Don't tell anyone but...I'm tired of co-sleeping!

[its_our_family]

We did not set out to co-sleep. I anjoy certain aspects but when it gets down to it no one sleeps well. Tracy has gotten to be a real nighttime wrestler. We wake up with his feet in our face :)

He wasn't a co-sleeper until 5 3/4 months or so. Let me back up and explain him....

He slept absolutely horrid until he was about 3 weeks old. Finally he would kinda sleep at night but not at all in the day :( (talk about a crab) The on July 4th he began sleeping through the night. This was also the first night in his own room and own bed. (he was just over 2 months old) Then at 5 3/4 months he got a cold and would barely sleep. I was sooo tired that I was falling asleep with him in my arms on the couch. When he was a newbie it wasn't a big deal but at this time he was pretty mobile. So, I took him to bed and then after he would fall asleep I would put him in his crib. Then I got so tired he just stayed in our bed till I woke back up. Now he starts in his bed (always starts there first) and ends up in our bed cause he won't sleep alone. He rolls over reaching for me and if he can't feel my skin he cries. He also night nurses a lot too. But I think this is out of habit not need cause 1 or 2 sucks later he is asleep again. But getting him back to his own bed is next to impossible.

I do not mind getting up to nurse him BUT I wasnt to be able to put him back in his own bed.

Any ideas. Please don't try and give me a guilt trip to keep him our bed. Not that any of you would but if I say it then I can't kick myself later if ya do :D I know he is young blah blah blah. I do NOT want to CIO and will not so I'm looking for other options!

Thanks Ladies!!

Megan and Tracy

[lilyka]

I think you should read "the no cry sleep somutions" . It gives a lot of ideas for gentle sleep transitions. It will give you ideas to help him sleep better and to trasition him to his crib.

[MaWhit]

Yup, reading your post, I was also thinking that No Cry Sleep Solution by Pantley would be an excellent resource for you.

[laura163]

Megan - I am in your situation too. Jack has been sleeping in our bed on and off for his whole 9 month life - now he is too big and too active and I need some sleep!

I read the no cry sleep solution but I must have been too tired to absorb her message because I still am confused on what to do. Her system is very complicated and will involve a lot of sleepless nights while you get Tracy used to the new way of sleeping.

This is what we did last night for Jack's first night in his crib in a month - nurse until he was sound alseep, I mean totally asleep 20 mins of nursing), I put him in his crib. 2 hours later he was up crying and it took me 2 hours of holding him and patting him to get him to go back to sleep, then DH and I argued and finally I nursed Jack until he was sound asleep and he slept from 2-630 in his crib. WHile this may sound terrible - it is an improvement! I got 4 hours of sleep!! At least I almost did, I was a little wound up from being up for so long....

good luck! pls pass along anything you find that works!!

laura

[abbylotus]

I'm in the same boat of sleepless nights. :( DD is 5.5 mos and has pretty much been sleeping with us since day 1...however, she has slept in her pack and play in our bedroom a handful of times for long stretches...I was so concerned about her "sleeping" that long and well I would sit next to her in the rocking chair instead of sleeping myself (DUMB!! lol). I can't take much more co-sleeping. DH and I have two twin beds pushed together...a body pillow in the middle...so basically she and I have to fit on a twin bed (I have had two bebes in 17mos and I'm packing quite a lot of extra mama weight!) together and Senia likes to stretch out AND nurse ALL night long!! AHHHHHH!!! I can't take it...the constant nursing all night long is driving me INSANE! I wake up exhausted and my back is killing me from lying on my right side nursing the whole night. :angry I haven't slept longer than four hours in a row since 2001 and I can deal with that, but not the constant nursing all night....NO WAY! I am now in the process of trying to wean DD out of our bed. I nurse her until she falls asleep and put her in the pack and play (DS sleeps in a crib in another room), when she wakes I nurse and rock her and put her back in the pack and play.......she wakes every three hours......it's killing me. lol. More times than not she ends up in our bed at some point during the night--usually around 4am when I'm falling asleep in the rocker.

All this talk about sleep is making me sleepy......good night. :)

[its_our_family]

Well, this was last year and well, it took that long to make any progress!! I was still sleeping some nights in bed with Tracy. I even slept with him and he even night nursed he night before Bryce was born.

But since Bryce was born Tracy's sleep started to change. In the last 8 weeks Tracy has gone from needing to nurse to sleep, waking numerous times through the night, and not taking naps. To going to sleep on his own with no one in bed with him, to sleeping through the night 90% of the time, and taking 1-3 hour naps in the day!!

What made the biggest change was daddy taking over bedtime for him. its like he didn't have me to rely on to get him to sleep so he just figured it out. He never CIO but he did throw fits at bed time (those are over and only lasted about a week).

It just took awhile but now he's got it. Oh, and we moved him to a twin mattress in the floor about 2 months after I wrote that. He jsut slept terrible. So, if he woke then I got in his bed and if I stayed awake long enough I got back in my own bed. He was also a constant night nurser but that didn't seem to matter when we made this switch.

Good luck I'm sure I'll be there again...soon :D

[dewachen]

Hi everyone --

I have Jack (1) and Max (3) in our bed. Our eldest Orion (12) co-slept for years.

I love it at times and don't love it at times. Frankly, at this point in our marriage I think it's important that my husband and I can at least SEE eachother in the bed :wave

But on the other hand, it's just wonderful to all cuddle up and very convenient for nursing.

We have a queen size futon that we actually sleep on the WRONG way (if you can picture that!)... My husbands feet dangle off it.

I'm quite close to bringing another mattress in and putting the two of them on it. With any luck they find the idea so novel that they will take right to it...

At least they will still have eachother :)

Lori