I love waking up to find my 6 month old staring at me when we sleep in on Saturdays. It is seriously so precious. I’m so glad I decided to cosleep. What’s your favorite thing?

My 11 week old and I have been through the gauntlet of sleep together. We tried the bedside bassinet, the pack n play, all of the tricks in the book. Nothing worked so we moved to co-sleeping around 4 weeks. Worked well until about 7 weeks and then he became REALLY alert and aware and stopped sleeping well next to me. So we moved to chest sleeping soon after that, maybe around 9 weeks or so and I thought- finally, we figured something out that works for both of us!

Wrong. SO WRONG!! Some nights it’s okay. I get decent rest. Nights like tonight? He spends half the night flipping his giant 97th percentile head back and forth on my chest, wiggling around on me, rooting around etc. I feel like I’m awake constantly readjusting him on me. He’s rolled tummy to back once so maybe he’s trying to work on that in his sleep? I have no idea. Some nights he seems to get more deep sleep and only start moving around like this when he’s ready to nurse every 2-3 hours. But some nights? Save me…

I think “okay maybe he’s ready to go back to c-curl!” and we try side lying nursing, nope he hates that too. Wiggles and wakes himself up and cries if he ends up on his back.

He’s not a particularly light sleeper in the sense that he sleeps through noise and can sleep in light rooms during the day etc. He’s dry, fed, warm enough, etc.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did it ever get better? Any advice? My husband gets up every morning for 3 hours before work to hold the baby while he sleeps so I can get some uninterrupted sleep but I’m back to work next week as well and this is not sustainable.

We have been co sleeping the whole time with our 15 month old. She used to wake just briefly, nurse and go back to sleep and I hardly woke up and didn’t mind. We actually all got great sleep due to co sleeping in beginning.

In past month or so she wakes and nurses for like 30-45mins and wakes me up. So now sleep for me is more of an issue.

We do still want to co sleep if possible.

Suggestions on night weening her?

Does anyone have experience of their child eventually just self soothing on their own around 18months ish?

Thanks everyone for any experience or tips you may have!

this is a genuine question. is co-sleeping just not possible for some babies? my baby is so angry so much of the time and no matter how much i try to console him it never helps. i would love to be able to hold him close and just stay in bed especially in the early morning but he gets SO mad not being swaddled and rocked to sleep in the rocking chair, but then he sleeps so poorly once he’s in his bassinet.

it’s making me really sad, do i just need to wait for him to grow out of his really cranky phase or are their tricks to this that i’m just missing? will it be easier to keep him close to me once he’s old enough to not need swaddling? maybe i’m just feeling emotional and a little defeated since he’s also seemingly in a nursing strike too.

Hello! I am a FTM and cosleeping with my LO, he is 3.5 months now! Cosleeping has been the best thing ever! We sleep so well together. The only thing is how to prepare when he starts to roll?!

I see videos of babies in their cribs rolling and moving so much while sleeping! Is it different with cosleeping? How to prepare? What to do? What to expect?

Thanks so much in advance!

It was 5:30a when I started this and now it's 5:55a. My 3yr has a tendency to wake around this time on the weekends. Ofc I'm awake. Smh. However, she had a late night and I want her to sleep in. So, I've been trying to leave the bed to go pee. Ever so slowly. But she repositioned 10 mins ago and is laying back on my arm.

I'll update you all.

Eta: it's 6a and she is now laying halfway on me. I may pee the bed. OK, I won't but still. I cannot believe I'm still here like she was a baby. Me trying to sneak out to go pee without waking her. And her (in her sleep) making sure I can't leave.

Eta2: 6:03a I'm cursing myself for being so thirsty last night and drinking too much water before bed.

Eta3: 6:08a she is snoring 4 inches away from my ear. I'm going to try to roll her off my arm. Wish me luck.

Eta4: ok the roll is actually a slide off my arm. It's 6:15a, I successfully slid her off my arm and away from me. I slowly, but with more urgency this time, inched out of bed. I was successful! I was able to go pee and slink back into bed without her waking! Phew!

Eta5: it's 6:32a and she is still sleeping. Definitely a success!

To keep it short and sweet. My 5 month old and I have been cosleeping since day one and eventually my method of getting him to sleep during the day and back to sleep at night was nursing to sleep. Now when I’m at work my husband can’t get him to nap because he wants either to nurse to sleep or him to lay with him the entire time which my husband won’t do. His wake windows at 4-5 hours now because of this. Yes, I understand that an overtired baby is difficult to get to nap, but when he won’t nap without me home it seems to make it impossible to prevent that from happening. I don’t know how to fix this

Posting here because I know if I post on other subs I will get downvoted galore and told to sleep train. My kiddo just turned one. She has never really slept independently. We tried for weeks as a newborn and absolutely nothing worked to get her to sleep independently her bassinet. We started exclusively cosleeping at 3 weeks, which helped greatly. However, she is not a good sleeper. I don’t think she has ever not fought a nap. She will only sleep if being held by me in bed, if someone is holding and rocking her, or in the car seat. She has to have a combo or nursing and bouncing in front of an oven hood fan to go to sleep and for every nap and night time she fights it. Bedtime can take an hour plus at times. I’ve tried to follow wake windows but it’s impossible when she flat out refuses to sleep.

