Any Ideas on how to get DS to lay beside me to go to sleep

[ScotiaSky]

rather then lay on top of me...I am not a pillow although its starting to feel that way.

DS is a few days shy of 18 months...we co-slept and nursed to sleep until 13/14 months when he was transfered to his big boy bed in his own room and self weaned.
Its been going great for the last few months...he would most nights lay beside me and go to sleep sometimes it took 10 minutes, sometimes a hour.

Now for the last 3/4 weeks he insist on laying his head and part of his body on me mainly my my 24 week belly...which is starting to get uncomfortable and annoying.
He can be alseep and I make the move to somehow get out from under him..which is getting harder and harder and bam he is awake and we have to start all over again.

Last week I tried something new by moving him off me everytime he attempted to lay on me and it took a horrendous 3 hours to get him to sleep..with him crying his tired cry/scream the whole time. I hate to turn bedtime into a power struggle.

I am starting to feel trapped as I am yet again the only one in the couple that can get him to sleep and its starting to stress me out...DP is much too big for his bed to be able to lay down with him...so its all on me...and in a few months I am going to go bonkers trying to keep up with a newborn nursing and putting our toddler to bed unless we can help him learn a new way of falling alseep that doesn't involve using Mama as a pillow.

I tried today to show him how to lay his head on his pillow like Mama and it lasted all of two seconds...but then again last night and this morning was a bad time so maybe I should try it again when we are all rested and in a better mood.

Any one have any ideas?

[ilovemybabe]

I couldn't get ds to sleep next to me until 23 mo. But I know why. I was in an abusive marriage. After the separation, he slept better and I was able to shift him off my body down beside me without him waking, crying, nursing all over again. But I share your discomfort, I was not pg, but ds was heavy, and he would not sleep anywhere but totally on my body, and he woke every 2 hours to nurse, back and forth, back and forth! I felt like a trampoline!

But he's in his own bed, right? What if you set the bed so you can sit up and lean on the wall and have him fall alseep with his head on your lap instead?

I kow the difficulty of getting your body extracted without ds waking, I was not able to even do that for, well, wow, I think he was 3.

[ScotiaSky]

No more ideas?

I have tried the sitting up and letting him lay on my lap off and on the past week or so(not every time as we have had a few nights where we got home late and I am pretty sure the neighbors don't want to hear him screaming in anger at 11pm..he already disturbs them enough)

This is what it happens...me telling him quietly and calmly that Mama is right there and loves him but its bedtime/nap time and he is tired and needs to go to sleep without laying on Mama.
Results in him head butting me and climbing on top of me and trying to pull me into a laying position and crying a sad tired cry that means I want to go to sleep just lay down and I will...me I give in after who knows how long(must buy watch one of these days)
He is content and falls asleep I try and get up after amount of time he is awake try again, he wakes...finally I leave the room to compose myself or cry to DF that I am going insane.
DS screams terrified and angry I go back to his room and remain sitting upright and he somehow places himself against me, usually with his head upright on my back while I am rubbing his back...he falls asleep 10 minutes later I still have to extract myself but its much easier in a upright position rather then laying down.....One and half hours later.
Why does it have to get to that point before he accepts me sitting up to put him to sleep. He wants to sleep he is not fighting sleep but rather how he goes to sleep.

[IncaMama]

hm...i was gonna suggest a pillow...maybe you can wrap one of your tshirts around the pillow like a pillowcase and explain to him that it's his bedtime mommy pillow...do you think he would dp the upright sitting sleep thing from the get-go? if it's easier to do that transfer maybe you can start there...
if you lie down can you turn toward or away from him so him draping himself isn't directly on your belly? or do you have the same pelvic issues i do (i'm 30wks pg) and can't lie on your side?

hm...i wish i had some better suggestions. :( can DF do any of the bedtime stuff?