Do any co-sleepers fall asleep on their own and nap well alone?
My son used to fall asleep on his own when he was a few weeks old. We've been rocking him to sleep, and sometimes setting him down when he was still drowsy, but that seems to work less and less. Now it's even getting harder to get him to sleep, and he rarely has a long stretch now if he naps alone. Sometimes I worry that I am making him too dependent on me to sleep. My first was like this too, and while I think it's somewhat natural for most babies to want to sleep with their mother, I don't want to encourage it. I read NCSS but never found it all that helpful. I'm just getting so frustrated and it's dregging up all the frustration I had with my first who wouldn't sleep well on his own at all before we went to bed, and would barely let us set him down. Maybe I'm not patient enough in my attempts or something, I don't know.
^_^:
Well... how old is your son? You first need to consider if it is reasonable to expect that he be able to fall asleep on his own.
My daughter is ALMOST 1 year old. She does not fall asleep on her own for day naps (unless in the carseat)... but I have never attempted to put her in bed awake, anyway. I just don't think it would work.
For nighttime... we go to bed together, and she will nurse first... and then often will roll over and go to sleep herself. Sometimes when nursing, she isn't ready to go to sleep, and she might get up and crawl around the room for a few minutes. She will crawl back into bed, and either nurse some more, or lay down and go to sleep on her own. During this time, I have to look like -I- am sleeping, or she'll want to play. If I just pretty much ignore her, she goes to sleep with me.
The nighttime thing has only been happening within the past 2 months. She started doing it all on her own.
It has given me some encouragement that she will learn to go to sleep on her own when she is ready. Meanwhile, I just get by. Hope that helps! :)
Edited to Add: She doesn't ALWAYS fall asleep on her own at night... she still does nurse to sleep a lot. Also, she is a very difficult sleeper. She doesn't nap well to begin with, etc. I feel that the fact that she is going to sleep on her own at night, even somtimes, is a HUGE deal. I never thought it would happen.. lol.
^_^:
Yes, 11 month old dd will fall asleep alone. Since I like to cuddle with her, I don't always give her the opportunity but she can and does put herself to sleep. I have never, and would not, let her CIO. I watch for clues that she's tired, make sure she's dry and has a full tummy, and put her down with her baby blanket. It's a small blankie that is partly soft and partly satiny and she likes to stroke the blanket and hum as she falls asleep. :throb
BTW, for her, it's not that I see her yawning or rubbing her eyes. That's usually when she's past the point she'll soothe herself to sleep. She gets a sudden burst of energy and that's when I know it's naptime. Hmmm that sounds odd. Seriously, when she gets a bit :bouncy she's ready for a nap!
^_^:
oh, he'll be six months in mid-January. I forgot to mention that. It is young still, I know. And I don't mind rocking him to sleep so much, but it's just that it's getting even harder to do. And then I doubt myself and wonder if I've waited too long or missed his signs of tiredness or if I haven't labored enough to get him to fall asleep in a variety of ways, or while still drowsy, like the author says in No Cry Sleep Solution.
This shouldn't be so complicated! :flipped It does help to read here and see that other people have similar issues when they don't let their babies cry to sleep. Still though, it can be frustrating. I WISH he would nurse to sleep, or that I could just lay with him and shush him to sleep and rub his back or something. You'd think co-sleeping would make sleep a pleasant experience and an easier state to enter!
^_^:
Babies go through different stages where they take steps forward then regress. They do not reach a milestone and just achieve it and move on. They sleep through the night for a while then stop, etc. Just becuase your baby needs more help to sleep now doesn't mean its a permenant thing and just because then can fall asleep on their own now doesn't mean they will be able to in a month.
My DD was a great easy sleeper when she was very young (under 3 months) and I found she hit a very high-needs (sleepwise) phase at 8-9 months. But by a year she settled down and at 18 months she moved on her own and happily to going to bed in her own room all by herself.
^_^:
Our DD is 8 mo. she's always been able to fall asleep on her own as long as SHE is ready! It took me a while to figure this one out! When I let go of thinking "she should sleep now" we were all much happier...Her bed time was at 6mo. around 11:30 sometimes later! I thought I'd go crazy!! I posted here for help.
The best lesson I learned was to have a bed time routine and stick to it along with watching for her signs of sleepyness... Routine was key!
Bath, PJ'S, read books or play a bit, have soft lights on and low noise levels.. Also I tired to keep her up playing so she wouldn't take a nap at 7 pm...
