Bedtime

[halojedha]

Bedtime has been a bugbear lately.

From routinely sleeping 5-8 hours in their cot, E has been much clingier lately. When they caught a cold in Jan we brought them back into the bed for a few nights, and they've not had a long sleep in the cot since. For a while they were managing a couple of hours in the cot at the start of the night, but would wake around midnight, so I'd bring them into the bed to feed them and they'd stay with us for the rest of the night.

Recently the cot has been entirely banned. They'll fall asleep on the bed or in my arms, and when I transfer them with infinite care and gentleness to the cot, they immediately wake and start crying. If we persist this happens every time we try. The cot is banned.

When they're really exhausted they'll wake up with pink eyes and a disappointed wail, and fall asleep in our arms almost immediately... And then wake up again the moment we try to lie them back down in the cot.

So we've been bedsharing. It works okay. I do lying down feeds and it doesn't overly disrupt my sleep. Either they're quite short or I fall asleep while feeding and wake up an hour later to find E asleep beside me. Adjust us both a bit and go back to sleep.

Earlier this week E even slept through the night in the bed: fell asleep around 11pm, rolled over for a little feed around 12.30am, and then slept through til 8am. Starfished in the middle of the bed. I woke up at 7.30am with boobs so engorged it was like when my milk first came in. I lay awake wondering if I should go downstairs and pump, but felt lazy. When E did wake up the pressure was so high they couldn't feed. I needed to pump just to get a bit of let down before I could feed properly.

But mostly, bedtime has been a faff lately. Lots of goblinhood. Starting the bedtime feed between 8-9pm and having multiple wakings and feedings until they finally fall asleep around 11pm. Waking every hour or two throughout the night to feed. Wriggling and waking us up, or only sleeping soundly when held.

I've been desperate for a cuddle with Leo. Keep getting my hopes up - THIS time maybe they'll stay asleep, THIS time maybe we can put them in the cot - and then it's devastating when they wake up and I need to bounce them or feed them again. Leo does so much as a co-parent but with their hip, they can't soothe E to sleep at night - it requires either carrying or breastfeeding. So I'm stiff from lying in one position for hours, dehydrated, headachy, needing to pee, wanting to brush my teeth, wanting to hug my partner - and instead I have to feed the child for another half hour, or an hour. When I've insisted on going to the bathroom, there's been crying the whole time until I get back. It's demanding and stressful and it's taken a lot out of me.

But today, I feel much better about it. Leo and I had some us time while friend D was here doing some childminding for us, and that helps a lot. Snuggles were had. Tonight I'm managing my expectations better and planning to make it as streamlined as possible. E and I had supper while Leo sorted out the bedroom. We came upstairs and had some milk, then played on the bed and did sing and sign until E was getting tired. There was lots of adorable giggling. We had a delightful time together. Did a nappy change, back on the boob and boom! Settled straight away for a nice long sleepy feed, no goblins in sight. Whew, I'm learning!

They slept quite quickly - fell asleep around 9pm, which is early for our little night owl. Had a lovely cuddly sleep on me for half an hour, and just as Leo joined us upstairs, they woke up and started feeding again. But that's okay. It'll take as long as it takes.

Today we installed our new bed rail. So even if E needs to bedshare and be cuddled, they can safely go on the edge of the bed, and I can go in the middle, and then EVERYONE can get cuddles.

Sometimes parenting isn't about trying to get your child to do something different - it's about planning for what they're going to do anyway and adapting to it so it works for everyone.

Comments

[aiwendel]

Well done for finding a solution. In a similar situation, after K had outgrown the bolt on co sleeper, we gave away our bed frame, and put our mattress on the floor with the cot mattress stacked up to level next to it. K has always slept on the outside - C literally throws himself out of bed if she's in it in the middle as he gets worried about squishing the baby in his sleep. Now she will cartwheel in the middle of the bed so is better at the side. Having not done any cry it out at 6 months (I've been told it takes 3 days to cot train at that age but I did not have the heart to tolerate ANY crying at all so never did)... we didn't get K's bedroom set up until she was nearly 2. Then we did stories in there and gave her the choice to stay put or come back into our bed. If she didn't come right away she'd tend to join us at 3am, which still happens on occasion. Mostly now (nearly 3) she'll fall asleep in her room with stories and milk. I'm still feeding, though my breasts haven't gone Pamela Anderson for years. I should probably stop. I've tried to stop the 3am feed but often forget or am too sleepy to say 'wait until morning'... on the plus side rarely using the word 'no' and only using it when I really mean it and am prepared to stick to it has made it easier to not have a melt down at 3am if I do say no. I'm hoping that declining to do a 3am feed for my nearly 3 year old will help her sleep through the night!! I'm still sleep deprived....

[halojedha]

Good luck with weaning her off the 3am feed! Is it a comfort thing? Would a glass of water and a cuddle do?

Leo is a very light sleeper and doesn't move around in their sleep, so I've always felt safe with E in the middle. They've done a lot of cuddle duty when E needs to be held to sleep soundly and is wriggly and I want an uninterrupted sleep cycle. I hope we'll be able to persuade E to accept the cot again sometime, for the sake of Leo's and my relationship if nothing else! But I'm not prepared to tolerate any crying - I just don't want E to learn that their needs go ignored, I don't want the stress hormones to impact their growing brain, I want them to know we are available and responsive and there for them when they want us. So whether or not the cot ever gets unbanned is really up to them.

[aiwendel]

Had a couple of 10.30pm -5.30am sleeps from her recently which is good. I've learnt cups of water get spilt, sippy cup is ok, and offer of water is sometimes appreciated, so yes I think cuddle + water is a good plan.

[juliet]

There's another sleep regression around 7 months... (and in general so many developmental leaps that first year that it keeps bloody happening -- I found the Wonder Weeks book quite reassuring in terms of "oh ok I can see Brain Stuff happening" which was also helpful for being This Too Will Pass about it). Hope it passes soon!

Bed rail sounds useful. Think it was somewhere between 6 and 12 months that we moved L onto a king-size mattress on the floor in his room, and I slept in there with him. Also somewhere around that time it started being possible to leave him there in the evenings for a couple of hours at a time before he woke up again. Lying-down feeding is THE BUSINESS, no question :)

good luck, hope E settles down again soon!

[halojedha]

Yeah, it seems like the developmental leaps are basically continual around this age! We've had success once or twice with feeding E to sleep and then sneaking downstairs for a night cap and a snuggle on the sofa, and it made me giddy with excitement. The trouble is that because E sleeps so late (10pm-8am mostly) by the time they're asleep we're both knackered too! Given I'm feeding 3-5 times a night, staying up until midnight isn't super attractive...