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Attachment Parenting
eatmorecupcakes
member
Sleeping without CIO
eatmorecupcakes
member
I consider myself a semi AP and am looking for some advice! If it were up to me we would still be bedsharing, but LO had a different plan. He slept with us for 3-4 months and then decided he would rather make snow angels and play "climb the mountain" than sleep in our bed. He actually ended up falling asleep much easier in his crib, much to my dismay! 
The problem we have now is that he is waking up SO much at night. I nurse him to sleep and although time consuming sometime I wouldn't trade that time for the world. Normally he falls asleep pretty easily that way. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking for him to STTN but sometimes it is out of control. I still BF and would be comfortable with 1-2 night feeds.
Any advice on how to help him get back to sleep quickly without CIO? DH helps as well and is sometimes able to get him back down, but if I go in the kid expects a boob.
TIA !!
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Re: Sleeping without CIO
Check out No Cry Sleep Solution from the library. The one piece of advice I liked (and copied from the book - shhhh) was how to wean the suck to sleep association. It may help with the night wakings.
What I did when DD1 was 8 or 9 months was nurse her and wait until she stopped sucking for a few seconds. I would then unlatch her to see if she would drift off to sleep. If she fussed I put her back on the boob until she stopped sucking again. In the beginning it took a good 10 or so times of latching and unlatching before she got fed up and fell asleep without sucking. It got better and better each night until I no longer needed to let her BF until she was asleep. So when she woke up I let her nurse for 3-5 minutes, unlatched her and let her drift off to sleep in my arms for the next 5-10 minutes then transferred her to bed. She still nursed but it was limited and she didn't need it to fall back to sleep.
At 14 months she was still waking up 2-3 times a night so one night I stopped offering the breast at her first wake up. After 2 nights of simply rocking her for the first wake up, she dropped it. I still nursed the 2nd and 3rd wake up for a little while then stopped nursing at the 2nd wake up. Now she's STTN (most nights).
I should also say that we changed our bedtime routine around 10 months so I no longer held her / rocked her to sleep at bedtime. I put her in her crib and lied down on the floor next to her crib. Most nights I held her hand while she drifted off to sleep but it was great because it only took 10-15 minutes for her to fall asleep in her crib and NO crying!
I actually unsuccessfully phased myself out of her room until I was in the hospital for 2 days when DD2 was born (DD1 was 18 months).
I will admit that we've done some CIO, and that it has helped but not solved our sleep issues. I've also used some No Cry Sleep Solution advice, and it has helped but not solved our problems. A couple weeks ago, I just decided I needed something to change. So right now our deal (whether he knows it or not) is that I dream feed him before I go to bed between 10 and 11 and then I will not feed him again until at least 3. If he cries in that period, he gets a cuddle and put back in the crib. And he does cry... for less than a couple minutes, and then he conks out again. He has been sleeping that 4-5 hour stretch pretty consistently, which greatly increases my patience for the rest of the night. Generally at 3-ish he gets nursed and goes back to sleep in the crib without complaint, then at 4 or 5 he wakes up and we bedshare for a while after that. And then sometimes he gets pokey and squirmy and ends up back in the crib for a bit... but overall, he's sleeping about 8 pm to 7 am and I'm finally getting one good chunk of rest.
I'm not sure there's a moral to the story other than if you want something to change, you probably have to change something.
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We just switched to DH exclusively sleeping with LO and she STTN for the first time ever.
Anytime I would sleep with her or go in to confort her she wanted to nurse, be held, rocked or just generally woke up more and took longer to fall back asleep. When DH is there with her she wakes up, mumbles, might say momma, but then rolls back over and falls asleep.