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!

Hi AvonBarksdale, just to let you know I am a couple of weeks ahead of you on the HSHHC and I too did not want to let my DD cry it out. I have still had excellant results by just sticking to the napping times etc. She might gurn a little if she wakes in the middle of a nap (I now realise that I used to go and pick her up immediately not letting her complete her nap) but after leaving her for a few minutes she usually goes back over.

So good luck and keep us posted on how you and DD are getting on.

P.s It really is unbelievable when you first get your evenings back!

Well I've ordered HSHHC for delivery before 1pm today. I'm getting desperate.

Awful night last night, down at 6.50ish (DH had to settle him because I was worked up). Then up at 8, 9.15, 10 something, 12 something, 1.50ish, 3 something and 5.

Ugh. I am a zombie.

Kristin2606, thanks for the encouragement! I used to let DD sleep in her carrycot downstairs during the day and so would naturally go to her whenever she woke - I now realise this meant she did not get enough sleep in the daytime - now if she wakes too early I see if she can settle herself before going and helping her. I think the carrycot was also hindering her movement in her sleep because every time she finishes her nap she's in a different position to the one she started in! I will persevere, we've started now, there's definitely no going back.

ChairmumMiaow please don't give up hope, we too had a horrible night last night and I am convinced it was the awful humidity. Thank goodness it's cooler today! The heat combined with the fact DD did a MASSIVE poo at 4.30am led to us havinga pretty rubbish night. I am fully zombified with you. Remember, this too shall pass.

Chairmum - I had a horrible night too. May also get thta book! Be interested to know what you think. Are you still night feeding? I can't recall,though I think so. I am and am thinking of cutting it out but I feel pretty glum at the prospect.

One of the main changes I applied to daytime naps was to always get her to nap in her cot in the bedroom where it is quiet and dark - this really helped. I think it is hard for them to stay asleep when it is light and there is lots of activity going on. Also mini wind down routines before naps seemed to help - not as extensive as bedtime routine but just the same thing each time helps them to realise that it is nap time.

I'm nowhere near ready to give up - I can't! I can't cope like this so we have to do something! Thanks for the encouragement though

Thankfully my DH is being brilliant and we had a good chat last night which made me feel a little better about being so shit with everything else (including our business)

I've started reading the book, but I'm having difficulties with the author as he is giving incorrect advice about breastfeeding, which makes me worried about trusting the rest of what he says! (He claims that giving a bottle of expressed milk or formula once a day from 2-3 weeks absolutely will not threaten milk supply or cause nipple confusion, which is bollocks! - it might not, but it might too!) DH is going to read the NCSS tonight, and I'll carry on with HSHHC, so we can pretend we're spending some time together!

I'm really glad this has turned into a bit of a support thread though!

I'm sorry things aren't going too well ChairmumMiaow. It's great that your husband is being so supportive - I sometimes wonder what I would do without mine.

How are you getting on with the book? I didn't really pay attention to his views on breastfeeding either. Afterall his expertise is on sleep not BF. The book is long and can be very repetitive but if you don't have time or are too sleepy to read then concentrate on chapters 1,2,3 and 6 also the action plans at the end of each chapter sums things up quite nicely.

I really never post but so many of you could be me I've had to pipe up!! My DS is 41/2 months old and has coslept with us since birth, and it's been wonderful. We recently upgraded him to a bedside cot because I was finding myself stiff as a board with a sleeping male on either side of me and me wide awake in the middle worrying about moving and waking the baby up. He ususlly manages half the night in there, then tucks in with us just because I fall asleep feeding, and on good nights wakes up 3 times. On bad nights (recent hot weather combined with 2 teeth arriving) he's been waking up anywhere between six and 10 times. He always needs to be fed to sleep, except 2 nights ago when he looked at his hands for a while then fell asleep, which was unheard of here and I actually thought he'd died for a second...

