Co-sleepers - help me with my constantly waking 6 month old please! (LONG POST!)

[ChairmumMiaow]

DS is 6 months old today, and we've been co-sleeping in various ways since he was about 3 months and grew out of his moses basket.

Before he came out of the basket, he was (briefly) sleeping pretty well (IMO) waking 1-2 times a night, and I was feeling good. When we took him out because it was too small, he started waking more often. I presumed this was a combination of the change of sleeping environment and the hot spell we were having at the same time. I thought it would get better!

Since then, its just got worse - he's waking more and more, so I have him in bed with me more and more, and now I'm losing my confidence in what I'm doing. It feels like he won't sleep for long without my nipple in his mouth (although I know its not actually as bad as that). He wakes every 1-2 hours, but seems to only sleep for more than an hour in our bed - he used to do about 3 hours in his cot to start with then wake frequently after that, but now we're lucky if we get an hour at the start of the evening (he normally goes to sleep between 8 and 9pm and just feeds then plays if we do bath earlier)

Some days I feel ok - if he just wakes to get latched on I barely wake up, but after weeks of doing this, I'm getting aches and pains in my back and arms. I normally lay him in the crook of my arm to feed, so when I go to sleep I get a dead arm after a while which wakes me up. Sometimes I can then roll him over onto his back, and he sleeps for a while longer, but other times he wakes up, which wakes me up more, and we have to get comfortable again...

If I try to feed him without being in my arm, I have to roll a bit further onto my side (but not completely over as that seems not to work) which gives me backache as my bac is twisted slightly. I've thought of supporting my back with a long cushion, but thought that it would just wake me up more to get it in place.

If I try to put him back in his bedside cot after every feed, I just wake up shattered. If I try to get him back to sleep by patting etc, he just works himself up into full crying, which I can't stand! Same thing happens when DH tries - as he does when he hears me and DS getting worked up!

I've had people suggesting that I'm waking him up myself, and that he might sleep better in his own room, and as each night I just get that little bit more tired, I'm starting to doubt the route I've chosen and wonder if I make DS sleep as he does! (but I really don't want him in another room just yet)

He doesn't feed as much as he used to in the day, and is not yet eating much solids (he started BLW very slowly about 3 weeks ago) so I know that he needs to catch up at night to a certain extent, but it feels like he's snacking a lot...

So I'm wondering if I can -

a) improve my sleep-feeding technique - any hints?
b) use some other non-crying technique to get him back to sleep
c) try a dummy (I don't particularly like them, but don't hate them...)
d) do something else...

If I can get more comfortable feeding him in bed, I'll be happy, as when I'm not knackered, I don't worry about getting him into bad habits, and DH and I have agreed we're happy to have him in our bed for some time. When I'm tired though, I feel like I'm doing everything wrong!

If its any comfort to all of you, I always feed DS to sleep. I think he learnt to self settle from being left to cry though (although generally that has been much less stressful than expected) and I agree with the people that say not to do it before 6 months

I'd also note that DS is even more cheerful since he started sleeping better (he's always been a cheery lad, he just seems more reliably so now) so I don't think he's taken any ill effects from being left.

Last night we went from 6-10ish then 10.30 to 1.30 when he grumbled for a bit - but obviously not too long as I decided to leave him for a moment then fell instantly back asleep, so he must have too :-). He woke again at around 3.40 for a feed and nappy change then through till 6.30 for wakeup. SH found him face down in his cot He's finally rolling over, but that's probably why he was up before 7!

DS definitely has 2 large bumps in his gums at the bottom front though, so we're predicting teething troubles soon!

Lucypearl - yopu poor thing, that sounds very difficult and exactly like me a couple of months ago. If DD woke up after going down in the evenign I often just brought her through and she messed about on the sofa while we had our tea. You do what you have to do yeah?C

Chunky - sounds like you are doing pretty well with your muddling through. Your DC is sleeping as much as mine anyway!