Making sure she was dry and comfy w/belly full then she would lay down no problem..BUT if she was teething, growth spurt or any of the above was off so is her sleep time!
Hang in there mama it will get better!
***Do you have a sling for your little one? This may help too!!
If all else fails how about walking him around till he zonkes out or rocking?
Sometimes we have done this with DD. I swear I walk miles a day w/her!
Best of luck! :wink
^_^:
Slinging is the only way I can get him to sleep. He's gettng fussy in it and it doesn't seem to work well anymore, which is the main problem. I know it's common to have difficulty getting a young baby to sleep; I mean there's that stereotype of new parents driving their babies around in cars to get them to sleep. But it's just that my first was also really tough to set down and he wouldn't sleep without me, so I'm thinking that maybe in light of this pattern, that it's sort of Me, and I'm not helping. I've read a lot of sleep books/chapters, but I've yet to really work many miracles. I just don't know how I'm gona last another few months. DS1 started going down on his own, rather abruptly, around 10 months I think, but obviously DS2 could be totally different.
^_^:
Hey Mama,
I also meant to post if your babe is BF then diet of mama, can play a role! I noticed that if I had 2 cups of coffee, Ummmm= NO SLEEP for DD! she was wired! Also cutting out sugar made a big diff. too...
Hope you get some sleep soon! I too thought I would go crazy!!! It's tough, but hang in there :love
^_^:
ooh 6mos is one of *those* times, too. notoriously bad for sleep, ime. hang in there...it'll get better! :)
^_^:
My last child always did this but it is something we worked on from birth.
Something to note is the position her likes to sleep in at night in your bed. is that how you are putting him down? we also had to put her down in our bed, in her spot, at consistant times. create a consistant environment. it was kinda a pain but having daily naps and an early bedtime were worth it for us. She also had to sleep on her tummy. Something a lot of people are opposed to.
^_^:
It's funny to come across this post cuz I was on my way over to the forum to post something very similar. I hear about babies who wake up only once a night -- and they are crib sleepers. My dh tells me his coworker's baby, who is about a month older than ours, wakes only once. He looks at me so accusingly, like WHY are we shoving all three of us into our tiny bed if she isn't going to sleep well?
I instinctively believe in cosleeping, as it's part of the attachment part of attachment parenting, where she will grow up more secure in herself and the world because we took the extra time/energy to be with her at night and all day. But I can't help but wonder....
DD has to be bounced to sleep -- no nursing to sleep here, except for very occasionally. It is getting harder only because she is getting heavier. This is the one time of day I can lose my temper. :( I feel like such a bad mama then, when I want to slap her because she's fussing and arching her back. (Of course I don't.) She won't go to sleep without a major fight if she's not pretty tired. We keep her up for 1.5 hours -- though obviously if she gets really tired before then, we put her down for a nap earlier. For bedtime I keep her up 2 hours, or it's a serious fight. She just doesn't like limitations being put on her. May sound silly for a 3 mo old, but I think it's true -- her astrological chart actually mentions being stubborn and resistant SEVERAL times. :lol
I'm going to try some things tonight to help ME get more sleep, cuz the waking up thing doesn't bother me so much except when I can't fall back asleep, which is common and always has been. Dh and I are switching sides so I can sleep on my left and he will breathe heavily (near snore, kwim) away from me. We will have separate blankets, and put dd in a zip-up baby sack instead of a swaddle she can break out of so I don't have to get up to re-wrap her. I'm going to put some sort of sleep aid like Rescue Remedy next to the bed so I can take it in the night.
Naps are better some days than others, but she still can't put herself back to sleep, and is up after 45 minutes. I would give I-don't-know-what to have slightly longer breaks to write or clean or just sit by myself staring out the window.
Okay, :blah sorry to go on, but I gave this a lot of thought while I listened to dh snore and dd contemplate waking up between 5 and 6 AM this morning.
^_^:
My ds who just turned nine months is starting to fall asleep on his own for bedtime only. We bath, pjs, stories, nurse and now quite often he is not falling asleep from the nursing so he may 'talk' for a bit, roll/crawl around, come over for cuddles/more nursing and eventually fall asleep sometimes touching me and sometimes not. I NEVER thought we would get here. DS has only napped more than 45 minutes on his own a handfull of times since he turned three months old and is still usually up many times at night. For naps I either nurse him to sleep or walk with him in the sling. I still would love for him to nap longer without being nursed back to sleep and stay asleep at night until dh and I are ready for bed (he still often wakes up after 45 minutes at night too.) But then I think about how I never thought he would fall asleep like this or sleep for seven hours straight like he did on New Years (first time!) so I remember it is a process that will only last a few years of his life which when I look back upon them will seem like a blink.
