Cosleeping mamas… My baby’s (6 months old) sleeping habits…?
ByMy son, starting at 2 months already, was sleeping at least 6 hours through the night without waking or eating. At about 3 months, I started to put him down in his crib, so I could stay up a little later to hang out with hubby. He would sleep from 9, until about 3:00 in his crib if I left him in there, and then I would bring him to bed for feeding and leave him in there. About a month or 2 ago, however, he quit sleeping so well. Instead of sleeping 6 hours straight through, he started to wake up earlier and earlier. Now, if I put him in his crib, he wakes up almost every hour. If I put him in bed with daddy, but I am not in there, he also continually wakes up. During his daytime naps, if I sleep with him, he will sleep for 2 hours. If not, he will sleep for 30 minutes (maybe 45) and then wake up ready to go. Did any of you co sleeping moms run into this problem where your baby’s sleeping patterns got worse, and they won’t sleep well without you? Advice?
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7 Comments
April 15th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Hiya, it’s happening to me right now and he is 4 months old, the thing is they are starting to show a preference for sleeping with mama, and feel more comfortable when they are with you and sleep better when they can smell you… if you don’t mind the extra feedings then just go with the flow, I put mine down in the crib and spend time with my hubby until he cries and then I quickly brush my teeth and head to bed, I don’t mind, I am on maternity leave and I feel this is my job. When I go back to work in August we will stop cold turkey and move the crib to another room… this is the only way to break the co-sleeping with mama habit, it sounds mean but they will be old enough to understand, tuck them in and leave the room and within a week they will stop crying for you. I have done it with 4 previous children and they were all adjusted very quickly and handled the stress of it just fine because that is what babies brains are programmed to do.
Good Luck
Nicci
PS obviously I snuck out of bed as it is 2:10 am but I am expecting him to notice and I will head right back to him as that is my job as a mom right now and I love it *wink*
April 15th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Actually my younger son seems to think the only way to really get sleep is to snuggle up to my chest area lol and he was my breastfeed baby. My oldest son wasn’t breastfed (I pumped) but he slept on my chest a lot so he also thinks he can’t sleep alone. Both have pretty much always slept with me, atleast part of the night anyways. They are 3 and 5 now and getting better but they still seem to find it easier to sleep with me next to them or my mom but they have a hard time sleeping if they are with anyone else.
April 15th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I would encourage you to not co-sleep. It is for your comfort, not his and you are already prolonging the inevitable. Unless you plan to have him sleeping with you when he is 10??
April 15th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
my son does the same thing. There’s nothing wrong with co sleeping. He nurses to go to sleep still about half of the time. He starts off in his crib and if he wakes up (which his almost always) I bring him out to the couch with me ( when I’m winding down in front of the tv) and he sleeps really good. My husband goes to work at 1 in the morning so after that I bring him in our bed. There’s nothing better than waking up to his big blue eyes staring at me and tiny hand rubbing my cheek
We try to keep him in his crib on the weekends but that doen’t always work out either.
He’s 13 months now and getting better but I would rather both of us get good sleep and if that means he’s in bed with me then so be it. Besides, they’re only babies once so I want to get all the cuddling and love I can now cause one day he’ll be too “cool” for that! LOL!
…Oh and when he was a little baby he didn’t let me put him down if he was sleeping he woke right up if I tried! ALOT better now. he naps 2 times on the big fluffy couch everyday for about an hour.
April 15th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
well.. no ..my 17 month old has been sleeping with me and my husband since he was born…just recently we had another baby..and had to try to put the 17 month old in his bed…well it worked there for a while..but we had to get him really tired during the day like playing and then a bath right before bed and had to let him fall asleep in our bed and then transfer him over to his bed…sometimes that works other times it doesnt…but i have other moms telling me to just put him in the bed and let him fuss…well we only have 2 bedrooms and we live with my husbands mother b/c she is in a wheelchair..so we have the cribs in our room…so a lot of the time we just let the 17 month old sleep with us then we put him in his bed ….hopefully that will help
April 15th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I co-slept with all three of my kids (after teaching the oldest to sleep alone, then co-sleeping when he was 1) and what you are going through is normal. It may not be the Mommy thing though…at that age, he will be hitting a growth spurt, and that tends to mess up feedings. If it messes up feedings, it’s gonna mess up everything else! My daughter (now 14 mos.) is on another growth spurt (just went up a size in diapers!), and she’s not sleeping so good either. I taught her early on to look for someone besides me when sleeping. She prefers me but if I’m not there, her dad will do just fine, as long as he’s sleeping. If he’s not there, one of her brothers gets dropped into bed next to her so I can sneak off to do laundry or whatever. She sees someone sleeping, and knows it’s ok. She’s been that way since around 4 or 5 months.
April 15th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
i co slept wity my son from 7 months up until yesterday (he’s 11 months now) where i simply put him in his cot and let him cry. i was prepared for hell but he fell asleep after 15 minutes and woke up at 5.30, his usual wake up time.
i didn’t enjoy cosleeping. i was always scared he’d roll off the bed or get stuck somewhere. he’d also go through stages of not wanting to sleep unless i was there in bed with him, and to be honest, i don’t want to go to sleep at 8 pm!!
i tried everything to get him back in his cot but nothing worked. i’m hoping he’ll go back into his cot today. sort this out straight away or you risk sharing bed for a long time. it’s though getting them into their own cot but you’re the boss and let him know that. don’t let him rule you like i’ve let mine rule me for so long.
i’m using the cry it out method. it’s hard but i’d say when you get a full nights sleep for the first time in months it’s great. i didn’t sleep last night because i was worried about him. i haven’t slept without him for months now so it was weird. google the method and make sure you stick to it. do not give in if you start it. we did that once and that’s how he ended up in bed with me in the frist place.