We had a pretty good night last night. Down at 7.50 after 35 mins of PUPD though this included me leaving her gurgling in the cot for 15 mins before she started crying. She then woke at 8.45 and DP was able to settle her in 15 mins (Yayyyy!). Woke again at 10 and I fed and put her down. However I woke her up when I went to bed at 10.30 (damn!) As she was only grumbling I left her in the cot waiting to pick her up when she cried. She didn't! She went back to sleep on her own at 11 and slept till 1.30. Feed and straight back down and then the same again at 4.30. Brought her into bed at 7 and we slept till 8.20. Bliss!

Was reading a BW interview last night online (clearly there is nothing else in my life other than thinking about sleep )and she was saying if you hold them too long after pickups then you are doing it wrong and it won't work, but I don't agree. Maybe I will be proved wrong but I feel she goes back down easier if she is near sleep. She wakes up so at least she knows she is in the cot when she falls asleep so I reckon that's the main thing. Also, both times when she woke in the night last night she was sleeping when I put her back in the cot, but it feels massively different from before as I can put her straight in and then she sleeps for 3 hours sometime. Anyway am going to continue with doing it this way as for now it seems to be working for us!

Sorry for giant post!

Peach starting to think might join u with pupd. Have read the EASY in Whisperer and although I know it would be a hellish few days at first, yesterday was hellish anyway so at least we'd be working towards something.

She eventually fed to sleep at 11pm, woke up at 1.30, 3.30, 4.30, 5.30 and then didn't really go back to sleep - I just tried to ignore her thrashing about beside me, sticking her fingers up my nose, scratching my eyes and pulling my hair until I put her in her cot at 6.30. That's when she decided we were getting up for sure!

So tired I keep seeing stars.

Chairmum I'm so glad your ds is settling himself now as that's what I looooong for.

PEach - I agree with you on the waiting after PUPD. If I put her straight down she just goes ballistic.

Lucy - everyone has these days!

I didn't realise 'accidental parenting' was a'thing' in a book. I just meant muddling through.

We're definitely back to the teething here. It's just a nightmare for all of us. She simply cannot sleep. Usually it takes me ten minutes max to get her to sleep for a nap. We've just given up aften an hour. At least I'm not on my own this time. Last night it just drove me spare - which is where I was when this thread started.

Lucypearl - perhaps this is where your DD is? My dd simply could not sleep for more thanan hour when her first teeth were coming.

Hi all - brain somewhat muddled this morning!

Lucypearl - I think PUPD is great. I thought DD was going to be hysterical with it, but actually she has not been. She has cried, but has been very easy to comfort as soon as I have picked her up. It's made a great difference already. For example, I have just fed her and then put her in the cot awake. Normally she would start crying immediately, but she is just gurgling and playing around, even though she is tired. I suspect she will start crying in a bit and I will go in and pickup and put down, but the fact that she was awake and let me put her in there withouit crying is a moinor miracle. Also, she is able to get herself back to sleep, sometimes, during the night. Brilliant!

LaTrucha - Yes, accidental parenting is what the BW calls muddling through, or more specifically not following her routine! ha ha. Actually I do like the BW, accidental parenting aside!

Hi there, ds been awake again practically all night. Have just ordered NCSS.

can you tell me is NCSS the same as PUPD method?

Is it almost as cruel as CIO because you are not giving them what they want and deliberately misinterpreting their cry for sucking? and therefore breaking a communication bond?

Also, Has anyone just done nothing with a really bad ( every 45 mins awake ) sleeper, and then miraculously they have just sorted themselves out at some point?

Dr Marc says that their patterns change at 9 months and they can just sleep through. Anyone got any experience of that?

Zwiggy I had a message from a MNer saying her baby sorted themselves out sleeping wise about 5 months with her doing nothing. The thing is I suppose you never know if or when that will happen to you?

Peach - that sounds bliss!! Will be a complete miracle for me too if it works. My dp off work Friday and Sunday so may start the EASY routine with PUPD Friday so I've got support first day and third day. Going to force him to read it first to see what he thinks. Still nee to get NCSS book too!

LaTrucha - yes I suppose it could be because her tooth is coming in. It's hard to tell when you've never had a very good routine/sleep pattern to ruin in the first place.

