7 Month DS, exclusively bf, actually a decent sleeper once he’s down.. he even did his first sleep through the night the other night but he can’t self settle at the beginning of the night. He either needs to be swayed by Dad (works for all daytime naps) or fed to sleep by me (at night). I don’t know why he has one preference for day and one for night!
I can’t sway him anymore - he’s 98th centile and my back is wrecked, plus he just doesn’t seem to settle on my shoulder like he can with his dad. I always end up feeding, then have the ridiculous attempt to transfer to the cot without waking him, which doesn’t always work.
We also can’t keep relying on my DH for daytime naps. He works from home and can usually manage to help out with 1 or 2 (imm c lucky) but it’s not sustainable. He had a stag do coming up and I’m so scared DS just won’t nap for 2 days!
So weirdly we’re very reluctantly sleep training now just to get the self settling at the beginning of the night down. Despite what they say, he doesn’t seem to have an issue with stirring in the middle of the night and realising he’s no longer on Daddy’s shoulder / Mummy’s boob! He can often roll over and go back to sleep. Settling at the beginning of the night is just not a thing though.
We’re using Lucy Wolfe’s stay and support approach. We couldn’t do CIO and he really doesn’t deserve that when he’s actually a decent sleeper when he gets going.
Her approach says the dad should take the first night if baby is breast fed. So DH is taking one for the team tonight and I have to be downstairs trying not to listen to the shouting and trying not to cry! At least it’s “stay and support”. I know he’s fed, clean and knows his dad is there, right?
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