Since he was born and up until around 12 weeks ago i have slept in the same room as my now 11 month old DS, me in a bed, him in his cot, i’m still on maternity leave and given i need to feed him in the night suggested my DH sleep in our main bedroom as he has to work and look after our 3yo DS in the mornings (and in the nights if he wakes for any reason).
After night feeds I persevered for many weeks trying to have the baby re-settle in his cot but he just wouldn’t and I soon fell into the trap of bringing him into bed with me where he would half snooze / half suckle till morning. I got no sleep, it was far from ideal.
About 12 weeks ago my DH and I swapped as the sleepless nights were taking there toll on my sanity and I desperately wanted to start weaning him off this co-sleeping dependency i'd inadvertently nurtured. DH now sleeps in with the baby (again, him in a bed, DS in his cot) and i go in to feed when necessary – which recently has only been once a night around 3am – before retreating back to the safety of my own bed. Occasionally DH bottle feeds him instead of me going in. It worked well for a while.
However DS is getting more and more distressed after the 3am night feed that i'm not there, he still refuses to re-settle in his cot (we never cracked this!) and often get’s really distressed when DH brings him into bed with him too. It can take anywhere up to an hour or more to get him back to sleep again (often requiring even more milk) by which time the whole house has been woken up from the constant screaming and crying, then if we’re lucky he’ll sleep a couple more hours till he wakes up for good around 6am.
The only thing that stops all of this is if I take him into bed with me and let him half snooze / half suckle for the rest of the night but it’s impossible to carry on like this, i start back at work in a few weeks and can’t function waking up at 3am every morning and not really sleeping afterwards. I’m reluctant to go back on this plan we started of weaning him off this dependency on me in the night, but the sleepless nights are now killing my DH too!
DS goes to bed without problems at around 7.15pm each evening and sleeps soundly until it all kicks off at 3am.
Please, any advice??