Hi Zwiggy. NCSS is different to PUPD. NCSS has lots of little ideas that when you do them all together, or pick the ones that suit you, should hopefully help your LO sleep better, but it takes a fair amount of time.

PUPD is more prescriptive I guess. I don't think it's particularly cruel. Yes, you are not giving them what they want, usually being bf to sleep but this is only because it is what they have got used to. If I could bf mt DD to sleep every night and then she would sleep for 3 hours at a go till I bf her to sleep again I would do it, but it hasn't really worked that way for us.

I think whatever you try to do it is important to be consistent as you are communicating to them that you need them to sleep in their cot for example.

Not sure if anyone on here has a LO older than 9 months tbh. However from observing my DD they definitely do go through stages of sleep maturity so I would not be surprised if things didn't get easier on their own at 9 months. Here's hoping!!!

thanks for tips, I will wait for NCSS to arrive, just didn't want to get my hopes up with yet another sleep book. I guess if there are so many books and methods then that just proves that its all normal.

My sister has got 4 kids, I told her my ds doesn't sleep , she says, 'no they don't!' whan I asked what can you do, she said ' nothing! there's nothing you can do!' that was kind of reassuring

Has no one tried topping them up with a bottle of formula? My ds is allergic / lactose intolerant so can't do it myself and the doc won't prescribe me the special stuff cos he's not a good solid food eater. Do you think it would make a difference?

Zwiggy - almost everyone you speak to says no, topping up with formula doesn't make one bit of difference, same with solids.

I think your sister could be right!! It's one of those things nobody tells you before you have children. They don't sleep. Same as nobody tells you that they co-cleep. EVERYBODY co-cleeps. Well, that's not true obviously, but I have been amazed at the amount of people I know who co-sleep, but never mentioned it before I had a baby. Or maybe they did but I was listening...

peach- you're right about the co-sleeping. I remember saying when I was pg "oh, I don't think I could ever do that, I'd be too scared!" and my SIL told me to basically just wait and see till I was so tired I couldn't sit up! Of course she was right!

I've never heard of formula topups helping sleep. HSHHC says that sleep and food aren't related, which to some extent I've found to be true (size of feed - BM and solids) before bed makes no difference to how long DS sleeps.

Against my initial instincts, I haven't found CIO particularly cruel. Yes it feels bad to start with - after all we're programmed to respond when our babies cry, but we've been at it less than a month, and TBH it often doesn't bother me - plus most nights he really doesn't cry for long, as we seem to have cracked the bedtime thing so that he's tired but not too tired after his bath and just feeds straight to sleep. Plus when you hear the little grumbling sounds of your baby settling themselves back to sleep, its wonderful. I know there are plenty of other ways of doing things out there, but they all made DS cry too! (even if it was in shorter chunks over a longer time, and we didn't persevere with them over a long period of time). I definitely wouldn't recommend it if you're not committed (see posts regarding DH and I arguing about it!) or if your baby is under 6 months but it has worked for me (during the night - naps are a different matter)

Nice to see some younger babies here, and it'd be great to hear if some of those other methods work well for you - I think they would have worked better on DS at that age, but then we were still co-sleeping and muddling through (with backache!).

Has anyone sorted their naps yet? I can get DS to go down at the right times with no problems now (when we're at home) but he seems to be going down in nap length!!

its amazing how different all our babies are!

i couldn't do what chairmum did purely because my ds goes utterly bonkers if left to cry - does not calm down just escalates til my teeth rattle and even dp (much tougher than me) cracks!

and pupd works for peach, but again not for ds! he gets confused and then enraged! he is... ummm... 'spirited' shall we say. early crawler, early to stand, only wants to feed himself and hold his own cup... all very clever but UTTERLY EXHAUSTING!!!

peach the night i described was an unusually good one! we usually have maybe 3-4 hrs if lucky when he first goes down, then a lot of nights I'm lucky if we get a 2 hr stretch from then on. and lots of the babies on this thread are A LOT younger than ds! aaargh!! however I'm convinced that most of the time there is a real reason for waking, its just he won't go back down without a feed...

second lot of teeth coming thru. aaargh again.