He is a great daytime napper though, 2-3 hours in the morning, which I usually join him for, 1 hour or so just after lunch and another hour late afternoon. I do think it's the naps that make it all bearable. If he misses them, esp the morning on he is Grouchy McGrumperson all day. I have started giving him his naps in his cot instead of wherever and it does seem better. I'm still happy to feed him to sleep for now. I'm kind of thinking that when he's weaned I'll start dealing with that.

The bedside cot has been really great for us - I've definitely slept more, it's given the baby his own space to wriggle without waking up, but we haven't lost the closeness of the family bed which we all love so much. I can still feed him easy peasy at night but I can also turn round and cuddle my husband occasionally. And I would agree that good naps in the day make a much happier baby, and do whatever you have to to get them!

PS: I love this thread because I've had far too many conversations with women who can't wait to tell me that their babies sleep through the night in their own cot after a bottle of formula last thing at night and I feel like I'm from another planet sometimes.

Bad Mummy Alert! (at least that's sort of how I feel).

Last night I let DS cry. I was exhausted despite napping with him, and I'm so stressed that I can't settle him - he knows I'm not relaxed. DH has more luck sometimes as he is more patient but we're still not getting anywhere.

When he was shattered by 5.30 and not feeding to sleep, I just cracked and left him to cry for about 15-20 minutes while I ate my dinner. I felt awful but at the end of my tether. After dinner I went in with him and spent about 10 minutes cuddling him and trying to feed him. He didn't feed but he did settle in my arms straight away.

I think the fact that he settled straight away made me feel better, and I left him again, but this time we went back to check after 3 then 5 minutes (gave a quick cuddle then put down). When we were almost up to about 8 minutes of the ten when I was due to check him, he stopped and was fast asleep. We then had a couple of light wakings which DH managed to settle him from without picking him up,and overall we had a 3 hour stretch.

During the night he slept stretches of 2 -2.5 hours, which is just above average, but the amazing thing was after a feed, on 2 occasions he was put down awake and went to sleep with no crying! DH also slept next to the bedside cot so he could pick DS up to try to settle first (and we agreed that sleep of less than 2 hours would result in us trying to settle without milk as he can definitely go 5 hours without food in the day!)

I think the other reason I finally cracked, despite not wanting to do it intially, and feeling bad, was what I've been reading. On one hand, I know there are studies that say that prolonged crying produces high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your baby, which is bad for them - one of the reasons I didn't want to leave DS to cry. On the other hand HSHHC said that in a chronically overtired baby (which I think DS is heading for considering his previous lack of naps and disturbed sleep) there are also elevated levels of cortisol - something about not napping properly failing to lower the levels, so over time they just get worse.

So its a bit of "damned if I do, damned if I don't" - so I may as well try to get some sleep. This morning he clearly doesn't hate me yet, and is being his normal self.

So I'm stuck. While on one hand, he's clearly fine, on the other, I don't know if I can face being a parent that leaves their baby to cry. What if its worse than 45 minutes tonight? Am I just being selfish? And can I cope with doing it in the night?

I think we're going to go with a combination of CC to get him off at bedtime, and the various other settling methods at other times, including the middle of the night, and see how we go. Of course I might crack again and decide I really can't leave my baby to cry.

Someone tell me I'm not a bad mother!?

Of course you're not a bad mother!!! I too feel that I don't want to do cc but who knows what I will be saying in a few weeks if things don't improve and we are still taking ALL evening to get DD settled! You have to do what YOU and your DH feel comfortable with. If you change your mind and don't want to do it, then don't. It can be so confusing with so much conflicting advice, but you need to think about what works best for you. Can't remember if you said you tried a dummy or not. I couldn't get dd to take one but had been using one of the flat style ones. Have just got a new "cherry" shaped one and she is able to keep it in better. Last night after falling asleep in my arms at 10 and being transferred to cot at midnight, she woke at 1.30, feed and back down then at 3, feed and back down but then woke at 4. I put in the dummy turned on her "wave" music machine and she went to sleep till 6 when she came into our bed and slept till 8.20. A miracle! If you haven't tried a dummy yet it might be worth a go. Good luck, and don't beat yourself up. You're doing really well!!!

If you were a bad mum then you wouldn't be spending so long worrying about how to get your DS to sleep better. You are doing your best - you can't do more than that!