When I feel like I may loose my mind with exhaustion I think of my aunt and other parents of special needs kids who are up every night. My cousin is sixteen and hasn't slept through the night since BIRTH and my aunt is up every night with her for medical reasons. She only gets a break a few nights a month when she gets respite care. So it can be done for very long periods of time.
I also have a nephew who only co-slept for his first year who falls asleep really well. My sil nursed him to sleep exclusivly for six months. At six months started a bedtime routine of supper, bath, pjs, stories, nursing, rocking. At nine months they put him down still sound asleep. At a year they could set him down really drowsy. Since a year and a half he now just has supper, bath, pjs, stories, cuddles and he lies down and falls asleep with a parent in his room in about 10 minutes. (No nursing or co-sleeping anymore, my sil is not totally ap but never used cio and did nurse/co-sleep for the first year.) With my nephew he also has had really consistant bedtime/naptimes and they used the a similar routine for nap time as at night for the first year and a half. Now for nap time his mom just says nap time and sits with him for five minutes while he falls asleep.
I will say he has always been a good sleeper but I think all my sil consistancy has something to do with it. He slept a six hour stretch from six months and ten hours from nine months.
Anyways just had to share that there are co-sleepers who sleep through the night and who fall asleep with just the presence of mom or dad. I know when I am fantasizing about having time to myself at night I remember it is a process and think about my happy little nephew who is such a peacefull sleeper and that he never cio.
Hang in there!
^_^:
I am trying to give up my last cup of coffee that I have in the morning, just in case that is what is making it harder for him, which I kind of keep to myself as if it's some dirty little crack habit. You wouldn't think it would be so hard, considering how we otherwise give up so much and dedicate our lives to caring for them. BUT OH IS IT. I have been clinging to the LLL guidelines of 5 5oz. cups being within reason to comfort my addict self that one weeny mug is Ok. Maybe he's sensitive to it though. Plus I'm sure he's growing and teething and who knows what else to make this all so tricky.
^_^:
You know, I'll bet it's not the coffee. Especially if you are taking it in the AM. And if that's helping you deal with your lack of sleep? Cut yourself some slack. Some kids (like mine) are just stubborn sleepers.
^_^:
I don't think it is either, because he sleeps so well at night. That's the thing. He sleeps really long stretches at night...I don't even know how long because i just half wake up and nurse him maybe once. But if I'm not there he doesn't last more than 40 minutes, and oh gawd, the trauma of trying to get him to sleep.
More Topical:
^_^:
Well... how old is your son? You first need to consider if it is reasonable to expect that he be able to fall asleep on his own.
My daughter is ALMOST 1 year old. She does not fall asleep on her own for day naps (unless in the carseat)... but I have never attempted to put her in bed awake, anyway. I just don't think it would work.
For nighttime... we go to bed together, and she will nurse first... and then often will roll over and go to sleep herself. Sometimes when nursing, she isn't ready to go to sleep, and she might get up and crawl around the room for a few minutes. She will crawl back into bed, and either nurse some more, or lay down and go to sleep on her own. During this time, I have to look like -I- am sleeping, or she'll want to play. If I just pretty much ignore her, she goes to sleep with me.
The nighttime thing has only been happening within the past 2 months. She started doing it all on her own.
It has given me some encouragement that she will learn to go to sleep on her own when she is ready. Meanwhile, I just get by. Hope that helps! :)
Edited to Add: She doesn't ALWAYS fall asleep on her own at night... she still does nurse to sleep a lot. Also, she is a very difficult sleeper. She doesn't nap well to begin with, etc. I feel that the fact that she is going to sleep on her own at night, even somtimes, is a HUGE deal. I never thought it would happen.. lol.
^_^:
Yes, 11 month old dd will fall asleep alone. Since I like to cuddle with her, I don't always give her the opportunity but she can and does put herself to sleep. I have never, and would not, let her CIO. I watch for clues that she's tired, make sure she's dry and has a full tummy, and put her down with her baby blanket. It's a small blankie that is partly soft and partly satiny and she likes to stroke the blanket and hum as she falls asleep. :throb
BTW, for her, it's not that I see her yawning or rubbing her eyes. That's usually when she's past the point she'll soothe herself to sleep. She gets a sudden burst of energy and that's when I know it's naptime. Hmmm that sounds odd. Seriously, when she gets a bit :bouncy she's ready for a nap!
