Help me get some time alone with DH!

[Acugirl]

hi All!

I am the mommy to an 8 month old little girl who will not sleep with out me there! I have to wear her in the sling for her naps and in the evening if I don't go to bed with her she is up every 1/2 hr crying.
She co-sleeps, but now sleeps in the co-sleeper=we pushed it up against the wall and pushed the bed against it...she is crawling and pushing up so I am afraid to leave her there alone.

So...dh and I literally have less than 1/2 hr a day alone together. This has been going on for a long time and I am tired of it!

I started a nap and bedtime routine about a month ago and for a couple week dd would let me put her down for her naps-life was GREAT! then, all of a sudden she woke the minute I put her down again. I think she is teething, so that may be part of it...

any suggestions?! I am not asking for much-maybe just an hr a day that she could sleep alone!

[TranscendentalMom]

Recently dh and I felt like we weren't getting enough alone time together and we decided to have a weekly date on Sat nights. It has been wonderful. Just knowing that every Sat we have 3 hours to go out by ourselves makes everything seem so much easier. We don't have any family in town so we had to hire a babysitter which I was SO nervous about at first but so far its gone well (ds is 9 months). I was stressed out about the expense - we hired a 22 year old girl so we have to pay her $8 an hour but you know, its been so good for us that it is worth every penny. If I ever need to spend money on something for ds, I spend it in a heartbeat so why not invest in keeping my relationship with dh healthy? I figure we can't afford NOT to!

How old is your daughter? There's a good article on Jay Gordon's website about nightweaning for older family bed babies who don't sleep well. http://www.drjaygordon.com/ap/sleep.html My friend did this with her son at 10 months and he started sleeping through the night. Another thing that we do is have dh put ds to bed after I nurse him. Dh lays down in bed with him, cuddles and pats him to sleep and then moves him to the crib once he's out. That way he's sort of used to falling asleep without the breast.

[lauraess]

Hi! I agree with firsttimemom about everything. get a sitter if you can and if she doesnt sleep for them what the hey, this is sooo worth it!!! It took me about a year before we would go out on dates! so i know.: I also agree that you might want to get her used to daddy inorder to sleep so that she gets a shift into a different way to sleep. I've heard a llot of good things about Gordon also so thats an option. hang in there and try to be creative. if she can learn to go back to sleep after waking up, maybe with dad than you can still have time in the other room even if it is interupted. I know it's hard. we had to do a lot of strange things with our sleeping arrangements and parenting style over these last 5 years but I think most of the anxiety about it was knowing it was different and maybe if we had them all trained like the mainstreamers it would be better and so on and so on---- the self-doubting: it really is difficult at times adjusting to this new life where you have so little time and so much responsibility. it will all be worth it and try to look at it as the wonderful growing experience it is for all involved! your bab;y can teach you a lot. remember it all changes.
laura