Co-Sleeping and breastfeeding help

[Advicereq]

Looking for some advice. My baby is 9 months old and we have co slept since he was a couple months old, I feel this was not by choice as he would genuinely not go down in to a cot/moses basket. I breastfeed and he is still feeding to sleep, dad can be rock him but he wakes on being placed down.
I currently go to bed with the baby at about 7-8pm, I have no social life whatsoever. When visiting family, I feed the baby to sleep and then roll away, he still wakes when he realises im not there after an hour or so at which point we run back in before he rolls off the bed, so our eyes are constantly glued to the monitor and we never have a break. I would love to have some time with my partner, to go on date nights etc and get a babysitter but we can’t as baby won’t sleep in a cot. I also worry so much that him in the bed is unsafe and one day something terrible will happen.
I Don’t think I could do any sleep training that involves leaving him to cry, what on earth do I do? Please help I feel absolutely lost with what to do. It seems like everyone else’s babies sleeps in their cot and they can go out without baby for date nights and to see friends and I miss this. I love giving my baby comfort but feel mine and my partners relationship is 100% taking care of baby as we have no time for each other. Has anyone ever been in a similar situation?

Hi there,
So sorry, know the frustration!
I co slept/breastfed to sleep from 4 months to 8 months or so, when we started the process of getting him back in cot and then his own room. No magic solution, but just kept trying putting him down once he was in a deep enough sleep after having fed. It did take a while for him to get used to his cot, but we just kept trying, picked him whenever he woke up and would bring him back in to our bed after first wake up, never left him to cry. The stretches got longer over time. Not a quick process but naturally they develop and sleep changes. I think this is particularly tough age, but it will get better. Might be worth looking up Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram for gentle sleep tips?
Good luck!

I think if feeding to sleep and co sleeping has been such a crutch you need to accept it’s going to be difficult to break and there may be some crying involved and that’s ok. I’d really change up bed time routine- bath back downstairs in dim room for feed, up with daddy for story and cuddly toy and put in cot. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Few nights will be horrendous but then it’ll improve and your life will too! 9 months is a long time to have to go to bed early and never be able to switch off.

A bed guard from Amazon would be helpful to reduce risk of him rolling off, it helped us as we have been there too. And practice teaching him to get down off the sofa etc “feet first” so this a becomes his automatic way of getting down from the bed just in case. No advice on the settling to sleep thing though, my daughter was in our bed until she was nearly 2! She started sleeping through when I was pregnant with my second and the new baby is now sleeping on the bed next to me!

I coslept with my eldest until he moved to his own room at 15 months, although he still joins us most nights at some point and
he has just turned 3. I also cosleep with my 9 month old.

I fully understand the eyes glued to the monitor thing, I roll away after bedtime every evening, then spend time with my husband. Baby will last 1-3 hours before I go back to feed and roll away again. I sometimes put a pillow near him so he feels like I’m still lying there this sometimes helps him sleep a bit longer - obviously I am
keeping an eye on the monitor and would never do this if I wasn’t.

We have the cot attached to our bed in a sidecar style situation, this means less worry about baby being safe on an adult mattress, he sleeps in the cot on my side of the bed and I lean I to feed him lying down. This also means our 3 year old can be in between my husband and I, whilst still having an adult between him and baby.

I have been out with friends a few times this time around as baby will settle being rocked by DH, it just means he can’t reliably put him down which isn’t end of world - I try not to be longer than 3 hours and all my friends have young kids anyway so we’re not out long, but I never would have been able to do this with my first, he would only settle for me until he self weaned from breastfeeding just after turning 2. I have done nothing different so I think this is just down to temperament.

With our first I just met friends for lunch rather than evenings out and even now, DH and I have only had 1 evening date night in the last 3 years, lunch dates work so much better as we can relax more not worrying about how bedtime is going. We usually have a drink then nice lunch out for 3-4 hours and then pick up kids, dinner, bath, bed. Then we have a movie night or something. We don’t do this often but it works really well and meets everyone’s needs.