Even though I'm sure it doesn't feel like it, you do sound like you are making progress. You have got him to sleep for longer between feeds during the night and also he has settled himself back to sleep without feeding a couple of times. That was a major turning point for me. As soon as she realised she could fall asleep by herself she would do it more and more often.

I let DD cry once during the night as she was in the habit of waking around 1.30 when she had just been fed at 11. So as the book says she was waking out of habit not hunger so I left her to cry for around 10 mins (seemed like forever). Luckily she stopped waking at that time from then on. So I think the crying should get less and less each time until it stops.

Hope tonight goes well

you're not a bad mummy, you can't continue with the sleep deprevation you've been having and cope.

I would try and break the habit of feeding him to sleep ie wake him up so he goes down awake etc

By cutting down the feeds at night he will hopefully eat better during the day this will improve over a few days probably.

Carry on with the pick up put down comforting him frequently but then putting him back down awake.

Just carry on being consistent and he'll learn new sleeping habits and hopefully sleep better day and night times.

Well we've had bad napping today - I think I tried putting him down too early this morning, then he had another nap too early, but too short, then we went out and had another too-short nap, so I've just put him down after a very early bath.

We did buy him a dummy yesterday which seems to help a little but is not the cure-all that my breast seems to be!

I put him down about 7 or 8 minutes ago, and he started crying about 5 minutes after I left him. I've just done the 1 minute check and console and he's still going. And again after 2 minutes.

For some reason it feels worse tonight, but I want to be consistent. We've decided to try it for 5 nights and see how it goes - lots of people seem to see an improvement in this time, and if we've got a fixed time period it might help.

Thanks for making me not feel so crap about myself!

Kriston2606 - can I ask you something about naps? Have ordered the book you suggested but until it arrives.... If you try to do the naps at the times you suggested but at the start are only getting them to nap for 30-40 mins, should you stick to that schedule until the naps lenghthen, or should you just put them down again 2 hours after they wake up and so therefore have more naps per day until the nap time gets longer?Good luck tonight ChairmumMiaow!

He's still going after 25 minutes (with several checks). Its getting harder already. Have DH downstairs loading my ipod with soothing classical music to play in his room to try to help.

Every time he's quiet for a few seconds my heartrate starts to get back to normal then leaps again as he restarts

And I think its stopped. Around 30 minutes tonight (45 last night) so that's an improvement. If he goes another half an hour we're going to bed too!

My heartrate is slowly returning to normal.

Hey, Chairmum, you are NOT a bad mum, you are thinking about what's best for your DS every waking moment! Repeat after us - I am a great Mum! (Easy for me to say to someone else, much harder to apply to myself at 3am!).

Just thought I'd reassure you that you're not alone with on-going sleep problems. We're fairly sure that pick-up/put-down won't work for us, not in the normal sense anyway - DD doesn't calm on being picked up, rather cries until tired. So we are doing things our way. DD doesn't seem to wind down until 8.30-9.30pm. Thus much to DM's shagrin (sp?) we are rolling with it, not sweating what we're "meant" to do & making all our lives as happy as possible. If feeding to sleep is required then it's done. If going for a family walk at 9pm helps things then we ignore what the neighbours might think.

Anyway, I'm sure your DS's crying will lessen with time. Hope you're feeling better too.

Thanks. We can't do pu/pd as I get really stressed and DS can tell, so we wind each other up.

DH will happily pat DS/hold his hand for ages, but the crying does give him a headache (Don't want to think about what it does to DS). He can't do pu/pd as DS always cries again as soon as he hits the cot, so DH says he ends up wanting to drop DS.

When the crying stops I feel better about it, and one of my antenatal group said she did CIO with her son a month ago when he was waking out of habit, and it worked in one night! (Don't expect that but her DS wasn't as bad as mine, or for so long IYSWIM)

We've decided to go for it with the CC even during the night (with the exception that if it has been 3 hours since the last feed, DS gets fed) so we're in for a long one (or two).

Thank Heavens for mumsnet!

