[amhk]

Ladies, I really need some help. We are still co-sleeping out of necessity for my sanity because kinley wakes every 2-3 hours at night. Unfortunately, DH is getting terrible sleep because of it. I usually stay up later than he and Kinley reading and the whole time i see him waking up, tossing and turning because he is afraid of hurting/rolling on kinley. I want to put her in the crib during the night for dh's sake, but i am afraid i will be a total zombie from having to get up and down to comfort or feed her every couple of hours. At least now i can quickly fall back to sleep while nursing her. I feel trapped and frustrated... I don't know how to get her to sleep longer stretches in our bed or in her crib. She is 9 months old, i cannot believe she is still waking as often as she is. DD1 was sleeping 8-10 hour stretches by 2 months. We have an appt with the pedi on friday and i will ask him about it, but i seriously need some help. Also, at 7.5 months she was in the 9th percentile for weight and i would never keep her from nursing at night, but now she eats tons of solids, so maybe she can go longer stretches?

[Rochelle7]

Fellow bedsharer here... I need the same advice! Heidi wakes constantly throughout the night. It is causing me less sleep than DH though. I think tonight me and her will sleep on the couch bed in the coldest room in the house. I sleep better in cold than our hot bedroom otherwise I'd tell him to go sleep on the couch. It's going to be annoying to constantly pull the couch bed out but I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather do that than to get crappy sleep.

GL! I hope you find a solution that works. This too shall pass...

[Shalyn]

I feel your pain! I started letting Jackson sleep with us thinking he would sleep better and he is still up every 2-3 hours too. I have a hard time nursing laying down so I do have to get up every time and it is EXHAUSTING! I find myself dosing off while nursing him on the couch and my neck gets all sore. I know my husband hates him sleeping with us too because he is nervous about rolling onto Jackson.

Anyways - I really don't have any advice because I could use some myself but I sure can relate!!!!

[mommydiva]

We started out bed-sharing but I noticed DD was not sleeping good anymore so we tried her in the pack n play still in our room. I noticed after a few nights she was sleeping so much better and longer. I got up to grab her for feedings laid in bed sometimes we both fell asleep and sometimes not but I was still getting the rest I needed. Then when she woke up she would go back to her own space. Around 5 months we transitioned her to her own room and it took a while but after a week or 2 she was sleeping so much better and we all were sleeping better. She is one who needs/wants her space. She is formula fed now but wasn't when we did the transition. But at that point she was going where she would get up once to eat. After awhile she dropped it all together unless going thru a growth spurt(like lately..lol).

And the nights where I stayed up later then DH(when we co-slept), DD would go to bed in her pack n play first. Then when I went to bed I would grab her because she was usually waking up to eat around that time anyways.
But we also always started her out in her pack n play from 3 weeks on because she was in bed before us in general.

But honestly I think part of it has to do with her temperament, she kinda put herself on a schedule and I only helped with doing the same routine nightly with her. I never left her to CIO but would let her fuss for no more then 5 minutes but the reality of it was maybe 2 minutes if that..lol
And I do notice that if she does not get her 2 naps a day that are solid good naps in her crib she will have a rough night.

I love bed-sharing but I am one who feels it needs to fit everyone who is in the bed..lol and when it no longer is working then to try something else. For us we started out for the first 3 weeks on the couch and DH in bed. He hated it, I hated it. So for us we won't sleep apart if we can control the situation.

[TeresaSuperMama]

What we do is I put Natalie in the crib at night. If she wakes up I will ignore it for a few minutes to see if she settles on her own. Sometimes she does. If not I will pat her back and see if she'll go back to sleep and then if she doesn't go back to sleep she goes in the bed with me. She's mostly sleeping in the crib, but she sleeps with us sometimes. This seems to be working for us.

[noworries]

Can you side-car her crib next to your bed? That way she has her own space so DH won't worry so much about rolling onto her and yet you still have easy access to her to feed her a night.

[amhk]

Thanks ladies for your advice and empathy. Shalyn, i really feel for you not being able to nurse laying down.
Aquaperidot and Mommydiva, i am worried that we may have to try sleeping in separate rooms, which i really dont want to do. Unfortunately that would not solve one other problem that i have which is what to do when kinley sleeps longer than me in the morning. I really want to get up and start doing things, but i am afraid she will crawl off the bed so i just lay there.
Noworries, i think moving the crib in our room could help as long as i really use it. Its a pain to have to take it apart and move it, but it would be better than going back and forth to her room every couple of hours.
Sigh. I hope this gets better as they get closer to one.

[KMH]

Originally Posted by TeresaSuperMama

What we do is I put Natalie in the crib at night. If she wakes up I will ignore it for a few minutes to see if she settles on her own. Sometimes she does. If not I will pat her back and see if she'll go back to sleep and then if she doesn't go back to sleep she goes in the bed with me. She's mostly sleeping in the crib, but she sleeps with us sometimes. This seems to be working for us.

