need advice before i die from lack of sleep.

[froggyfroofroo]

DS co-sleeps and is 8months old, for the last couple of weeks he has been waking up up earlier and earlier and spending the night crawling around the bed grizzling and making strange whingy noises.

its got to the point where he goes down at 7.30pm and is awake at 10.30pm, crawling around. he will take little sleeps but only if im lying on my side hugging him right to me. if i try and creep off to get into a comfortable position he wakes up again. i suffer from a really bad back so lying in the same position all night is agony.

dh sulks if i try and make him take ds and now im getting so run down from spending all night trying to stop ds crawling off the bed that my migraines are coming back.

ive tried extra bottles in case he is hungry, calpol in case its teething pain and now im out of ideas.

why is ds doing this and how long will it last

Would you be adverse to putting him in his cot in your room instead of in your bed. Sounds like he is having fun crawling around!

Thats what I was going to suggest, but wasn't sure how hardcore a co sleeper the OP is.

i tried his cot, he just screamed untill i took him out again.

he's been crawling from about 6 months

froggy I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and have a few nights of screaming until he gets the message thats where he sleeps. Can you pop him in there during the day with a few toys so its not entirely alien?

Time for ear plugs for a night or two until you've sorted this out.

When DS was this age, DH used to spend 2 or nights a week working away from home. When he came back one time, I declared proudly that DS had slept through for the first time ever. DH was impressed. However DS woke up again that night yet again. It puzzled us for a bit until we realised that whereas DH was leaping up to see to DS upon every wimper, I just slept through callously, as the comatose strumpet of a mother I am. Did DS no harm at all and we started ignoring him from then on. Best thing we ever did. The only time I seem to wake up for them all now is if they are ill - it's like a sixth sense.

he used to sleep in his cot all the time but for about 2 months he has been in our bed because i was tired of getting up 10 times a night to see to him.

his cot is too big to go through doors to take into our room and im not keen to take it apart because i don't have a krypton factor qualification (tired)

PS We did buy one of those baby bag things that stop them getting cold if the blankets fall off, and also handicap the crawling a bit, which probably was a factor as well.

Keep the cot in his own room. Wear earplugs. For your own sanity.

im too soft for cc, ive tried it before

thats an idea boffin, ill try his grobag again.

he doesnt want to play, he's crawling around like he doesnt know where he is. i thought he might be scared of the dark but i don't know if he's too young for that. hope this doesnt go on till he's 12m

froggyfroofroo

I hate to say this but at 7 or 8 months we were having exactly the same problem with our DS and our solution was to move him out of our bed and into his own cot.

It was my opinion that he actually needed his own to space to stretch and move around and the only way to achieve this was to let him sleep by himself.

We did patting/shushing/singing and eventually got him to self settle after a couple of months. He now sleeps through the night (7 til 7) in his cot. Was so worth it.

If you want to continue co-sleeping I'm afraid I don't have any advice but will happily go into more detail about what we did if you're interested because he was such a bad sleeper before and it's worked so well!!!

How long did you do cc for?

i might try getting him into his cot tonight.

wish me luck because im so tired if i have to keep getting up ill give in.

I'm sorry but a migraine is preferable to DH's sulking?