Advice needed on moving co-sleeping 6 mth old to cot

[Piccalilli2]

Dd2 is 6 mths, exclusively breastfed, we've been reluctantly co-sleeping for about 2 and a half months since I was ill for a while and couldn't face getting up in the night to feed. It has worked well from the point of view of me getting more sleep as she's still waking 4-5 times a night but the time has come to move her into her own bed as my relationship with dh is suffering (he's in the spare room) and I'm worried about her safety now she's mobile. She currently feeds to sleep lying down though and I can't figure out how we move from this to her going to sleep in the cot. Any advice/experience?

Bump

Please.....anyone....

A couple options:

• Take the side off her cot and push it up next to your bed. You can feed her and then lay her in her cot, leaving the bed for you and DH. Alternately you can feed her with her lying in her cot and you with your head and shoulders in her cot.
• Feed her to sleep in your arms, hold her for a good 5-10 min after she falls asleep, then put her into her cot.
• Night wean (Have your DH go in to her and try to settle her initially instead of feeding every time. Strategies include stretching out the interval between feeds, selecting a feed to drop entirely, offering formula instead. Remember there's a growth spurt around 6 months and more at less defined ages well into toddler years.)
• Get a bigger bed/put up a bed rail.

See my reply here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/632457-Advice-for-moving-DS-to-his-own-room

for what we did to move ds from co-sleeping to his own room.

Might not suit you but it worked for us

Thanks nelly, that's really helpful. I'm happy with taking a gradual approach as I think cold turkey would upset her too much, I just need to feel we're making progress.

Hey Piccalilli2 will you let us know how it goes?
I was just about to ask for the same advice but won't be trying it for a while as DS's new bedroom still smells of paint!

We've been doing controlled crying at bedtime which has worked well - she whinges for a bit but generally goes off in about 10 minutes. The first night was hard, she did cry for nearly an hour but it was more anger than sadness (no tears) and the second night was much shorter. She's still waking a lot during the night though - not sure what we're going to do about that.

I'm not brave enough for cc yet!

Have you found that she wakes less/settles herself more since shes been going to sleep on her own? Or is there no diference?

Hope you are getting a bit of sleep

There really isn't much you can do about night waking. As you probably discovered, night weaning isn't a guarantee and some of them need a night feed well past 9 months, if not longer. Frankly, sleeping through the night at 6 months is unusual.

ches, I can live without sleeping through the night but she's still waking 5,6 times a night. I'm going back to work soon and simply can't function on that little sleep with or without co-sleeping. I can accept she needs 'a' night feed, but 6? really? She feeds every 2-3 hours during the day and is having solids.