This is exactly what we do.

[I<3HelloKitty]

We all sleep together fine, but I would like to start transitioning Ellie out soon just because DH and I miss having our beds to ourselves. I'm probably going to wait another few weeks until school is out though because Ellie has been reverse cycling since I went back to teaching and she nurses a lot at night. Once school is out, I won't have to worry so much about feeding her at night since she'll be home with me all day.

[rainbow_brite19]

No ideas, just wanted to say that I feel your pain. Jackson is up a lot during the night, and we co-sleep out of necessity. He is in the 98th % for weight so he does not need the calories at night but he only sucks for a minute or two for comfort and then drifts off again. He refuses to sleep in a crib or pack or play (even in our room) and would scream until he passed out if left alone. So I just keep telling myself to breathe and that it won't last forever.

[crystaljean81]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm curious about the co-sleeping families. How do you have intimate time with your spouse?

[Rochelle7]

Alisha- Wanted to update you on last night for us! So, after our nightly movie (we don't watch TV lol) we were getting ready for bed. I took that opportunity to let DH know I am going to make up the couch bed and sleep with Heidi on it. He didn't say much and I went ahead and made it up. Right when I finished he got all upset with me all of a sudden saying that he doesn't want us to sleep separately and he doesn't understand what the big deal is with us sleeping together and that it doesn't bother HIM. I told him how I wasn't getting any sleep but he still acted all hurt about it and I knew that every day until we figure something else out he would complain about it so I put everything back the way it was before that and tried something that I used to do but it only half works. I placed the roll-a-way bed mattress on the floor right next to our bed (which is a mattress and boxspring directly on the floor. Then I laid down with her on the roll-a-way mattress and nursed her to sleep. I then got up into the big bed and slept pretty well until about 4 hrs later when DS (3.5 y/o) woke up and wanted to sleep with us. He got onto the roll-a-way mattress with Heidi so then the rest of the night was crap bc I had to bring her up to bed with me and then place her back on the small matress after she drifted off. Our big bed is only a Queen. If it was a King there would be no problem but Me, DH and Heidi like to sprawl out and don't sleep well otherwise. Moral of the story: I guess tonight I will have to put my foot down to DS who's been trying this almost every night for the past few weeks.

Guhh!

A thought.. is it possible for you to do what I described? Do you have a cot mattress or some other thin matress you can place directly next to your bed? I always lay Heidi on that mattress for naps.

[krislati]

Originally Posted by TeresaSuperMama

What we do is I put Natalie in the crib at night. If she wakes up I will ignore it for a few minutes to see if she settles on her own. Sometimes she does. If not I will pat her back and see if she'll go back to sleep and then if she doesn't go back to sleep she goes in the bed with me. She's mostly sleeping in the crib, but she sleeps with us sometimes. This seems to be working for us.

This is basically what we did. he seems to stay a sleep longer in his crib because he has his own space.

[I<3HelloKitty]

Originally Posted by crystaljean81

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm curious about the co-sleeping families. How do you have intimate time with your spouse?

We just have our time at times other than bedtime. Ellie doesn't nap in the bed, usually in her pack & play.

[forest]

Alison starts the night in her crib in her room and I move her to our bed when she wakes up. I bought a bed rail for our bed and she mostly sleeps between me and it. That could help those of you who have a DH is is worried about the baby being there.

With my oldest we finally hit a time when she slept better in her own bed, I think for her it was around a year or so.

[amhk]

Originally Posted by AquaPeridot

A thought.. is it possible for you to do what I described? Do you have a cot mattress or some other thin matress you can place directly next to your bed? I always lay Heidi on that mattress for naps.

This might work, especially for when i get up in the morning. If i try to move her to the crib when i get up, she usually wakes up. Like mommy, she is a super light sleeper. I have the bed rails and that would allow for me to sleep between DH and Kinley, but again, I still would need to move her if I want to get up in the AM. No mstter what, i am just going to have to suck it up and do a little bit more work during the night instead of just nursing her in bed and falling back to sleep.

Last night she actually slept in her crib for four full hours. She woke up about 40 minutes after i put her down, i think because older sister was making noise, so i picked her up and patted her and she fell right to sleep. She was in the crib from 8:30 until 12:30. After that she came to bed with me and woke up every 2 hours. Maybe i just need to persevere a little bit longer and she will do longer stretches in her crib. I also need to actually try gettng her to fall back to sleep without nursing... It has been about one month since i last tried.

[Pyrodjm]

When we coslept with one baby she always slept on my side between me and the wall or me and the side-carred crib. This way hubby didn't have to stress about being too close to her at night and he and I got to cuddle. Have you considered sidecarring your crib? This way the baby could sleep on your side near on in the crib and DH would still have plenty of room to move.