^_^:
oh, he'll be six months in mid-January. I forgot to mention that. It is young still, I know. And I don't mind rocking him to sleep so much, but it's just that it's getting even harder to do. And then I doubt myself and wonder if I've waited too long or missed his signs of tiredness or if I haven't labored enough to get him to fall asleep in a variety of ways, or while still drowsy, like the author says in No Cry Sleep Solution.
This shouldn't be so complicated! :flipped It does help to read here and see that other people have similar issues when they don't let their babies cry to sleep. Still though, it can be frustrating. I WISH he would nurse to sleep, or that I could just lay with him and shush him to sleep and rub his back or something. You'd think co-sleeping would make sleep a pleasant experience and an easier state to enter!
^_^:
Babies go through different stages where they take steps forward then regress. They do not reach a milestone and just achieve it and move on. They sleep through the night for a while then stop, etc. Just becuase your baby needs more help to sleep now doesn't mean its a permenant thing and just because then can fall asleep on their own now doesn't mean they will be able to in a month.
My DD was a great easy sleeper when she was very young (under 3 months) and I found she hit a very high-needs (sleepwise) phase at 8-9 months. But by a year she settled down and at 18 months she moved on her own and happily to going to bed in her own room all by herself.
^_^:
Our DD is 8 mo. she's always been able to fall asleep on her own as long as SHE is ready! It took me a while to figure this one out! When I let go of thinking "she should sleep now" we were all much happier...Her bed time was at 6mo. around 11:30 sometimes later! I thought I'd go crazy!! I posted here for help.
The best lesson I learned was to have a bed time routine and stick to it along with watching for her signs of sleepyness... Routine was key!
Bath, PJ'S, read books or play a bit, have soft lights on and low noise levels.. Also I tired to keep her up playing so she wouldn't take a nap at 7 pm...
Making sure she was dry and comfy w/belly full then she would lay down no problem..BUT if she was teething, growth spurt or any of the above was off so is her sleep time!
Hang in there mama it will get better!
***Do you have a sling for your little one? This may help too!!
If all else fails how about walking him around till he zonkes out or rocking?
Sometimes we have done this with DD. I swear I walk miles a day w/her!
Best of luck! :wink
^_^:
Slinging is the only way I can get him to sleep. He's gettng fussy in it and it doesn't seem to work well anymore, which is the main problem. I know it's common to have difficulty getting a young baby to sleep; I mean there's that stereotype of new parents driving their babies around in cars to get them to sleep. But it's just that my first was also really tough to set down and he wouldn't sleep without me, so I'm thinking that maybe in light of this pattern, that it's sort of Me, and I'm not helping. I've read a lot of sleep books/chapters, but I've yet to really work many miracles. I just don't know how I'm gona last another few months. DS1 started going down on his own, rather abruptly, around 10 months I think, but obviously DS2 could be totally different.
^_^:
Hey Mama,
I also meant to post if your babe is BF then diet of mama, can play a role! I noticed that if I had 2 cups of coffee, Ummmm= NO SLEEP for DD! she was wired! Also cutting out sugar made a big diff. too...
Hope you get some sleep soon! I too thought I would go crazy!!! It's tough, but hang in there :love
^_^:
ooh 6mos is one of *those* times, too. notoriously bad for sleep, ime. hang in there...it'll get better! :)
^_^:
My last child always did this but it is something we worked on from birth.
Something to note is the position her likes to sleep in at night in your bed. is that how you are putting him down? we also had to put her down in our bed, in her spot, at consistant times. create a consistant environment. it was kinda a pain but having daily naps and an early bedtime were worth it for us. She also had to sleep on her tummy. Something a lot of people are opposed to.
^_^:
It's funny to come across this post cuz I was on my way over to the forum to post something very similar. I hear about babies who wake up only once a night -- and they are crib sleepers. My dh tells me his coworker's baby, who is about a month older than ours, wakes only once. He looks at me so accusingly, like WHY are we shoving all three of us into our tiny bed if she isn't going to sleep well?
I instinctively believe in cosleeping, as it's part of the attachment part of attachment parenting, where she will grow up more secure in herself and the world because we took the extra time/energy to be with her at night and all day. But I can't help but wonder....
