy - it WILL be worth it,

And significantly reduce awake time between naps. That might mean 5, 6, 7 naps a day, and that's OK because baby needs it.

Divide your days into chunks of repeatable actions:

Wake > Feed > Awake Time (40 mins or so) > topup feed > Sleep... repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat over and over again until you go to bed.

@BabySleepTeacherUK brilliant advice. I was really questioning whether what I'm doing with my 5.5month old was detrimental to her and you've given me a bit more confidence in my instincts.
Can I ask if you have any suggestions for helping with upper back pain from co-sleeping?

pinguwings By 6 months you should be able to start to stop accommodating baby by sleeping in odd positions. So for example (depending on your breast size/shape), you could lie on your front, or back, or side with your leg up, or whatever position you like to sleep in - and baby to still be able to latch on in that position.

It's about helping your baby (gradually, over time) a bit less to latch on, so baby learns how to do it themselves. Your backache comes from holding an unnatural position in bed.

As baby becomes more mobile, you can be less accommodating when breastfeeding in the night so that baby finds you and feeds all on his own. Sometimes you might need to roll over, but not position yourself in an uncomfortable way.

You can also start to teach some independence in bed. So once baby is fed to sleep and is asleep next to you, start to roll away. If you have the space, roll right away so you have your own space and baby has own space in the bed. That'll help your back too.

(above post is me, just different username)

Thank you for your replies..
So since he has always been a rubbish sleeper, I have read about how important naps are, the problem is getting him to nap and once asleep to stay asleep. I have spent the past 17 weeks battling with him to get him to sleep, usually can when he’s feeding but even then he’ll have a 10 minute catnap most days or sometimes doesn’t get sleepy at all no matter how much I try to feed/rock/bum pat/give dummy he won’t go to sleep which I know sounds silly because he is a baby that needs sleep, but i do try my hardest!
I think the main issue I have found it that he suffers quite bad with wind (just overnight 🙄) so he will squirm and moan until he passes wind, sometimes I can settle him down but a lot of the time the only way he’ll settle is to be back on the boob. I do try and edge away once he is asleep, but this results in him waking up half an hour later trying to find me again which is lovely but 17 weeks of a no longer stretch than 2 hours sleep is wearing me down!

@BabySleepTeacherUK
So yesterday I put him down to nap after 1.5 hours of awake time and after feeding him and him falling asleep on my boob I put him down and he stayed down for 30/45 mins a time. However, when it got to night time he went down for 45 minutes and then woke up and would not go back to sleep, I did not pick him up to begin with I let him cry slightly, then went and shh’d him putting dummy in calmed him down.. walked away... 1.5 hours passed and he still didn’t settle so ended up back in bed with me. Any tips? I understand he needs to learn to self settle but if I put him in the cot awake he will just think it’s play time and after a while will just start crying to the point he needs to be fed again 😔

I don't think letting baby cry when they wake up helps - it just further wakes them up rather than helping get back into a deep sleep.

Why did you walk away if baby wasn't settled?

Babies do need actively helping to get to sleep. It needs some work and effort. If you just left him to his own devices I'm not surprised he woke up fully and started playing - babies don't inherently know they need to go to sleep. Neither do they automatically know how to do this, how to go to sleep. You have to stay and teach them.

If this was my child, firstly - the "bedtime" you mention. I assume you mean when you went to bed? Say 11pm. Due to NHS SIDS advice, and also because of the nature of baby sleep, putting baby to sleep for "bedtime" (say 7-8pm) would mean putting baby in bouncy chair downstairs for another daytime nap. Because the nap cycles do generally carry on later until baby is a little older, so waking after 45 mins (as a nap) is normal and to be expected.

So I wouldn't be surprised by a 45 min or so wake up after an early evening bedtime. Just keep awake time minimal at this wake up. So feed, wind, cuddle and back into bouncer. You might even get two "naps" between a 7pm bedtime and you going to bed and taking baby with you later in the evening.

Your expectations are unrealistic if you're expecting something else. Maybe adjust your expectations?

Then dealing with any wake up, again if it was my child, I wouldn't be wanting any crying. The quicker and more effectively I respond to baby, the quicker and easier resettling is. Once you get to the point of baby crying, I'd accept that extra help is going to be needed to re-settle. I certainly wouldn't just put dummy in and leave.

My escalation of help to get baby to sleep at night involves:

• Dummy
• Dummy tap
• Shift my upper body from my bed to lie inside the sidecar cot, Cuddle up close to baby, encircling. Hand on chest (and continuing dummy taps as needed)
• If baby starts kicking and thrashing, then use my body and hands to still limbs to keep baby still, while simultaneously keeping baby quiet by actively sucking the dummy. AS long as baby is still and not crying, just stay there cuddled close and often falling asleep myself and just wait. Then extract myself once baby is asleep (or just stay asleep there, as was often the case)
• If baby is crying and not wanting to settle - something is wrong and extra help needed. I'd be picking baby up and seeing what was wrong. Often it would be wind. The cuddle itself might calm an upset baby, and winding while cuddling may also help. It's about calming baby enough so that the ladder of steps above do work - so an in cot cuddle and active dummy sucking calm helps baby relax.
• Might be hunger. Usually it is hunger if nothing else works and no burp is forthcoming. So a feed is a last resort to settle baby.
• Occasionally it could be that baby is overtired after a bad day, or maybe pain, so some extra help is needed to calm baby enough to be able to relax and go to sleep.