Hope it's going weel Chairmum. Waiting to go home so that I can get DD 'settled' again.

I hope. At least I could make a start.

Keep going Chairmum! You will get there I promise and then you won't remember feeling as though you were a bad mum at all - our memories are very selective when it comes to remembering the "difficult" things about having babies otherwise no-one would have more than one!

peachsmuggler you ask about nap lengths - I'd suggest trying to resettle your DC if they only sleep for 30-40 mins. Easier said than done I know! It has been a bit of a revelation to me that my DD (4.5 months) will drop off to sleep again when I try and resettle if she only naps under an hour. She currently wakes bang on the end of her 45 min sleep cycle but with a bit of grit and determination on our part will usually go back to sleep for another 20/30/40 ish. If it's entirely impossible to resettle then definitely stick to the 2 hour rule - ie don't let them go over it. My DD napped early this morning (8.30am) so was fully awake at 10am. She then napped at 11am, 1.30pm, 3.45pm and was in bed by 6 - always going back to sleep under 2 hours after she'd woken up. Even though she didn't stick to the "3 naps a day and then bed" principle today she kind of hovered around it and she's still keeping within the timeframes I'm aiming for. (She's not quite 5 months so possibly a bit young to be in this cycle yet - I'm hoping it'll start to work magically when she is!!)

I am finding it tough at the moment, particularly as it's taking all my energy to resettle her as she's very good at waking up as soon as she hits the mattress in her cot (we'll probably try pu/pd if this continues much beyond 5/5.5 months). However I am determined to see it through and get it sorted now - the longer we go on, the less I want to give up!

Hi Peachsmuggler. With regards to the naps, the author explains that during a day baby will go through natural periods of wakefulness and sleepiness. The aim is to keep her stimulated during wakeful times and napping during sleepy times.
So for instance if your DD takes her first nap at 9 and only sleeps until 9.30 it is best to try and keep her awake until the next sleepy time which would be 12ish. So try and avoid long car journeys or walks as this will probably put her to sleep. Same with the afternoon try and make the 3rd nap after 3pm. Then bedtime from 6pm onwards.

One of the mistakes I made was assuming she was ready to get up at the first peep she made (usually after 45 mins)but generally she will go back to sleep if I just leave her, even if she cries a little.

Hope this helps

Sorry just realised we've given slightly differing advice. I think it's because I'm basing my answers on my DD who is almost 6 months. She can stay awake an extra half hour without becoming overtired if she wakes up early from a nap. When they are only 4 or 5 months I would stick to the 2 hour rule and concentrate on lengthening the naps.

Regarding differing advice, its one I'd been struggling with. I've been going on the 2 hours awake thing, but its not working as I've been putting DS down for naps too early and he hasn't been sleeping for long.

I'm going to start waiting for the time windows myself and see how that goes

So far tonight he took around 35 mins to get off to sleep (worked my times out wrong before). He then woke up at around 2 hours after sleep and took 20 minutes to resettle. Woke at just before 10 and I fed him as it had been 4 hours since he last fed.

Now he's awake again and DH has done his nappy. He's about to go back down again and we'll see how long it takes.

Sleep so far tonight - about 2 hours (me that is, he's had about 6!)

Thanks for nap advice. Will try that today. Did a form of it yesterday with trying to get her down within 2 hours of last nap which worked kind of. Last nap was at 5pm whcih meant a slightly later bedtime at 7.45 instead of 7. She feel asleep at 8.20, was up and had quick feed to sleep at 9.05 then woke again at 9.30 so I rocked her and then put her in her cot. Amazingly, she slept till 1am and when she woke then I just put in her dummy and turned on her "wave" music and she went straight off again. Woke at 2.30 and had proper feed (was more than 6 hours since previous feed!). Was so ecstatic that I then couldn't sleep. Was still awake at 5 so got up which then woke her so brought her into bed and she slept till 7.30. I didnn't get back to sleep till 6.30. Needless to say I am shattered today but very pleased with her progress, so don't lose heart ChairmumMiaow, am sure things will get better for you very soon.