DD has to be bounced to sleep -- no nursing to sleep here, except for very occasionally. It is getting harder only because she is getting heavier. This is the one time of day I can lose my temper. :( I feel like such a bad mama then, when I want to slap her because she's fussing and arching her back. (Of course I don't.) She won't go to sleep without a major fight if she's not pretty tired. We keep her up for 1.5 hours -- though obviously if she gets really tired before then, we put her down for a nap earlier. For bedtime I keep her up 2 hours, or it's a serious fight. She just doesn't like limitations being put on her. May sound silly for a 3 mo old, but I think it's true -- her astrological chart actually mentions being stubborn and resistant SEVERAL times. :lol
I'm going to try some things tonight to help ME get more sleep, cuz the waking up thing doesn't bother me so much except when I can't fall back asleep, which is common and always has been. Dh and I are switching sides so I can sleep on my left and he will breathe heavily (near snore, kwim) away from me. We will have separate blankets, and put dd in a zip-up baby sack instead of a swaddle she can break out of so I don't have to get up to re-wrap her. I'm going to put some sort of sleep aid like Rescue Remedy next to the bed so I can take it in the night.
Naps are better some days than others, but she still can't put herself back to sleep, and is up after 45 minutes. I would give I-don't-know-what to have slightly longer breaks to write or clean or just sit by myself staring out the window.
Okay, :blah sorry to go on, but I gave this a lot of thought while I listened to dh snore and dd contemplate waking up between 5 and 6 AM this morning.
^_^:
My ds who just turned nine months is starting to fall asleep on his own for bedtime only. We bath, pjs, stories, nurse and now quite often he is not falling asleep from the nursing so he may 'talk' for a bit, roll/crawl around, come over for cuddles/more nursing and eventually fall asleep sometimes touching me and sometimes not. I NEVER thought we would get here. DS has only napped more than 45 minutes on his own a handfull of times since he turned three months old and is still usually up many times at night. For naps I either nurse him to sleep or walk with him in the sling. I still would love for him to nap longer without being nursed back to sleep and stay asleep at night until dh and I are ready for bed (he still often wakes up after 45 minutes at night too.) But then I think about how I never thought he would fall asleep like this or sleep for seven hours straight like he did on New Years (first time!) so I remember it is a process that will only last a few years of his life which when I look back upon them will seem like a blink.
When I feel like I may loose my mind with exhaustion I think of my aunt and other parents of special needs kids who are up every night. My cousin is sixteen and hasn't slept through the night since BIRTH and my aunt is up every night with her for medical reasons. She only gets a break a few nights a month when she gets respite care. So it can be done for very long periods of time.
I also have a nephew who only co-slept for his first year who falls asleep really well. My sil nursed him to sleep exclusivly for six months. At six months started a bedtime routine of supper, bath, pjs, stories, nursing, rocking. At nine months they put him down still sound asleep. At a year they could set him down really drowsy. Since a year and a half he now just has supper, bath, pjs, stories, cuddles and he lies down and falls asleep with a parent in his room in about 10 minutes. (No nursing or co-sleeping anymore, my sil is not totally ap but never used cio and did nurse/co-sleep for the first year.) With my nephew he also has had really consistant bedtime/naptimes and they used the a similar routine for nap time as at night for the first year and a half. Now for nap time his mom just says nap time and sits with him for five minutes while he falls asleep.
I will say he has always been a good sleeper but I think all my sil consistancy has something to do with it. He slept a six hour stretch from six months and ten hours from nine months.
Anyways just had to share that there are co-sleepers who sleep through the night and who fall asleep with just the presence of mom or dad. I know when I am fantasizing about having time to myself at night I remember it is a process and think about my happy little nephew who is such a peacefull sleeper and that he never cio.
Hang in there!
^_^:
I am trying to give up my last cup of coffee that I have in the morning, just in case that is what is making it harder for him, which I kind of keep to myself as if it's some dirty little crack habit. You wouldn't think it would be so hard, considering how we otherwise give up so much and dedicate our lives to caring for them. BUT OH IS IT. I have been clinging to the LLL guidelines of 5 5oz. cups being within reason to comfort my addict self that one weeny mug is Ok. Maybe he's sensitive to it though. Plus I'm sure he's growing and teething and who knows what else to make this all so tricky.
^_^:
You know, I'll bet it's not the coffee. Especially if you are taking it in the AM. And if that's helping you deal with your lack of sleep? Cut yourself some slack. Some kids (like mine) are just stubborn sleepers.
^_^:
I don't think it is either, because he sleeps so well at night. That's the thing. He sleeps really long stretches at night...I don't even know how long because i just half wake up and nurse him maybe once. But if I'm not there he doesn't last more than 40 minutes, and oh gawd, the trauma of trying to get him to sleep.
More Topical: