Wanting to do Baby Whisperer PUPD with 7 month old who has been falling asleep on breast and co-sleeping (long post!)

[KiBe]

DD is 7 months. Until about 5 1/2 months old she would fall asleep on breast or being rocked, then we would put her in cot and she'd stay asleep. Not a great idea I know. Sometimes she would go to sleep when put down, but that was quite rare, and she would fall asleep in swing, but most of the time I would feed her or DP would rock her and then sleep in cot.

At 5 1/2 months she all of a sudden wouldn't go in cot, she would wake up on the way down and then get upset. We tried to rock and feed her to sleep and do as we had always done and move her and it just didn't work, she would wake up and get upset. Before she would stir a little but could be shhhhed back to sleep. So we have ended up co-sleeping, as she will just fall asleep on the breast eventually. We have a sleep positioner and keep all duvets and pillows well away from her, trying to be as safe as we can. In the evening she feeds for anything up to 2 hours to get to sleep (starting at 9pm finishing at 10:30/11) which isn't great but then she's asleep for a while. She will wake up in the night and have a bit more of a feed, but often just falls asleep after a really short amount of time on the breast. She still has quite a large feed in the middle of the night. Then she wakes up at around 9am and doesn't really feed much. Naps I feed her to sleep or she falls asleep while we are out.

So here are the things :
I am worried she is feeding too much at night now
I would like for her to go back in her cot and get some good sleep
I would like for her to have proper naps without having to be fed to sleep
I don't think the 2 hour long feeding session at nights is good for either of us, she's clearly not really feeding for all of that. It's maddening because she rubs her face and yawns loads, so we've got her ready for bed and she then is a bit awake for another 2 hours while she feeds! She does snooze, but then she'll wake up and bang her legs down or face rub and carry on.

We may try and move her again now, as her sleep is a lot better than it had gone. I think the 6 month growth spurt threw her sleep off. However, obviously we want to get her self settling if possible.

So, all a bit tl;dr I know - basically, want to stop feeding to sleep and cosleeping. I do like the cosleeping to a certain extent, but a double bed with 3 of us in isn't great!

Anyone got any advice? I would like to try PUPD properly - when this first happened my partner did the pick up but then rocked her to sleep for at least an hour that first night when she wouldn't go back in cot. We did halfheartedly try the few nights after that but she seemed determined to cosleep (and why wouldn't she want to). Anyone good experience with PUPD at this age (or anything similar)? I am perhaps willing to try CC but I really want that as a proper last resort.

Sorry this is so long, wanted to try and get full story in

Oh it's so difficult isn't it? Sounds like you are getting quite a lot of sleep at night - which is great. But I never found PUPD worked - it just enraged him! I used to feed to sleep and then it stopped working so I used a dummy. But I would not recommend that. At about 5 months I sat next to him and he cried sadly for 15 minutes. I found it hearbreaking but I do think sometimes the crying is just unwinding and expressing themselves. Now I put him down in the dark and he settles himself after crawling about the cot - not so much as a peep! So he is happy going to sleep. Still wakes for feeds though and I rock to sleep for naps - otherwise it is 20 minutes of distressed, overtired, can't relax crying. ANd my DS is 9 months.

Maybe you could do Gradual withdrawal - not CC? Sit next to baby, move away very slowly every 3 days. Make sure the room is V dark as they can relax more easily?

I think the crying is so, so, so difficult to hear but not maybe as bad as I have always felt.

Sorry not to help more.

Thanks for your reply!

DD won't take dummy, I would love it if they would! I never thought I'd say that before I had kids but if she could use it to get herself to sleep that would be great, rather than using me!

Thinking about it I don't think me or partner would have the strength to do CC. I shall have to see if we can get her to sleep, I've tried sitting with her previously and she just is upset by it all, but then having a cry with mum just there isn't so bad really, maybe she does just need to do it, we hardly ever let her cry so it's horrid when she does. We are getting used to it as she hates dark car journeys when she's awake, and sometimes we have to do them, so she just cries and we're pretty much helpless... she's fine once we're out of car though.

Gradual withdrawal is something I may try if PUPD doesn't work. I've been watching the baby whisperer programme on discovery home and health, very encouraging ;)

And we are now on our second night of pupd, brave DP is taking the night shift again (he did most of last night). I was in there awake for most of the night listening to him deal with it. Tonight I am hiding downstairs and having a little cry to myself, it was so hard watching her cry. I did all the naps today, 2 hours it took for her to have the first nap (although some of that was her rolling around and playing). Second nap was just 20 minutes to get to sleep, but she slept for 10 minutes so i did again which took a while but then she slept for an hour.

Can now hear her crying, poor thing I do kind of wish we hadn't started it but we are going to parents houses over christmas and cosleeping and feeding to sleep for many many hours aren't very practical. She started to take from 8-midnight to get to sleep, it was very frustrating.

She fell asleep after about 5 minutes! bit of crying and done! she woke up a few times, but mostly got herself back to sleep, i did ahve to sit with her a couple of times during the night but that's it! she did have a feed around 1am.

I think nap time might be bad again today, but looks like night time is a bit more positive! Kind of looks like she has been waiting for us to do this ;)

She fell asleep after about 5 minutes! bit of crying and done! she woke up a few times, but mostly got herself back to sleep, i did ahve to sit with her a couple of times during the night but that's it! she did have a feed around 1am.

I think nap time might be bad again today, but looks like night time is a bit more positive! Kind of looks like she has been waiting for us to do this ;)

Well done! We have just gone through this with our 8 month old DD (started a couple of weeks ago) and like you, didn't feel comfortable with CC. We used a variant of PUPD (recommended in The Baby Sleep System), where you leave them after 20 minutes of PUPD (the book recommended 10 minutes, but we used 5 minutes) - it was quite useful as a break for us (it hurts your back doing PUPD! And it's a natural break so that you can alternate with your partner) and also for DD, as I think it can get overstimulating for them. But like you, we were amazed (a) that it worked and (b) that it worked so quickly. I didn't feed through the night after that first night, and she slept right through on night 4. She had a blip on the 2nd or 3rd night, and then again about a week in, but now is only waking once a night if that, and can usually settle herself. If we do need to go to her, usually a quick pat on the back is enough for her to go right back to sleep. I am so happy we did this!

Well done, and I hope the improvement continues for you too!