Ugh-Need sleep suggestions!

[Hayeser]

My 7mo will not sleep in her crib.
here are the facts:
- she likes to nurse to sleep
- she likes sleeping in our bed, and she sleeps great there
- she will not take a paci
- even if I get her in her crib for the first 3 hrs at night time, she wakes up crying (nothing is wrong with her) and won't sleep in there anymore for the rest of the night
- she wakes up frequently at night for "feedings" (which aren't really feedings, she just has to have the boob in her mouth to get back to sleep---this can happen anywhere from every 3 hrs to every hr some nights)
- I've been trying to feed her more during the day to avoid nighttime hunger
- I've read Healthy Sleep habits and NoCrySleep solution.
- I don't want to let her CIO

any ideas here?! I'm going nuts! thanks

[Louisep]

How about just cosleeping? Or sidecarring the crib to your bed? There's no way I could have got ds to sleep in a crib at 7 months but now he prefers to sleep in it sidecarred rather than snuggled up to me. I think it take some kids awhile to like sleeping independently.

[tzs]

i'm going to add to the previous poster and say yeah, maybe try sidecarring, then slowly move the crib/sleeper away from your bed as your babe gets more comfortable.
co-sleeping for me was great when she was a tiny babe and needed to nurse alot but at a certain point they get big enough/old enough/have enough stomach capacity to be able to sleep for longer stretches but if they are still in the bed with you they may nurse just because you;re there and not because of hunger.
i had her out of the bed by 3 or 4 months and she STTN or woke up once to nurse after a good long stretch of sleep.
now at 6 months she actually has her own room which i personally think is overkill for a little babe BUT we both sleep much much better and neither of us wakes up just because we are near each other. it was lonely at first but well worth it (for both of us...i want her to get good sleep as much as i want it for myself.)

[tracysroberts]

You have the answer...
let her sleep with you. Trust your baby, she knows what she needs.

[Kmama2]

What happens if when she wakes up and you go in and nurse her back to sleep and then put her back in the crib??? Thats what we do with our 5 month old. I nurse him to sleep around 630pm ish and then then every 2-3 hours all night long I go in get him out of his crib, nurse him back to sleep and put back in crib.

[LindsC]

Our daughter is exactly the same way. We tried to sidecar her crib to the bed and she still would not sleep there. I loved cosleeping, but she was basically attached to the boob and not necessarily eating for the entire night and I wasn't getting enough sleep. What we ended up doing was putting a full size mattress on her bedroom floor and making that her bed. I nurse her to sleep there and then slip away. Whenever she wakes up during the night, I slip into her room and nurse her back down. Sometimes I fall asleep in there with her and other times she just needs a quick nibble and I slip back out.

[marinak1977]

NAK
DS (10 weeks) loves sleeping on the boob. Luckily I fall asleep first so we just sleep attached. He doesn't like sleeping on his own, but snuggled next to me he stays asleep for a 5 hour stretch. I love co-sleeping!

[greenbeanmama]

Sounds a lot like my son. He is three years now, and just got moved into his own room. On average, he still needs "mama snuggles" to get back to sleep once or twice a night. When he was a little baby, my husband isn't big on co-sleeping, but I was so sleep deprived because if he was in the crib, he literally woke every forty-five minutes. I was so very frustrated for so much of the time, either trying to get him to sleep, hoping he stayed asleep, etc.

Eventually, I just decided it's not worth it to fight him on sleep. We moved a twin right next to our queen, and that become my son's bed. I could roll over and nurse him, and then roll away when he no longer needed it. He nursed at night until twenty-five months, and it because so much easier when I just accepted the way he was and worked with him instead of trying to force him to sleep like a "regular" baby. Instead of viewing his habits as sleep "issues", I viewed them as developmental stages. And if I needed to tweak his habits a little, it was done gently and slowly - like when we night weaned because he was started waking every hour to nurse again. At two, I could explain things to him, so it didn't seem as "mean" to me, making him wait until daylight to nurse.

Little sister was born six months ago. I took a much more relaxed approach to sleep with her - she's co-sleeping as well, but we're just now getting to the point of wanting to move a twin in next to ours (hubby isn't wild on the diagonal sleeping she's developing!).

All in all, I found to just go with what works, especially with a high-needs baby. And if people ask about it, just tell them that she'll sleep through the night in her own bed by the time she goes to college!

[ErinYay]

**never mind! Your LO won't take a paci!**

[Louisep]

Everything greenbeanmama said! So many babes just won't do the "accepted" sleep setup, but things will get easier. You're not alone.

[sunshynbaby]

That sounds pretty normal to me. Cosleeping and nursing side-lying has been a lifesaver.

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by Kmama2

What happens if when she wakes up and you go in and nurse her back to sleep and then put her back in the crib??? Thats what we do with our 5 month old. I nurse him to sleep around 630pm ish and then then every 2-3 hours all night long I go in get him out of his crib, nurse him back to sleep and put back in crib.

Oh god...that sounds like a LOT of work! You poor thing!

Hayeser: Have you considered that perhaps her mattress is not very comfie? I found that as DS got heavier he was less and less interested in sleeping in his crib, and he really slept much better out of the bed from the age of about 2.5 months on so I was super confused! Then I realized he didn't really want to sleep with us, he just really liked our mattress. It was a pillow top Sealy king sized amazingly comfie bed! Then I was like...ooooooh, so that comes-with-the-crib mattress just isn't cutting it, eh?

We got a more supportive mattress and topped it with a comfie mattress pad and he was as happy as could be.

Just if she happily sleeps on her own in your bed, it might be the mattress.

Also, have you experimented with other shapes of pacis? Because ds would only take the round tipped super soft rubber ones that are recommended for breastfed babies (rather than to those angled hard NUK tips that seem specially designed to project out of the mouth to great distances and get lost -- I suspect a marketing scam ). I lost mine when I went to visit the states and I tried to replace it with one of those clear angled tipped ones because we had a LONG flight home, but he was having NONE of it. As soon as we got back I picked up three more...of course a couple months later he outgrew that need.

Just saying, if having your nipple in her mouth all night (whether co-sleeping or not) is not your bag, you might try experimenting with other sucking devices.