and last night we ended up in a & e as he woke up utterly contorted with pain (tummy i think) writhing around screaming, not focusing on anything, making weird grunts...

needless to say he waited til the moment we reached reception at hosp to open eyes properly and by the time we saw doc was grinning and charming... was scary tho. our first time being worried enough for a & e.

so am now extra tired as didn't get mani settled til after 1am, feed at 4, awake 6.30.

another vote for bw being very annoying. i find her tone very patronising and can't help but wonder if all parenting was 'accidental' before she came along??? have to say that at some real low points that book just made me feel worse. may have felt differently if her methods had worked for us tho - would prob love her

zwiggy my ds is sort of getting better without me doing much - well no proper 'techniques' anyway... but things like teething keep knocking us for 6. we are not too far off 9mo (will be 8 on 16th sept) so will keep my fingers crossed that the magic will happen!

oh chairmum ds does usually feed to sleep quite happily, like your lo. we just have the odd night where that goes out the window...

ChairmumMiow - is cry it out literally just not going into them when they start to cry in the night? If so how long do you leave it?

I've been trying to get to the route of ds's wakings and before 2/3am it's definately not hunger, I think he's waking himself up by banging his head on the cot or something. PUPD works fairly well on these occasions but am wondering if I should leave it longer before I go to him. He does have the most intense blood curdling cry though!

We do seem to have finally cracked day time naps, he's having 2 hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

The whole getting him to take formula is just noit moving forward though

Connor - basically yes. If he goes on for more than a minute or two, or is screaming (he only does that for pain or real discomfort) we go and check on him to make sure he's not hot/cold etc.

We used it initially at bedtime to get him to go off, but haven't needed to do that in maybe a week now, and after the first 3 days we rarely had more than 5 minutes of crying after his bedtime routine.

I leave him to cry when he's had a feed within the last 4 hours (or thereabouts) and isn't hot, cold or showing and signs of wind/teeth etc - we try very hard to check everything and if he didn't feed properly at bedtime he gets another feed at his first wakeup if before 4 hours.

I think what made me feel ok about this is a)checking to make sure there's nothing other than him wanting help to go back to sleep and b)when I feed him more often he just snacks, whereas at 2 night feeds he has a good feed and goes straight back to sleep (or doesn't cry/grumble when he goes back in awake as he seems to sometimes at 4am)

We had a longish crying session when we got back from camping and he decided he didn't want to stay asleep at 7pm, but he was back on form the next day and has slept really well for the last 3 or 4 nights (with his as expected 2 feeds )

I do like to write long posts

Connor - I didn't actually answer your question did I!

The idea with CIO is that you don't have a time limit, but that involves a lot of determination. As I've said, 45 minutes is the most DS has done, and that has been with CC rather than CIO, so I haven't been tested compared to the people whose babies cry for hours.

Sorry - in too much of a rush and too zonked to catch up properly now but I though Zwiggy and perhaps some other would liek to see this.

For Zwiggy

P.s Susiemj is now LaTrucha!

oh wow latrucha, thanks for that. Am going to persevere with sorting out feeding first before I tackle sleep.

oh latrucha i didn't realise that! remember u from antenatal thread now

Thanks for the link LaTrucha, it is good to get some positive stories. So maybe we should all give up this training idea and just stick it out until the 'magic' 9 months? Another friends suggested as much to me today. The thing is, she's not having to wear my ds in a sling three times a day for his naps. It's just soul destroying now. (I love the sling... but not all the time. DS is a very hefty lad).

Sorry for the moan... must just be one of those days. I don't think thunder storms are helping my mood! (Plus I've already had to settle ds once since he went down at 7.15 - I really hope that's it for tonight until I go to bed. I just need a wee break from him).

What a difference one tiny success can make eh? I have just come back downstairs from settling my ds back to sleep WITHOUT BFing!!! That's the first time ever I've managed to do that at night! I have no idea why this time was different - but it just feels great to know that it can happen. Gosh - what will I feel like when he takes a nap in his cot, I wonder? I may actually burst

Yay for small victories

congrats, takingit. I managed to settle my ds twice last night without feeding him. That was out of a total of 11 night wakings in my bed. At least I know he can now.