Moving on from cosleeping

[Keha]

Hello,

I've seen lots of good advice on here, and would be grateful for some more. My DS is nearly 4 months, is bf (with an occasional bottle of formula) and I cosleep. He will only sleep for longer periods of time (e.g 30mins +) on me or next to me. I generally feed to sleep but can pat to sleep. He almost always wakes up if put down though, so I generally get him to sleep by lying down and feeding him. Once asleep I can sneak off but he'll often wake after 20/30 mins. He can roll from back to front so the swaddles had to go and I havent had any luck with the dummy but probably haven't been persistent enough.

I'm happy enough with things right now. Yes, I spend a lot of time with a baby sleeping on me, but I don't have much to do. However I'll go back to work full time when he's 10 months. I'm also not that sold on the idea of him being in our bed as a toddler, will need a bigger bed for one thing as I'm currently with him on the spare mattress on the floor.

Any advice or stories from those of you who have been in similar situations or know something about baby sleep? What age did things change? Should I be trying to do something about it now?

Mines a bit older (3 years) and we are just stopping co sleeping. He sleeps on a baby sheepskin and his cot bed is next to my bed at the same level. Its easier now he sleeps most of the night.
Other people I know have got the child settled in the middle of the double bed and then just snuck off. 4 months might be a little young yet.
In cold weather I give a hot water bottle, not too hot obviously but again not something you can give such as small child

I co slept with my baby until recently. I had a next to me cot and he came into bed regularly. When he got too big for the next to me I put him in a cot bed with one side off next to my bed. My husband drilled it to make it the same height so we had the two mattresses with no gap.

I really loved this set up and we continued until 9 months. At this point he stopped sleeping well, started being mobile and wanting to crawl off so I decided it was time to do something. I just fitted the side to the cot and pushed it about 20 cm away from our bed. I can put my hand into the cot from my bed. He is fine in his cot. It took a couple of days for him to get used to it. He now sleeps there for all naps and all night. I will gradually move the cot away from us but I'm in no rush.

This worked for us. I kept feeling quite panicked in the early days that he would never have any independence but I have learned that independent sleep seems to be developmental. As he has gotten older he has tolerated more independence. He now self settles for nap time. I walk out and leave him. I watch him on the camera and he goes to sleep. This was with very minimal sleep training certainly no crying.

I don't know if this helps at all, just wanted to share my experience.

Thanks for your responses. I'd be quite happy with baby in a sidecar cot set up. At the moment he has to be right next to me. Did you find they just adapted/got used to sleeping further away?

Yes he just slept there. When he didn't it was because he wanted me to hold him all night. I used pick up put down from baby whisperer when he was like this and I also just put him down. He whinged a bit so I just comforted him by lying next to him, stroking etc but I didn't pick him up again and he accepted it quickly.

Sorry I just read your original post again- he wants to be next to you. You can use gradual withdrawal to get him to sleep in the side car i stead of next to you. Also if you have a side car set up you can snuggle up to him and then move over to your own side to get some space. You can also just reach over and touch them while they sleep so it's much easier than getting them to go into a cot independently.

I managed to start putting my (now 3 month old) in his cot a few weeks ago by the sneaky and probably terribly inappropriate method of taking advantage of the hot weather, which zonked him out completely, and shoving him in there for the first bit of the night. He'll now generally go back in there after waking in the night, too, although I maybe have him in with me for the last bit of the night; or if he's especially thrashy. I mostly just go get him if he seems to not be settling back to sleep or is starting to make a bit of noise, feed him lying down, and pop him back in the cot when he's dropping back off.

He's just started rolling from his back to his front, too, so I'm finding having him contained is reassuring. (He gets his legs shoved through the bars quite regularly, even through a sleeping bag, but is fortunately mostly unbothered about this.)

I do think it helped him to do it a bit at a time - so, working from just starting the night off in the cot up to the expectation that he'll mostly be in there. So, maybe don't think if it as all or nothing, and more a gradual process?