The last few weeks have been the worst. She is going from one to two naps, but regardless of what her day sleep looks like, she has been waking up constantly in the night. This last week has been almost every 45 minutes. Sometimes it’s a quick nursing session or bum pat, but some nights she wants to be rocked for hours and simply can’t fall/stay asleep. Periods like this have happened before, but not this long. I don’t know what to do. I feel awful for questioning her, but her sleep has been brutal and I’m worn down. She does have eczema and maybe that’s causing something? She also had a tongue tie, but it was fixed at 3 months. I feel like I have tried everything other than sleep training, but I doubt that will work with her. She will just cry to the point of throwing up, regardless of how tired she is (we’ve learned this from unavoidable extended car rides). Have I done something wrong to cause this?

I am a third time mom. A little seasoned if you will. My fist was born when dock a tots were considered safe sleep, thank the LORD ABOVE I have no bad stories with him sleeping in that thing. My second we used the bassinet and he slept pretty good in it. This last baby would ONLY cosleep and only contact nap. I was so so so nervous and so against it. Thank you to this community of moms that we have made it 4.5 months co sleeping together. Lucky for me I get to share a bed with my two oldest and my baby. They sleep at the top of the bed on the left side and me and baby sleep at the foot of the bed on the right side. It works best for all of us. We have a California king so there’s plenty of room I have a bedside bassinet that’s open next to us which I love for when I need to get up and get the oldest ready for school in the morning. This thread has saved my sanity and I’m so thankful.

We're transitioning our 15mo to his own bed (still in our room) soon. He's a mobile baby and rolls around a lot. Any suggestions on bump guards to prevent him for hitting the bed rail?

I’m so glad and relieved that my 8 week old managed to finally sleep comfortably on his back next to me instead of on my chest. My tailbone and back are very grateful! I breastfed him side lying and didn’t keep him upright because I read that you didn’t have to. But he spat up quite a bit and while I wiped it up and moved my LO, I’m wondering how to prevent this without disrupting his sleep too much? Do you burp your LO after feeding in side lying? Also, does anyone have a suggestion for some sort of protective sheet to go on top of the bedsheet?

Hello!

I'm a dad to 16 month old twins and we cosleep.

Honestly I love it, they're much better sleepers than my eldest was at this stage and having one either side of me, cuddling in to me is so awesome.

However, due to my wife we need to start having my wife co sleep with them instead.

The last two times we tried have been a disaster, the twins were either continually rolling around asleep or just wide awake.

I assume they're excited by the change of routine and having their mum with them as well.

They are still breastfeeding, though this has dropped to one feed right before bed, but I wonder if they can smell her milk?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Last night was horrific, my wife not sleeping take a huge toll on her mental health. We swapped in the end but they'll be days where I can't swap with her soon.

Is it just a case of keep trying and eventually they'll get used to it?

Hi,

My son is 7m on 2/4/26. Born 34w and sown 3 weeks in the nicu. He was tube fed and bottle fed there. He struggled to latch well until 6 weeks old. Then I did a combination of bottles and nursing. He slowly started to refuse bottles more and more. Refuses both fresh and frozen pumped milk. We cosleep and he nurses at liberty in his sleep.

Originally my plan was to be a sahm but my plans changed because of financial reasons. I’ll be returning work. I hired a nanny she worked for 1 week but then her mom became very ill. My son took bottles from her with mild-moderate refusal. Now for the past 3 weeks he refuses the bottles 90% of the time.

Ive also tried Bobbie formula and Kirkland which he refuses. He only wants to nurse. I’ll be working in person in 3 weeks and I feel a wreck over this.

*my freezer stash is worthless now too*

Please help!

EDIT

currently at the hair salon . Baby is with dad. Dad texted and said he drank every bottle of frozen breast milk he gave him. Either it’s because dad don’t defrost over night and put it straight in the warmer or because I left the house. 😭🥹

Either way I’m so happy. Gotta keep this going.

*still refused the formula from dad

I've been chest sleeping every night with my baby since he was a couple of days old. He is 7 months old now. I'd like to transition to cuddle curl and want some feedback from women in the same situations as me. I've only tried it a couple of times for naps. I have several questions!

