Need help, don't know what to do to fix this terrible sleep cycle.

[1stTimeMama4-4-10]

DH and I have been cosleeping with DD since she was born. She is now 7 months old and I am afraid it might be coming to an end.

She started sleeping through the night (as in sleeps from night to morning waking 2-4 times to nurse) when she was 3 weeks old.  DH and I are night owls, and at first, we were able to wear her and she would sleep on us until we went to bed.  At some point several months ago, we started trying to put her down before we go to bed. We also put her down to nap in our bed. Her naps are terrible. She rarely naps longer than 20 minutes unless I am sleeping next to her. This is a problem because DH is a SAHD and I work outside of our home, so I obviously can't nap with her.  

When we put her down to sleep for the night, we go through an hour long process and she needs to nurse then play then nurse again, and sometimes needs to be walked. Then, if I am not in bed next to her, many nights she wakes up 20 minutes later.  Sometimes I don't get home until 8pm or later.  It is not an option for me to go to bed at 8 with her. So I run upstairs to nurse her and try to keep her from waking up completely.  Sometimes I can get her back down, but then she sleeps less than an hour again.  When this happens multiple times, my ENTIRE night is consumed with putting her to bed, and I cannot get a single thing done at home.  I end up feeling tired and resentful and frustrated. DH is willing to try to put her to bed, but I have the boobs, and I HATE using a bottle of expressed milk when I am home (and she NEEDS milk to sleep). We do this sometimes anyway, but she generally won't sleep longer than 20 minutes no matter who puts her down.

Sometimes I can't fight with her anymore so I bring her downstairs and let her play while I catch up on a few chores or FB or bill paying or whatever.  Then we try to bring her to bed when we go to bed around midnight (sometimes a bit later) and then we have to do the whole 1+ hour nighttime ritual again.  I would be happy going to bed earlier, but when I spend literally every minute since I get home trying to get her to sleep, I need at least half an hour to wind down before I can sleep. Oh yeah, I tried a few times last week going to bed with her at 9 and she woke at 11 and was up 2 hours until 1am. Going to bed at 9 won't work for me anyway, but 11pm would be fine if I had just a couple of minutes babyfree in the evening - that just is not happening and it's making me crazy. Even when we try to get her to sleep at that time she is up for HOURS.

Last night, I was so frustrated I put her in her crib at 3am.  After listening to her cry for 3 minutes I picked her up and brought her back to bed where I nursed her, and she finally slept.  At that point, she had taken 3 small naps since 6pm and had been up continuously since 10pm or so because she refused to sleep when I tried to put her down 2 times.  We had been in bed since 1am trying to get her to sleep (for the 3rd time). We went through the bedtime routine 4 times last night and I did not fall asleep until 3:30.  Then she woke at least 4 times to nurse. I called out sick for the morning because my brain can't function on 3 1/2 sleep. 

I LOVE cosleeping, but the last two weeks or so, DD is refusing to sleep more and more often, and I don't know what to do. In my ideal world, she would be down sleeping by herself at 9 or so, and DH and I would have an hour and a half of grown up time and go to bed before 11.  But this never ever happens because all I do all evening is try to put her to sleep.  I cannot be up that late and this cannot be healthy for DD. What do people do to get their little ones to sleep? Is this a cosleeping problem? Is it just a sleep regression thing?  Any insight or help would be greatly appreciated.

[kcparker]

Oh, I could have written this post just about ver batim when DS1 was a baby. I thought I was going to die. I was depressed, extremely irritable, barely functioning at work during the day, very resentful that the house was always a mess, I never had any time with DH or to myself. I can tell you that for us, it got better by the time DS1 was about 15 months old, although the bedtime routine was still about 90-120 minutes until he was almost two, involving nursing, singing songs, laying in bed and trying to sneak out three or four times before the zombie baby didn't wake to grab me before I could make an escape, the going in after 20 minutes because of crying, taking 4 1/2 hours to watch a movie because of all the interruptions to go nurse kiddo back to sleep.

Here's my two cents: let DH put her down, and don't feel guilty about it - how many thousands of times is she getting milk from the source? If she gets expressed milk from a bottle with DH and you get an hour and a half to make phone calls, catch up on bills, or go to a coffee shop to read a trashy novel and drink a latte once in awhile, won't it make you feel better? You will be less resentful if you get to recharge your own batteries.

Tell yourself that it WILL get better, and if you can give in and let it be what it is, you will resent it less.

