Help! 6mo will only go to sleep for mum

[meadowkoa]

Hi all,

I have a 6 and a half month old who is exclusively breastfed, have recently started weaning.

More and more recently my baby will only go to sleep for me (mum). This is either by being rocked to sleep of breast fed to sleep. Even if her dad or other close family members try to rock her to sleep she will not go down. She will only do it for me and it's now taking its toll on me mentally. I can't have any time away from her, only an hour here and there because of this. I return to work soon so need some help. She also has to be fully asleep before I put her down.

I have looked into sleep training and unsure which method to take. I do not want to take the "cry it out" method as that just breaks my heart. But also realising she's probably going to cry a little when I put her down.

I have tried putting her down drowsy but it just ends up waking her up more? Even I pat, shush and try to settle her when she's in her crib she ends up crying.

Does anyone have any advice on what helped them in similar situations? It's breaking my heart that not even her dad can comfort her at times and I also need a break sometimes!!

TIA xx

Of course you may not want to do this, but IME the best way is to stop breastfeeding and put her on bottles, as that's the thing she associates with sleep and with you.

I have tried pumping and other people
Giving her the bottle but this does not make her sleepy either. It just ends in a meltdown

Bump

No advice but solidarity here. I have a 6 month old that will only sleep for me. I recently was ill. I had a really high fever, couldn't get out of bed and I was still breastfeeding and doing every single night waking (every 1-2 hours). He'll scream and scream if DH etc tries to settle. Could have let persevere but screaming so loud I'm already awake and hearing cry when I know he'd be calm with me is tough.

Persevere and she will go down for someone else eventually.

It will be hard but worth it.

Thank you, it's so hard isn't it. In one sense I love it and I know it won't last forever but in others it's tough of both me and her.

Hope you get sorted with things soon! X

Thank you. She cried herself to sleep the other night, I was out at a prearranged concert that had been planned since before she was born. Crying for 2 hours and eventually went off. The thought of it broke my heart xx

Unfortunately I don't have any helpful experience to share but I can totally relate. My DD is 18 months and I was in exactly the same boat - EBF, would only go down for me and only if I fed/rocked to sleep, I would always be the one to settle her when she woke overnight which happens often as she's a terrible sleeper! Tbh I insisted on the latter because it was so easy for me to settle her and I knew if DH went, he'd be there for ages with her being upset and probably wouldn't have any luck anyway! I do regret this approach now and whenever I have a second, I'm definitely going to try to avoid setting things up this way. 6 months is a good age to start making changes. It's not too late! The two I wish I'd done were getting DH to put her down and putting her down drowsy. My DD has no ability to self soothe at all! In terms of getting your DH to put her down, there will always be temptation to intervene as she will cry without you, but just persevere with it. Eventually they will work out their own rhythm with rocking, songs etc that work and it would give you a break. It might take a week or more and lots of tears to begin with, but I'm sure he'd get there in the end. Just make sure she's had a good feed first! We've only just recently gotten to grips with this and wish we'd done it sooner. In terms of putting her down drowsy but awake, we've still not mastered this yet unfortunately! I was chatting to another mum on MN the other day though, and she said that the way she managed it was by lying on the floor next to her dc's cot. This meant the dc had to learn to self soothe and cried until they fell asleep (the premise of CIO - which I also can't bring myself to do btw!) but they did it while Mum was there next to them able to give reassurance. She said it took several nights and many hours of lying on the floor, but in the end the dc got it and managed to fall asleep!

I hope you manage to make adjustments to make it easier for yourself.However, I do tell myself that these patterns that babies and young toddlers are in do change as they get older and my DD will start sleeping through soon hopefully. So hang in there, it will always be this way xx

Hi @meadowkoa i think the best way is to try and reduce the feeding to sleep. So feed her and keep her awake during the feed through any means needed and then pop her down to sleep. It won’t work straight away and just stay there for reassurance and perhaps shush but I would be mindful about not introducing too many things like patting etc as sometimes that overstimulated children. It will take a while and reassure her with your presence and hopefully she will fall asleep. Thereafter she should be able to settle after a feed as opposed to during jr

i however note that for me this works for falling asleep but night wakes do still require the breast for speed and quick short wakes.

i disagree with the idea that breastfeeding is itself the problem its not! You can continue to feed and get better sleep, just try and reduce the association.

That last sentence was meant to say it won't always be this way 😂 chasing 18mo round the room while I write isn't easy!

Unfortunately babies can’t self soothe. It’s a complete myth and they are just not developmentally ready to do so. The whole “drowsy but awake” thing rarely works and it’s not something you can teach.
My partner can rock our DD to sleep and I’d say it’s mainly because my DD has always associated my partner with naps/sleep too. From a young age she would go in a sling for sleep with DP and DD is used to it. There was a month or two when DD refused anyone but me but she has since got over that and will go for my partner now too.
Can your partner do more in the day for naps to help get the association with DH for sleep? This will probably help with the nights.
It’s completely normal and natural for her to want you and shows that you have a great bond and attachment which is what she needs. I know it is tough (I have a terrible sleeper) but everything is a phase (the good, the bad and the ugly!).
Good luck and I hope it gets easier for you x

I'd love for my DH to be able to do more, but as many said it takes a few days until they accept and 5 days out of 7 DH is at work at naptimes so it's always me. So I can have DH do it for a weekend, him screaming over an hour each time, then come monday its me again before association broken. By next weekend it's square 1 again.

It would get shorter if it happened consistently. I’d definitely work on it before you go back to work.

You can do this.

Hi @meadowkoa i know this is an old thread, but I wondered how you got in with this? Im currently in the same situation with my four month old who previously could be soothed by my partner but the last two weeks just wants me at bedtime. He’s obviously still little but it would be good to have an idea of how long this phase might go on for.

We’ve tried this last week my partner to do bedtime with expressed milk, which he usually takes happily from a bottle and he just wasn’t having it. after an hour my partner asked me to take over, and he was asleep in 5 minutes. We would try again but at the moment he has a cold and it doesn’t seem fair.

Im supposed to go to something on Friday night but we’ve both agreed if he’s so unsettled I probably won’t be going, but I really don’t want to be in the situation where I have an older child who can’t be soothed to bed by anyone but me 😔