How to stop co sleeping?

[hellosun20]

DD is 16 months. I've breastfeed and coslept from birth but I really want to get her into her own cot for the whole night now. She naps in there in there and also sleeps from 6pm-11pm in there before getting into bed with me. I really need to change this as it's impacting my mental health. I've asked for advice on Facebook groups but no reply. Can anyone help? Thanks

i coslept with both my youngest my now three year old started going down in his room around 18 months and would sleep there until 11 then cry to come into our room. We took it in turns and some nights I just went into his room and either got into his bed with him until he settled and left when he was asleep. We had a cot bed so took the rail down so we could sleep in his bed.

it took a good few months and I had a new born in our room too but eventually he woke less and less but admittedly it felt like forever for the first two months of waking every hour or two. Now he is 3 he sleeps though in his room until 6am with occasional wake ups.

we are about to start the process with our daughter who is 18 months and wakes up at the moment every 2 hours to comfort feed. I found when I stopped breastfeeding my son at 18 months he slowly woke less as he wasn’t getting breast. I’m planning to slowly withdraw my daughter from the breast as I’m ready for that but she is hugely attached to it.

it just all takes time and patience and knowing they will get there in the end cosleeping is amazing but it can be so hard if they wake up a lot I felt like a zombie for the last 18 months.

Thank you for the advice. Did you stay awake whilst in there with him? I worry I may not be able to keep my eyes open!

Go to IKEA. Purchase a 'Sniglar.' Assemble and then cut the legs so the bed sits on floor. Tadah. Floorbed. Nurse as usual, roll onto floorbed. You lie next to bed. You'll probably have a few rough nights of crying etc and feeding back to sleep but it won't last. Been there done that, also got terrible 'cry it out is cruel' advice despite the fact I was so sleep deprived I was hearing voices. HTH.

The other option is even easier. Put a double mattress on the floor in their room. Feed to sleep. Roll away and off. Same thing. I did this first and when they got used to sleeping on the mattress they graduated to a child size floor bed. (Sniglar)

@Machiavellian thank you. We are currently on the double mattress on the floor and I'm sick of it! Did you put bed guards up? I was tempted to buy one of those Montessori style floor beds but can't work out if they're safe to leave there as I think she might climb over the guards!

No bed guards. They roll.... And bump..they're not going to get concussion. Push the mattress up against a wall. I honestly don't remember much of what happened as it was a while back. I think we had a stair gate at the top of the stairs so if they got out of their room then they couldn't fall down the stairs.

I had the exact same issue with my DD when she was 16 months old. Co sleeping, breastfeeding, mattress on the floor etc etc. I was hallucinating with sleep deprivation and so ill with it.
I paid a sleep consultant for the below advice, it was life changing. She’s now nearly 7 and an excellent sleeper.

Get her her own bed, even if it’s a new mattress on the floor. You don’t sleep in there with her.
Stop feeding to sleep, she needs to learn to fall asleep on her own. This will cause tears and upset- be strong, she will work out how to do it herself.
Feed her before bedtime, not in bed- make sure she’s fully awake for bed. I used to feed, story, settle for sleep.
You don’t have to leave her to cry, you can stay and support. For nap and bedtime- the more she can practise going to sleep independently the quicker she’ll be able to do it.
Night wean her, gradually over a few nights. Pick a time in the night that you won’t feed before. For me it was 1am, then 4am. I would offer a cuddle and then say sleepy time, no milk now for wakes before the time.
Then over a period of a few nights push the time back and back until there are no more feeds.
When you do feed in the night make sure it’s sat up, not in bed and make sure she doesn’t fall asleep on the breast- you need to cut that sleep association.
It took me less than a week to nightwean my little girl- she went from feeding hourly from 9pm- 7am to sleeping through. It was unbelievable.

Happy to answer any questions, it’s so hard when you are in the thick of it and can’t see the wood from the trees. Everyone tells you that bed sharing and breastfeeding is the best way to get sleep- I can confirm that this absolutely was not the case for us!!

Oooh I've just remembered something I did. I fed before bedtime but that was it. They were offered water in a cup if they wanted a drink. Night weaning I think it's called? At this point they were on maybe 3 formula feeds a day as well as food so I was nursing maybe twice a day by this point. Morning and night. They were quite 'with it's and knew that bedtime was story, cuddles, quiet time, mummy stayed next to bed until they fell asleep by themselves and then left/crawled/shimmied our of the room.

Thanks so much for this. Very very helpful. I'm attempting it tonight so wish me luck!

@Machiavellian thanks so much!

My pleasure. I too, had the misfortune of running into those types of mummies on Facebook sleep groups who would patronisingly call me 'lovely' and say it was all so tiring yet so normal, just a phase.... I just wanted to scream f£#@ off at them, ignoring the absolute agony of disrupted sleep.

Good luck! It takes a few nights, but you will get there.