I also found that if I had it in my head that I wanted to leave because I had stuff to do, DS1 would fight sleep. If I gave in wholeheartedly and just lay with him, he'd go to sleep faster (though often I passed out with him too). This is true to this day, and he's 3 1/2.

Hang in there!

[Unlikely Mama]

The thing that jumps off the page at me is that while 9pm might be early for you, that is a really late bedtime for a 7mo.  Babies this age (mine is 8.5mo) need 11-12 hours of night sleep.  My baby is a dreadful napper as well and so I opt for the super early bedtime for her-she is asleep for the night between 5-6:15pm depending on when her last nap ended.  I know it sounds counterintuitive, but since I started putting her down for the night earlier, she sleeps better and longer.  Things have gotten a little funky lately because she is making the transition from 3 naps to 2.  She still feeds a couple times a night, but I no longer have to battle her for 1-2 hours every night to get her to sleep.  When I keep her up for some reason (e.g. Thanksgiving), she is a bear to  get to sleep AND wakes up extra times.  I realize all babies are different, but very few are night owls by nature.  Just my two cents, but I'd give a much earlier bedtime a try.  GL!

[1stTimeMama4-4-10]

Originally Posted by Unlikely Mama 

The thing that jumps off the page at me is that while 9pm might be early for you, that is a really late bedtime for a 7mo.  Babies this age (mine is 8.5mo) need 11-12 hours of night sleep.  My baby is a dreadful napper as well and so I opt for the super early bedtime for her-she is asleep for the night between 5-6:15pm depending on when her last nap ended.  I know it sounds counterintuitive, but since I started putting her down for the night earlier, she sleeps better and longer.  Things have gotten a little funky lately because she is making the transition from 3 naps to 2.  She still feeds a couple times a night, but I no longer have to battle her for 1-2 hours every night to get her to sleep.  When I keep her up for some reason (e.g. Thanksgiving), she is a bear to  get to sleep AND wakes up extra times.  I realize all babies are different, but very few are night owls by nature.  Just my two cents, but I'd give a much earlier bedtime a try.  GL!

I have. :(  Many times I try to put her down right when I get home from work between 6-8 and she has never once been able to sleep through the night without at least one - sometimes more - prolonged period of being awake.  Worth giving it a shot again though.  
 

[MayasMama88]

I could type a lengthy email describing the similarities between what you're going through and what we have/are going through with 13 month old DD now, but I'm pretty tired (can ya guess why???) so I will offer one thing that helped us with naps AND bedtime: The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. That book was fantastic. And it covers sleep solutions for ALL families (i.e; co-sleeping, crib-sleeping, breastfed, bottle-fed, pacifier users, etc). There is a solution for you in that book, I guarantee it. If you and your DH have a little time (and dedication) to following whichever solutions might work best for you and STICK WITH IT a few weeks (I know, it sounds like a long time, but you aren't getting any sleep anyway so what could it hurt, right?) you'll see results. I believe Elizabeth wrote a few "No-Cry" books, one for infants, one for toddlers, one for school-aged children, etc. I had the one for newborns/infants, and that one should work for you, too, since your LO is 7 months. Hope this helps, I know it helped us! Hang in there, mama, it can't last forever. ;)

[D_McG]

Gah I wrote a whole thing and lost it. 

Abbreviated version:

At that age we were up by 7.

First nap 2 hours after waking

Second nap 3 hours after waking fromthat.

Bedtime 4 hours after waking from that (so, 7pm).

This was way more flexible with my second for obvious reasons.

Nurse before bed then not again until I went to bed (if they woke in between they got DH.  This mostly eliminated the wakings).  I stumbled on that way too late with my son.  With my DD I did it around your DD's age, I think.  It helped that I sometimes work at night so she just had to deal those nights.  Both my kids slept WAY better if they didn't do the perma-nursing thing early in the night.  DH is wonderful and although there were tears, they found their groove.

Obviously none of this was set in stone.  Just a set of circumstances that I knew from trial and error lead to the best night's sleep for everyone.  Good luck and don't be afraid to try something new for a few days!  Be confident.  I 'managed' my DD's sleep way more than I did DS' and it worked out way better for us.  Turns out that 'child led' sleep is kind of a disaster in this house.

[Unlikely Mama]

If you try the early bedtime route, I would be consistent for several days (at least 5) to see if you get results.   GL!  (It's so hard...I never thought I'd be spending this much time thinking about baby sleep!)