advice pease for co-sleeping already breastfed 4 month old wriggler

[Cathbell]

Hi,

Does anyone have any bright ideas for to help? My baby has co-slept since birth and used to wake very regularly for breasfeeds (every 2 hours) then started to extend this and we got sometimes 3 or 4 hours but he has bnow gonre backwards and wakes every 2 hours through the night because of his own wriggling, and annoys himself so much he wakes up and cries. If we try not to just put him on my breast all the time he often completelly wqkes up then impossible to get back off to sleep without getting up and rocking while he cries and wriggles for ages. After the 1st sleep of the night he seems to wriggle the entire night and never enter deep sleep. By about 3am he will only slightly sleep if on one of our chests and even then wrigglesall the time so we can't sleep.

As we are already co-cleeping and doing most of the things suggested such as bedtime routines, constency etc then where to go nekt??! Can/t even do controlled crying (which don't want to do anyway, but now getting desperate) as he is in with us anyway...

Any ideas?? Pretty desperate esp as my husband will be doing 12 hour days come January so will no longer be able to goive me a sanity break each morning

Thanks,
Cath

Have you tried swaddling? You can do this even though you are co-sleeping. It makes baby feel secure and should help them sleep. the moro reflex is quite strong at this age and this is prob what is him up.

waking him up

Learning how to sleep on your side without moving away or rolling over

Could he be teething? It might explain the crying. I remember my dd started to wake up more when she was about 3 months, and I only realised later that it was because of teething.

The best thing I ever did, at some point, when dd was already a few months old, was to no longer 'monitor' who often she'd wake up, how many hours she'd sleep on a stretch, etc., and just relax into that eventually she'd learn how to sleep through. In the meantime, with some practice, I hardly woke up during feeds in the night (also co-sleeping).

Is there a reason you have stopped letting him feed so often? Sounds like you might get more sleep by just letting him have a quick breastfeed back to sleep?
Thats what I do anyhow

Hi unfortunately no advice here, but just wanted to bump this post again as I really sympathise with you as we have the same issue with ds1. So apologies for hijacking, but I am doing it in hopes that someone out there has some ideas for us both!

My ds1 is 4.5 months, we co-sleep and I bf from 7pm - 7am and during the day as well if I am not working. Since 3 months of age he has had a consistent pattern of semi-waking every night between 3am-6am and sometimes between 1am-7am. During this period he kicks, wriggles, turns, tosses and will wake up if we don't go and rock him or bf him. As soon as we settle him, he'll sleep for about another hour or so and the whole tossing, turning and kicking will start again.

I have tried changing his nappy in case that was the problem, I have tried ff him at night to see if that made a difference - he drank the whole bottle and still wanted bf to go back to sleep. Neither made a difference.

Lately getting to him to go to sleep at 8pm bedtime and then stay asleep has become even harder. We have a consistent bath, feed and bed routine during which I used to bf him for 15 minutes and he'd be asleep and we wouldn't hear from him again until 10:30 when he woke up on the on the dot for his bf, now he'll wake within 20 minutes or as soon as he has realised I have gone. Lately I have been having to stay with him for upwards of an hour until he is deep enough asleep that he doesn't notice me missing. even then it can take until 10pm at night to settle him sometimes.

I work full-time and when he tosses, turns and kicks at night so much I rarely sleep for more than 3 hours a night.

I really want to make his sleep better for both of us as I know he is quite tired as well. We wake up by 7am and by 8am when I drop him at nursery he is read for a nap and often sleeps up to 2 hours in the morning and again has an hour or so nap in the afternoon. If I pick him up after 5:30 he is often tired then as well and needing a short nap. At nursery they are able to settle him with a short rock or just giving him a soft blanket and dummy. I've had DH try this at home and it has never worked for us.

I look awful, I feel awful and this lack of sleep is really affecting my feelings towards DH i.e. resentful that he doesn't help more at night, but when he does help ds1 just cries and cries until breast arrives. Lack of sleep is also affecting my work and health. I've had one cold after the other and also had the throwing up virus just before Christmas.

Anyone? Am really desperate and feeling like I'm foing to have a nervous breakdown soon if I don't get some sleep and time for myself.

You get my sympathies, and perhaps a bit of hope. We've been co-sleeping DS, 9 months old, and we've gone through phases like this. It was usually because of teething, though he's also had two mild colds that caused congestion and made him unsettled. So, BowQ, I think it will probably pass if you just keep on doing what you're doing.

DS is also a wiggler, and unforunately I have no idea what to do about that. DH has been on the couch for over a week because even though we have a king-sized bed DS rolls over onto his stomach, back again, and etc. throughout the night, leaving just a bit of bed for me. It used to be that he'd roll onto me, then wake himself up, before DH left for the lounge. We have no idea what to do about this, and my mum, who just moved from Los Angeles to live with us and help with DS, is "encouraging" us to get him sleeping in his own bed, which I am whole-heartedly resisting.

Also, he's mobile now, so we've had to put him in what used to be our co-sleeper (turns into a cot) until I get to bed because we fear that he'll crawl off of the bed if we wakes and we don't get up the stairs in time, or if he's stealthy and we don't hear him.

I love co-sleeping, but sometimes it feels so much more complicated than it should be. Keep in mind (as I do), that even if LOs were in their own cots, you'd be up every hour or two rather than just rolling over to lob a boob in their mouths to go back to sleep.

BowQ, I totally know what you mean about lack of sleep affecting your health, work and relationship with DH. All I can say is try to sleep/nap during the day when you can, if you can, and remember that people can be really mean when they're tired. And, as always, this stage will pass.

Do you sleep your LO's in a grobag? Might that limit the wriggling a bit? If not then swaddling might be the go.

Good luck!