Bed sharing not working (long)

njlurker1

Age old story.  LO was sleeping in our room in bassinet or RnP.  I would bring him into our bed to nurse and we would both fall asleep there.  Fast forward 7 months, he is full time bed sharing with me.  Although part of me likes it for obvious reasons, it has never really worked and lately it's getting worse.

DH is not comfortable bed sharing so I moved into the nursery.  We also thought it would help LO get comfortable in his room and we could eventually transition him to his crib.  LO has been waking 4-6 times throughout the night and I've been nursing him.  While it's not ideal, it was working.  He would go back to sleep with no effort.  Past couple of weeks, he is up every 1-2 hour(s), nurses but doesn't go back to sleep.  He writhes and thrashes around for 40 min. to an hour.  Eventually falls back asleep while I lay awake.  He has no teeth yet though it seems like he's been teething since 3 months.  Of course, we've taken that into consideration.  Last night, after a particularly bad week of sleep, we gave him some Tylenol to see if that would help and there was no appreciable difference.

Naps are and have always been a problem.  I spend 40 min. getting him to sleep and he is up 20-30 min. later.  I've been laying with him for naps too.  He naps no more than 2 hours in total for me.  The kicker is he naps 3-4 hours for his sitter (I work 2 days/week).  So I know he is capable of better sleep and I feel (so does my husband) like I'm to blame for his bad sleeping habits.

I've tried the nighttime routine (bath, quiet time, book), I've tried feeding him a lot during the days, no solids, extra solids, earlier bed time, later bed time, white noise, swaddling, scheduling his feedings, feeding on demand, not nursing to sleep, scheduled naps, weaning night feedings and probably more that I can't think of.  I've been looking for a pattern in chaotic sleep schedule. I have an app that I track his feedings, sleep, growth, etc. I started this early on because it felt like he never slept and I wanted to see if that was, in fact, the case.  So I went back to when he was approximately 3 mos. old and lo and behold he was sleeping 5 hour stretches at night and only waking 1x in the MOTN to feed.  This is what makes me think bed sharing is not working.  Well that coupled with the fact that I'm pretty miserable lately.  I'm exhausted and my whole body aches.  Not sure if that is from the mattress or sleeping in awkward positions, or both.

So in my infinite wisdom I've been able to deduce that he sleeps better on his own but how do I undo the "damage"?  Begrudgingly and not really intentionally we've dabbled in CIO.  As I mentioned earlier, we lay with him and let him fuss it out and after 40 min or so, he would fall asleep.  Lately the fussing has turned into crying, even with us laying with him, and I give up.  My husband is pushing for CIO and it has become a sensitive subject between us.  He is convinced LO is manipulating me because he stops crying the second I pick him up.  I realize any sleep training is going to have crying but I really want the miracle sleep program (said facetiously) with as little crying as possible.

Here are some options I've been considering: 

Buying an Arm's reach co-sleeper but I already pushed his crib right up against my bed and he wasn't having it.  Waste of money at 7 months old?

Letting him fall asleep in bed with me and moving him to his crib.  I've done this in the past with mixed success but it's hard because I have to lay awake in bed till he is fast asleep before I can move him.

Giving up and letting him sleep with me till his wife complains about it.

Any advice, suggestions, criticisms, past experiences?

DCMerged

I think you wrote my story Seriously, it is almost exactly the same (RnP eating once a night to bedsharing and up all night comfort nursing). Partly bedsharing made things worse in terms of the night nursing but it also coincided with the "4 month wakeful."

But now we are sleeping through the night (8 pm to 6:30 am) with only one night feeding. We are on a flexible nap schedule (3 naps totally no more than 3.5/4 hours of nap time) and a consistent wake up and bed time. This helped alot.

I finally transitioned him to his crib at 6 months at night (we had him there for naps beginning around 5 months). Before that I started using the No Cry Sleep Solution to break him of the nurse to sleep association. While he was getting used to being in his crib at night, we still went to him for every waking (4 or more times a night) and either nursed or rocked him back to sleep.

Then we were able to get to one MOTN feeding. However, when he was still needing to be rocked to sleep after every waking and he was getting more and more difficult to put back down even after rocking and soothing, we decided we needed to sleep train. I really didn't want to do it but realized there was probably no other way except wait it out (and who knows how long that would take. a year or more, who knows).

We did the Ferber method and he cried less on those three nights than he cried over the last month when we would try to rock him back to sleep. It isn't for everyone (and I thought I was one of them) but it worked well for us with little stress on both sides.

Good luck!

KateLouise

I second what PP said about some books that might offer ideas that aren't CIO. I did the baby whisperer pick up/put down method with my girls. If you've not done that kind of thing with LO before it might be quite an exercise in patience and persistence but he should get there.

Part of me thinks that the age your LO is at is a pretty tough age (neither of my babies slept well until after 8mths and DD2 was still pretty inconsistent up and down until around 11mths) so for that reason i don't think it would be awful for you to stick with the bedsharing BUT it sounds like you are really suffering with the lack of sleep and that sucks.

The baby whisperer is pretty big on sleep problems often link to issues from the daytime. Does LO sleep better at night on the days he has good naps?  DD2 sleeps terribly on the days she's napped badly.

Good luck and hang in there. 

neverblushed

You said:  I've tried the nighttime routine (bath, quiet time, book), I've tried feeding him a lot during the days, no solids, extra solids, earlier bed time, later bed time, white noise, swaddling, scheduling his feedings, feeding on demand, not nursing to sleep, scheduled naps, weaning night feedings and probably more that I can't think of. 

Is it possible you're trying various methods and not giving them enough time to work before you switch and try another technique?  It takes a while for a baby to break a sleep routine and adapt to another one. If he has a history of being sort of sketchy when it comes to sleep, it could take him a few weeks for you to see progress.

Also, parents have a tendency to want to pin a lot of problems on teething.  I think a lot of sleep issues that get blamed on teething are really a result of the baby becoming more neurologically complex after the 3 month mark.  

I think you need to find a sleep routine/method/whatever that you think you can stick with and use consistently and then firmly but gently work that method until your baby is sleeping where you want him to. Be patient and stick with it.  Use this method on nighttime sleep first.  Don't try to change naps or other stuff while you're working on night sleep.  

 Hang in there, Mama!  You'll get it sorted out!