end to co-sleeping?

[isimom]

My daughter is 3 months old and my husband and i would love to have a little privacy for the first time since her birth. We started co-sleeping soon after coming home from the hospital and for the last week I've started trying to put her in her bassinet. But she's still waking up every 1-2 hours (more frequently than when we were all in bed together) and frankly we only get to successfully put her in the bassinet--and have her actually fall asleep there--1-2 times a night...the rest of the time I fall asleep with her in the bed after nursing. Any advice?

[Jennifer]

There is an end to co-sleeping but it will get harder before it gets better. When my son was born and I was breastfeeding, I was so exhausted that at times I allowed him to sleep with us. JUST so I can get an hour or two extra of sleep. Then at around 2 1/2 months I decided that I needed to buckle up and start putting him in his crib even if it meant that I'd wake up every 3 hours. It was hard, I won't lie, but with consistency and patience, he's use to his crib and sleeping 6-8 hours at night! And he just turned 4 months old.
I also found that when we had him in bed with us, I would sleep very lightly. Any little noise from him and I was up. Now I can have sound and quality sleep. It was worth the weeks and weeks of putting him back in his crib. Good luck!

[Zicea Becks]

I can seem a little tough, but bare with me:

With al 6 of my kids, I did NOT do the co-sleeping thing. Your issue that your having was the #1 reason why.

I breastfed all of my kids (my boobs are still nice and perky, thank goodness). Feed them, put them back in the crib. Go to bed.

Babies will take on whatever schedule or habit you give them, but it takes time to get them acclimated.

Sleep with them, holding them a lot when they are sleeping, etc will give you a 't*tty-baby"....where you think the term comes from? lol

you're just gonna have bit the bullet and put her in the bassinet and get up and down everytime she's hungry. The rest of the time, she's just whining for you or daddy....You're gonna have to know the difference in the whines (by 3 months, you probably already do). When she's hungry, tend to her. When she's whining, let her whine (sorry).

after a while, she'll get the point, and will love sleeping alone.

if you don't do it now, it's just gonna be harder later.

And it seems to me that you do sleep lighter if the baby is in the bed with you...plus it's not as comfortable. You body knows the baby is in the bed, so you stay in one spot as you sleep (as to not roll over on the child)...so you sleep stiff.

and like Jennifer says, any noise makes you wake up and check.

[SAEBausch]

We didn't co-sleep but what we did might help you out. When we first brought home Elijah he didn't have his own room yet. During the first few weeks he slept in a moses basket right beside our bed, I could put a hand out to settle him, we nursed in bed for the first weeks. As he got bigger I started getting up and into a chair while we were nursing because the temptation to fall asleep was way to much. A couple more weeks and we moved him to "his room" which was the other half of our bedroom divided with a bookshelf. We just put the moses basket in the crib. Then he moved to the crib on it's own. When he was a month and a half we moved and he got his own room. He has slept in his crib ever since. Now he's a bit over three months and is just waking up on average once a night. We have a couple bad nights were he is up more often but over all he is a good sleeper. The challenge now is to get him to bed without too much fuss, but that is even pretty easy since he is so used to his crib. We are still breastfeeding, so it's not something you have to sacrifice by any means, and along with the other ladies here I sleep SO much better without him right next to me. We just recently came back from Grandmas where he sleeps in a crib in the room with us and I woke up to every whine and snort. Good luck! Maybe a gradual approach might help.

[isimom]

Thanks! it helps just to hear the ages at which you moved Elijah out of your room (he is so cute, by the way). It helps to give perspective since several of our closest friends are either still co-sleeping with their 2 year olds or having their 5 year olds get back into bed with them every night....it was seeming like it might never end!
Also, since I've been on maternity leave I haven't felt the sleep deprivation as much as I expected to. But maybe I'm kidding myself and I really am more tired than I should be.

