Anyone got any advice for coping with sleeping problems in a 1 bedroom flat?

[tweetypie2]

My ds is 7 months old and has never slept through the night. His cot is in our room and will remain until we move somewhere bigger. Lately the nights have got worse and I'm really struggling now to cope during the day with such little sleep.
He settles well at 7-7.30 pm and sleeps through until anout 11pm. After that it's awful, he wakes every 1-2 hours. I'm so conscious of not waking the neighbours (they're not very tolerant of noise, even just the tv being on in the morning)and dp who has to get up early to work. So I breastfeed ds each time, often for just a couple of mins, just to settle him.
Everyone tells me I've just got to let him cry and ignore it, but don't know if I'm brave enough. I've only been able to last a few minutes before giving in.
Today I just feel so shattered and down. Weaning doesn't seem to be going well either. Just feel like I'm a crap mum.

You´re not crap, just doing your best in difficult circumstances!

I was in a similar situation to you. Can you sleep in the living room? My little one slept better on her own and then you feel better because you have a bit more personal space to take refuge in.

Just wanted to sympathise. Hope someone comes along with more ideaas..

We could sleep in the other room, very uncomfortably though as have no sofa-bed, but how long for? If we let him cry for one night, will the issue be resolved do you think?

It´s a difficult one, I can only talk from my experience. Certainly as soon as DD had her own space her sleep improved but has always been problematic. Can anyone lend you one of those blow up beds just to give it a shot?

I´m not a fan of the let them cry it out method, but as far as I know this takes more like 3 nights to work.

Is your DS OVERtired? In retrospect this was the problem with my DD. It´s easy to think that a baby is not tired just because they don´t fall asleep easily. Is he getting a more or less average amount of sleep for his age (including naps) Does he get plenty of fresh air? Can he sleep on the balcony?

It´s hard isn´t it? Try and follow your instincts.

we lived in 1 bed flat until ds was 19 mths old his room was the living room

wasnt ideal but he was fine when in his own room no disturbances from us

we used living room as normal with cot in corner then put him to bed and we had to stay in bedroom

it was hard but it was what we had to do no choice its not ideal as you cant have people over after certain time but we all felt better for resting and we had no other choice thats how our life was

we used to leave soft music on so there was some background noise and he did seem much happier like that

He takes 2 naps during the day, about 1 hr in the morning then about 1 1/2-2 hrs in the afternoon. I take him out most days for long walks and baby groups etc. as he gets bored v easily and I find it tiring having a whole day at home with him. Also, we live on the ground floor, so sadly no balcony. I'm really at the end of my tether. He's a happy healthy baby otherwise.

also if that tired we found putting ds to bed earlier around 6 or 6-30 worked great then dream feeding if you can express some milk and feed him while asleep could help him settle longer

ds did sleep through night with earlier bed time and dream feed and own space

we found not letting ds sleep too long after lunch and moving bedtime earlier worked great it was trial and error and our routines changed several times if tired meals and bed moved back an hour if ok went back to normal

we did find when sleeping through he woke at 5-5.30 but this was fine for us as we had an evening to ourselves we always preferred our evenings alone to having lie ins

if he did wake we would feed no lights on dim light shining through no talking feed back into cot and then just sit there so he could see and when starting to doze back off we'd slowly leave the room so he was actually settling by himself

we never left to scream if cried again we'd go back in and sit beside cot and do the same

We have a small 2 bed flat completely surrounded by others and have never been able to do any kind of crying it out for the reasons you describe (well, and I'm a big softie which may actually have more to do with it.)

Have you looked at the no-cry sleep solution? That has some ideas for helping babies settle without crying.

Also have your tried co-sleeping? I resisted it with DS1 and was knackered and he turned out a crap sleeper anyway - with DS2 I have embraced it and it's saved my sanity. He doesn't sleep any better but I'm more able to cope.

Final option - if you really want to try some form of noisy self-settling then explain your difficulty to your neighbours and tell them that you will be trying it on x dates, and invite them to go away for the weekend (or schedule if for their next holiday if you only have one neighbour).