co-sleeping mom's.. I need advice!

hdine22

Hi everyone,

So - I have a dilemma. I have been co-sleeping with my 7.5 month old son for the past 5 months. He would not sleep any other way when he was smaller, and eventually he ended up in bed with my husband and I due to exhaustion.

 Anyway - my husband can't sleep with the baby in the bed anymore.. he says he's afraid he will roll on him, and is up all night long with us. The baby is bf and is up 2-4 times a night. My husband has a physically demanding job and can't help at night at all. I am utterly exhausted if I don't co-sleep. He wants to do CIO, and it breaks my heart. I just can't bring myself to try it again. We've tried it for a couple nights before, and I just couldn't take it anymore and brought him back in bed. We've also tried some of the methods from the "No-cry sleep solution", and I found it pretty unhelpful/didn't change anything. 

My hubby is now sleeping downstairs on the couch. I feel awful about it. But it's a double-edged sword to me.. I need sleep to function during the day, but my husband should be in OUR bed. I don't know what to do.

I know sleep-training only gets more difficult the older they get.. I need to do something, I'm stressed to the max! 

 

Anyone have advice? 

TIA 

alliecat1234

I just posted this in response to another post, but this was us, too, until a month ago.  Except my husband had been sleeping in the guest room since our baby was born.  We tried the No-Cry Sleep Solution, too, but it didn't work.  So once we decided it was time for our guy to get in the crib (which is recommended around 6-8 months if you aren't planning to co-sleep for the long haul), we bought ALL the sleep training books and read them all.  We ultimately went with Good Night, Sleep Tight by Kim West (aka the Sleep Lady Shuffle).  It was the gentlest method I could find. 

Needless to say, the first few nights were tough (7 wake-ups the first night), and my baby had been nursing every 2-3 hours every night.  But I did 2 dream feeds and the rest of the time you go in and sit by the crib and comfort the baby.  Then after 3 nights you move a little ways away from the crib, then to the door, then outside the door, etc.  It worked for us - within a week he was sleeping 11-12 hours without any wake-ups.  I eventually dropped the 4am dream feed and now just have one around 11pm.  I will probably keep that one until at least 9 months..maybe a year.  

As I said in the post I just responded to, I would research your options and pick one method and stick with it.  The hardest thing for babies is when you do one thing one night, something else the next, or do something different in the middle of the night.  There were definitely times the first week when I just wanted to pick him up and bring him back in bed, but I knew that would only confuse him and wasn't fair.  

He did recently get sick and for a week I nursed him whenever he woke up at night.  He is now better and it only took 2 nights to get him back on track and now he is sleeping through the night again.

Good luck!

anonsouthernbell

What about pushing your bed against the wall and putting wall then baby, then you, then dh?  Just make sure you check every night to make sure the mattress hasn't moved.  My dh felt the same way and so we slept in diff spaces until ds got older and dh then felt more comfortable.  I can't remember exactly how old ds was...somewhere after his first bday and before h is second.  Dh actually now sleeps w ds while I sleep w dd.  if we had a king we would all sleep together.  When dd turns a year we may have her and ds sleep together or we might upgrade our queen to a king.  They are only young once, I enjoy my baby cuddles and the sense of security of knowing where they are, that they are safe, etc plus it afforded me more sleep.

anonsouthernbell

Oh and the few times that dh said we should put ds in his crib in his room I told him that was fine but that HE would get up and get him and put him back in his crib at each and every MOTN feeding.  He stopped suggesting it after the second or third time...