All of this is really good advice - you are in the worst stretch now I think, it does get better. We did the same and just popped into cot when in deep sleep and accepted the wake ups but a floor bed might also be a an option?

Floor bed works really well for this. You roll away knowing that they’re at a safe level and it makes the transition to a big bed later on v simple. It also means they get used to sleeping in their own room and you gradually are there less and less.

I also second the day dates/ meeting friends for lunch suggestion.

In terms of comparing to others- you can only parent the child you have. Other people might have easier sleepers but maybe they’ll have trickier times with other things like food or speech or learning to read etc. I feel much calmer about all of this with my second. I drove myself a bit mad worrying about it with my first who now sleeps through in his own bed consistently. You will get there too.

i recommend secondstartotheright and littlenestsleep on instagram for gentle sleep tips. I used the night weaning guide made by secondstartotheright and it was really helpful.

Thank you all so much for the great advice, going to sit down with dh and come up with a plan, so nice to also know I’m not alone in sometimes feeling like this, xx

It's okay if they whinge for a bit. I co slept with my daughter and wanted my bed back. I put her in the travel cot for naps and night sleep. Sometimes she has a whinge but she goes down after 5 mins.

We went through this with both ours and opted for a gentle sleep consultant - not leaving to cry. I'd recommend that if in budget.

First step that worked is to change the sleep association of falling to sleep. We moved from feeding to sleep, to swaying, to cuddling, to lying next to, to hand on etc until they were able to fall asleep independently. It's a long process but it does work. Work on bedtime first and it falls into place and you get longer stretches.

With child 2 we started younger and breastfed before bath so we knew that he was well fed and it removed the feeding from bedtime altogether.

Bed guards shouldn't be used with babies due to risk of entrapment

We did similar to this with DD1 who was a real velcro baby....took the side off her cot and pushed it up against the bed with rolled up towels pushed the other side.
(Just have to make sure your duvet doesn't go into the cot) it was a real lifesaver between when she grew out of her crib at 7mths and hated the cot, and when we put her in her room in a toddler bed at 18mths.
I could just roll over to feed her then gently shift her back over onto her mattress knowing she was safe.

I hear you, I guess we have to weigh up risks and make the decision that seems safest on balance. We used a mesh one, not ideal but we weren’t able to have a floor bed and I was so worried about her rolling off. Initially I just had the Next2Me pushed up against the bed which was definitely less safe. She’s in her own bed now and I do feel we did our best to help her feel secure and give us all as much sleep as possible at a time when she just needed me through the night. I hope things improve soon for you

Not recommended but if anyone does insist on using one, they should 100% screw it to the bed.....we did with DD1 when she used it as a toddler and co-slept sometimes, but with DD2 I just pushed it below the lip of the bedframe, thinking it would stay clamped there, but one night when co-sleeping with her I woke to find it had moved to leave a gap, and she was sort of squashed in the gap between the mattress and the bed guard.Luckily she was a toddler and she was fine, but i did think if she had been a baby it could have been a different story.

Just wanted to post an update - we tried Ferber yesterday for naps and bedtime ,
It worked and he was asleep after 2 mins in his cot from second attempt, but after first nighttime wake up he was very upset and confused why I wasn’t just picking him up and I just couldn’t carry on with it so he ended up in my bed, think I’m going to continue to work on him falling asleep without the breast first with me lied next to him, then transition back to cot with gradual retreat method. Hopefully this works!

If not then a floor bed seems like the way to go I think

And thank you so much for all the advice and support 🙏

Someone recommended lunch dates, or even go for breakfast out. I completely remember feeling so rubbish that others had babysitters and could do normal things. But, even once I got to that stage, I would worry about them missing me at bedtime. Whereas, when DH and I took a day or afternoon off, maybe walk and lunch, on our own I was much more relaxed. Those are the dates that I remember looking back now.

So true I can actually imagine being out on a evening and just thinking of my baby the whole time, we spend time worrying and wishing for the next stage of independence and then miss it when it’s gone, going to look at doing some day time dates for sure. Thank you x