[SAEBausch]

It is super important to us for the kiddo not to be in bed with us unless we drag him in. We are wanting our bedroom to be a baby free sanctuary. All new moms are tired :) We just hide it well till we crack :) And thanks, we think hes a cutie too. Isadora is a sweet little peanut! She will sleep on her own eventually :)

[cleo]

As soon as I came home with my son for the first time I laid him in his bassinette. Now at a month old, he sleeps in his crib and wakes up at night 2 or 3 times. What I also did was by him one of those musical carousels that hang over his bed. No matter how sleepy I am, I always put him in his crib as soon as I know he is sleepy. Also, I lay him in his crib or bassinette when he is wide awake so he could get used to it. This has helped me a lot. I also feed him while I'm in a chair, so he or I don't fall asleep on eachother. I give him a bath everyother day right before he goes to sleep too. I feed him, then put him in his crib. I make it a ritual.

[momolly]

Is the bassinet in your bedroom? Do you have a rocking chair or sofa where you could nurse instead of the bed?
My son, also three months, slept in bed with us until last week. It was really scary to take on the challenge of putting him in his crib in his own room, but the idea of him being two years old and refusing to sleep in his own bed was a bit scarier!
The thing that has helped me is to give up nursing in bed. I have an old rocking chair in my son's room, and now I just stumble into his room when he starts to cry and nurse him in the chair, then put him back down in his crib-so far, he has not had a problem drifting back off to sleep on his own. I sleep a lot better with him in his own room, though I do miss the sweet coziness of all of us falling asleep as a family!
If you have a breastpump and your baby is willing to take a bottle, maybe you want to try pumping a little milk so that dad can feed your baby in the middle of the night? At least that would give you the chance to sleep a bit more and trade off baby duties a little. It is a hard transition, but if you're consistant and patient, it'll work.

[Kate]

We had the same problem. Our daughter is 4.5 months and she would wake up every couple of hours just to "check in" I understood that it was important for her to do, but 6 times a night?? I was a wreck. And then i figured it out...my husband snores loudly and we were all waking each other up- he was waking her up, she was waking me up, i was waking him up...no none was sleeping. So we had to kick her out of our room and put her in the crib. For 2 nights she fussed but she got used to it and she has been sleeping THROUGH THE NIGHT for the last 4 days!!! (i should knock on wood...) I have never felt better because now I am sleeping through the night. I am finding that she is a happier baby too because she is getting the rest she needs.

I guess what I am saying is to find something that works for ALL of you- not just the baby, but you too. In Dr. Sear's baby book, he says that mothers are natural givers and babies are natural takers and Often the balance gets disrupted. And we all know when mom is worn and unhappy, no one is happy...
Good Luck!!!

[gretchen]

From what I've read, your baby is at about the right age to try "crying it out" ... between three and four months is optimal, I think, before they get used to frequent nighttime wakings. I really liked Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. It really helped give me some guidelines when I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for sleep schedules, and even though letting her cry was difficult, it only lasted a few days and then she slept through the night almost every night since then.

[isimom]

yes, i have (since i first wrote about this problem) found that to be the most helpful of all the (many) books on the subject. we haven't yet gone to "crying it out," because through various tips in that book and others we've gotten her to now sleep in the moses basket right next to the bed. i just put her back as soon as she's done nursing. our pediatrician doesn't want us to move her out into her own room until she's a YEAR OLD, which seems very different from what all the other moms here are describing. (maybe i should start a new thread!?) but i'm happy to report that, though it took awhile (and i found that traveling--changes of scenery and alterations to her schedule--helped), she's no longer sleeping with us.
now it's just a matter of getting her to stop waking up! i'm hoping that when we start supplementing breastmilk that'll help....

[The Peveteaux-Goldmans]

I've never heard of waiting until your baby is a year old to put them in their own room! I'm very curious as to why your pediatrician recommends that practice.

No new advice - agree with most people here that babies do what they are taught. We had our daughter in her own crib at 4 months and that's when she started to sleep through the night. And we did too, because prior to that every time she moved I was up like a shot just dreading the cries that I just knew would follow...even when they didn't.

[isimom]

Thanks, that's helpful. yes, I'm dubious about our pediatrician's advice.
cute baby!