Baby won’t settle, hard night

[tiredmama4am]

I've never posted here before but looking for a bit of a hand hold/advice.

My 5 month old won’t settle and sleep anywhere other than on me, and I'm feeling so tired and hopeless right now. He won’t sleep in his next to me for more than 1 hour at the start of the night since about 12 weeks and bed sharing is hit and miss (clearly a miss tonight). He was doing lovely 5,6,7 hour stretches in his cot prior to 12 weeks.

I feel like this will never end and I’ll be sitting up with him all night forever. I don’t want to sleep train him but I don’t know what other options there are that are sustainable moving forward to help him sleep somewhere other than on me for at least part of the night. I've tried cosleeping, warming the mattress, sleeping with the sheets so they smell like me, white noise - nothing helps.

My hubby is doing shifts with me so we're coping at the moment, but I just feel like this will never end and I don't know how to move to him sleeping in his next to me again or at least co sleeping so I can fry and fry a little bit of sleep 😭😭😭

She's nearly 5 months, and has been in the next to me reliably for about 3 weeks I would say. I have been working on the 'drowsy but awake' thing, and putting her in there for daytime naps more....but essentially I think it was just when she was ready. Our experience differs from yours a bit as her sleep has always been shite and this is the best it has been.

We're at 5 months and sleeps pretty poor too. My daughter didn't want to sleep anywhere but on me but didn't settle well on me either.

We tried sleep training with my first but decided it wasn't for us. I've found a group called the beyond sleep training project on Facebook quite helpful for support.

This week we've finally been getting dd down on a night for part of the night. Only changed 2 things. All naps are in the pram instead of contact naps now, she didn't really want to feed to sleep anymore but goes really quickly in the pram. And I've switched her to the cot instead of next to me. She likes to stretch out and the next to me wasn't giving enough space. I think we were waking her up cosleeping too.

I'm sure by next week it will have all changed again though!

Found this thread at 4am after 2 hours trying to resettle baby back to sleep. Still no luck! I don’t understand babies at all - if you’re tired, sleep!

@tiredmama4am I know this is an old thread but would love to know if/when their sleep improved? We're in the same boat as you were last Feb

Hi @Writerscompanion sorry I haven’t checked mumsnet in a while so I missed this.

So my little one is now 16 months old and sleep was pretty bad from 4-10 months, he would not sleep independently at all during that time, but he did accept sleeping next to me as long as he was touching me. Me or my husband would hold him in the evenings before we went to bed (we would attempt to put him down but he would wake up and cry pretty much every night) and then we did safe cosleeping. It was so so tough though, so exhausting!

At 8-9 months we started using a floor bed which helped as we didn’t have to do the transfer and he would do a bit of a stretch by himself sometimes in the evenings. But it was very hit and miss!

We kept this going and once he was fully established on three meals a day and began crawling at around 10 months we began to see a big improvement and he started to do longer stretches at night by himself. He also stopped breastfeeding at night around this age.

Then, at around 11 months we got the cot back out and gave it another try and he would do a bit of sleeping in the cot and a bit of cosleeping. And then at 12 months he spontaneously started sleeping through the night in his cot!

I think him eating three meals a day really helped as he wasn’t hungry during the night any more and I also think the crawling helped as it tired him out during the day.

These days, we still cuddle him to sleep every night at around 8:30pm and then he goes into his cot and wakes at around 6:30-7am most nights barring teething and illness. He’s been up a lot this week as he has a cold and last night he woke up at 4am and it took us over an hour to settle him. So not perfect by any means but a huge improvement and we’re very grateful! It took me a long time to relax at night and not expect him to wake up at any moment.

Solidarity to everyone out there who is dealing with this now, it’s so so so hard!

Thanks so much for explaining in such detail, that’s really helpful to hear about his progression and I’m so glad for you it’s improved. We are just about to start solids so it gives me hope!