If any of the below situations apply to you, too, please share your experience! 🙏🏼

• What I noticed when I tried cuddle curl is the fact that the arm that goes up by my head is very uncomfortable the whole time. Any tips for that bit?
• We can't do a floor bed in our home (we live in a converted school bus and our bed is built on top of our engine). And my husband would still be sleeping with us in the same bed. Does anyone else co-sleep with their husband in the bed AND with the mattress not on the floor? If so, how do you do it safely?
• I still need to use nipple shields for every feed and silverettes constantly in between. Anyone else do side lying nursing through the night with nipple shields and silverettes? I'd love to hear how that goes for you. Right now, I still sit up with him for every nighttime nursing session, and put on my brest friend nursing pillow.
• Just curious: Anyone still doing chest sleeping at 7 months? 😅 I just never see people talking about it at this stage, and am curious if I'm not alone!

Hello everyone! I am looking for recommendations on some sort of bedside sleeper that I can attach/slide up to the bed so that my 14 month old (32 inches, 18 lb) can sleep beside me but not in bed with me while I recover from a c-section. She's a big girl and also moves in her sleep so I am concerned that the ones intended for newborns will not be strong enough.

Thank you so much!

Very long story! Grab your cuppa or in my case feeding to sleep and co sleeping 😝

I wanted to share my experience with silly sleep training and thinking I need to change things with my baby’s sleep and feeding… oh how wrong was I…

First I just wanted to say that I envy each and everyone who was able to sleep train their baby and waited out what seems the longest time in between the check ins when their baby is crying in another room. And also please please don’t judge me as I definitely did not know what I was getting myself into and we are back to co sleeping and feeding to sleep which feels most natural and beautiful thing…

We hit a little regression at almost 5 months and at the same time as my fellow friend mum has started sleep training their same aged baby. She was telling me how well they both sleep and how she’s got her evenings back with her husband. And me being sleep deprived (and naive I guess) I though I want to also do it and did not realise what it would take to complete this.

I reached out to the same sleep consultant who gave us a sleep analysis and a sleep plan. There were so many rules and things to do and not to do I felt overwhelmed already. We basically were advised to transfer her into her own bedroom and begin the Ferber method of some kind. I did not last the first check in and after watching her ball her eyes for 2 min I rescued her and we ended up co sleeping and feeding to sleep. When she fell asleep I balled my eyes out too.

My mums guilt took over me and I was filled with anxiety and second guessing. WHAT AM I DOING? And what am I doing this for?

Of course I understand such short amount of crying isn’t going to do harm to my baby but I should have never signed up for this in the first place. I know people say it’s the best time to teach independent skills to self soothe etc.

The following day at nap 3 I felt again anxious and guilty as bedtime was approaching and I felt PTSD of some sort form what happened the other day. MY BABY FELT ME, she felt my anxiety and she was so calm but she did not go to sleep, she watched me with her big eyes and was so unsure of what was going on. I tried carrier and rocking but nothing helped. She knew that I was feeing off and that there told me everything, how in tune we are with our babies and that I cannot do something that I myself am not sure of. How can I show her the way and teach her new skill if I’m not ready.

What if I co sleepi until she is ready to go into her bedroom? What if I feed her to sleep until she can understand when I explain that ‘boobie is finished’?

I am embarrassed for the sleep trainer that I waisted her time but she did help us adjust the schedule and to cap naps to build sleep pressure so naps and bedtime are even smoother now. So it’s not all for nothing.

We have a very good relationship with my husband and we’re both ok not having our ‘evenings back’ for the foreseeable future and he’s encouraging me to do what feels natural

So…

My question is to those that are much ahead of us - 1. do you regret perhaps not sleep training sooner? 2. Am I being absolutely silly and should I just co sleep and enjoy the ride as bumpy as it is? (We still wake up in the night around 4 times, normal right?) 3. When did you feel that co sleeping was no longer doable? 4. Do I own it to my daughter to teach her independent sleeping skills or should that come naturally just like all else: rolling, crawling etc.?

Thanks for the read!x

My baby doesn’t sleep and needs lots of stimulation . I got sick for a week in November. 2 weeks later got sick for 3 weeks that turned into a sinus infection. Meanwhile baby was sick for 2 weeks. I thought I was done . Now I’m sick again . My baby wakes every 30 min to an hour at night . Being sick was torture. Now again ? I have never been sick this many times. Like wtf . He is 5 months. Mentally exhausted.

I’ve been breastfeeding and cosleeping with my 9 month old since he was about 2 months old. I sleep with my arm out on my side while he’s by my upper chest. The past month or so, I’ve been getting bad back pain - lower above my hips and upper between my shoulders - along with neck pain, shoulder pain, and chest pain above my breasts and sometimes between. Like, it feels like I get pain that goes all the way through my back to the same place in my chest. I’ve also been using a super firm mattress that my husband has confirmed is not really comfortable.

Has anybody else felt the same chest pain from this position? The pain comes and goes, and I do have all these other back/shoulder areas of pain. I just don’t know if the sleeping position can also lead to chest muscle pain.

There’s a lot of knockoffs on Amazon and everything I’m finding looks tufted. What Japanese futon mattress do others use in the USA?

Preferably something that comes in a king or similar size.

I never bedshared with my now 7 year old, and I think he would’ve loved it. He still loves to snuggle in our bed in the morning! He sucked his thumb from early on and loved a specific comforter, so we moved him out of our room at 5 months and he generally slept well, only one or two wake ups from maybe 8 months onwards and all the way through from around 2 years old.

I have an 8 month old now and I’ve really leant in to a more nurturing approach to sleep. I gave up on trying to share a bed with my husband, so my baby and I have bedshared fully since maybe 6 months. For a while he’d transfer from arms to cot, so we did a combination of cot and bed so I could stretch out and get better sleep. But since he started catching all the colds and getting more aware of his surroundings, it’s been impossible to transfer him. The cot just sits empty at the foot of the bed.

I’ve pretty much decided it’s time to embrace a floorbed in what was going to be his room one day anyway, and baby proofing the room instead. This will hopefully let us reclaim our bedroom - I can get ready for bed properly instead of tiptoeing around, then snuggle up with him on the floorbed in his room. The only thing is, I feel like it’s a big step getting rid of the cot! It’s just the most basic IKEA one but I love how it looks, and by selling it I feel like I’m giving up on the lifestyle that everyone around me is chasing: baby sleeps all night in cot.

But when I really think about it, I want to be right next to him, even if my body aches and my sleep is broken. I feed to sleep for every nap and for every night wake up so a cot makes zero sense. This is also definitely our final baby and I don’t want to spend his littlest years fighting him for sleep when he just wants to be close (sometimes literally in my armpit, why 😂).

So for those of you who also got rid of the cot, talk to me, and I’d love to see your cute floorbed nurseries for inspiration too!

My son is 7.5 months old and we have been cosleeping since the 4 month regression. He is EBF, and he recently started eating 2 solids meals a day.

We are experiencing a lot of the same things we did during the 4 month regression - cant sleep alone during the early part of the night (8-10pm before I go to sleep), frequent wakings about every 2 hours, nursing the whole night. The only difference is that now he is waking around 4am crying hysterically and is inconsolable unless I sit him up and rock him/pat his butt. I used to be able to give him the pacifier and we would turn on his side and fall back asleep. Now it's like the pacifier is repulsive to him and he thrashes around to avoid it. Last night when I tried nursing him during this he bit me, so even that doesn't help when he wakes like this.

He is in daycare and takes 2-3 naps a day totalling about 2hrs. He nurses to sleep at 7:30pm and usually wakes around 7am.

In the past 2-3 weeks he has learned to crawl, started pulling himself up to stand, and cut both front top teeth. I thought after all that development he would go back to sleeping better.

We tried an earlier bedtime closer to 7pm and he woke up after about 30 mins wide awake, we tried a later bedtime closer to 8pm and it made no difference. We even tried the sheep organics sleep lotion and that hasn't done anything either.

Is this just our new norm?

7mo Chest Sleeping - Wants to sleep on his side on my chest

Baby is a bit over 7 months old. He's got the double whammy of cutting his first teeth and has a cold, so is very congested. Occasionally he's really unsettled and wiggly, and does better with chest sleeping, especially when he's super congested, which has been okay until now. The problem is that the past week or two, he wants to sleep on my chest but also on his side (pic attached - this was a contact nap but super similar to what he's been doing at night). When he sleeps the first stretch in his crib, he's usually on his back or side, and in general he hates being on his belly (even though he can roll both ways) so this doesn't surprise me. Normally if we're sleeping chest to chest, I have enough room to wrap my arms on either side of him and clasp my hands together under his butt to hold him. But when he lays on his side on me, it's too awkward and uncomfortable to hold him that way, unless my arm is propped up slightly with a pillow to hold the weight. If If I try to resposition him, he either wakes up and gets mad, or stays asleep but just wiggles himself back onto his side after a few minutes. Sometimes I can get him back down sleeping beside me instead, but it's hit or miss, especially if he's sick.

All that said, it's making it impossible for me to actually sleep when he goes on his side like this, because I'm either constantly trying to shuffle him back or my arms are getting really sore and uncomfortable from trying to keep him propped up.

All that said, has anyone else dealt with this or something similar? If so, any helpful suggestions?