Coping With Sleep Issues as a Co-Sleeping Family

 

Welcome to the February 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Addressing Sleep Challenges. This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month our members have written posts about how they address sleep challenges in their homes.

When I was pregnant, I knew we would be a co-sleeping family at least for the first few months. I just couldn’t imagine putting our baby down to sleep in a separate room down the hallway. Some friends gave use their Arm's Reach Co-Sleeper they were done with and we set it up next to the bed on my side. I had happy visions of our baby sleeping there while I curled up next to her to sleep, a safe distance away yet close enough to nurse.

Well, our baby had other ideas and needs. She would not sleep unless she was held. Even if she seemed to be in a deep sleep and we put her down to give our arms a break, she would wake up and wail. We speculate it may have to do with our traumatic birth experience and her abrupt arrival in the world. Whatever the reason, her sleep needs made nighttime extremely challenging the first year of her life. 

For the first month or two, she was so tiny she could easily just lay on my chest to sleep. This was fine for short amounts of time, but I wasn’t sleeping much through the night since I wasn’t very comfortable not being able to move and change sleep positions. Eventually I was able to get her to sleep right next to me, but she didn’t want to be even a few inches away, she had to be burrowed up next to me to sleep. That is, once we finally GOT her to sleep. 

That Co-sleeper I mentioned earlier? All it did was collect books and blankets. Our little nugget refused to sleep in it. Other mamas in our little baby play group would talk about their babies sleeping so well, some even sleeping through the night at a few months old. I just wanted to cry. I wasn't sleeping and our little nugget would wake up every hour or two to nurse. 

I was a wreck. On top of trying to cope with our birth trauma, I wasn’t sleeping much at all which was making my body function even more poorly. I read books on baby sleeping tips, searched online forums for advice and asked my local La Leche League mamas for ideas. We were at our wits end. At this point we even tried a night or two of the cry it out method with her in the Co-sleeper but that didn’t work and just made us all more frustrated.

A Light at The End of the Tunnel

Finally we found a few ideas that started working. The book that came most highly recommended to me from other co-sleeping parents and the one I found the most helpful was The No-Cry Sleep Solution. I was able to implement a few of the tips in her book and after a few weeks started seeing an improvement in our whole family sleeping a little better. 

 

The other most helpful idea came from another La Leche League mama: put a crib next to the bed with one side off and use it as a side car. We sandwiched the crib between the bed and the wall so it was really tight and an even surface from our mattress to the crib mattress. This worked wonders because I could lay half in our bed and half in the crib to get her to sleep and to nurse her. Once she was asleep I could slowly inch away and she wouldn’t wake up. For the first time in months I was able to get a few hours of sleep at a time. 

Eventually by eight or nine months, we could actually put our little nugget to sleep in the crib by herself for a few hours. Either my husband or I would lie next to her until she fell asleep and then leave so we could have a few hours to stay up and relax.

I started noticing that our little nugget would wake up when she would hear me move or rustle the blankets. Of course she would want to nurse, which woke me up more but was able to get her back to sleep. I began wondering if our little nugget had the ability to sleep through the night if she wasn’t interrupted. I dreamed about that day but I was so pessimistic that it could ever happen I didn’t try it for a few months.

We have arrived!

Then one week when our little nugget was eleven months old, I decided I was done. Something had to change since I still was not getting enough sleep and it was impacting my mental and physical health. So one day while my husband was at work, I wrangled the crib out of it’s corner and moved it into our little nugget’s room. I figured we would have to do some transitioning like sleeping in there on the floor next to her to help her adjust. She blew us away: she only woke up once that night but was able to put herself back to sleep in about a minute. The next night she slept she the whole way through the night and it continued!!!!

We all started sleeping better. I noticed my health improved and her moods also improved during the day too. She was a lot less cranky which makes us all happier. We now consistently put our little nugget down in her crib at 7pm after rocking her in the rocking chair for a little. Most nights she sleeps the whole way through the night and wakes up between 7am and 8am a happy, rested baby. 

A lot of people tell us how lucky we are that nighttime is so easy for us now. We always chuckle and tell them that we earned it. We’re here to tell you that there is hope. There are so many resources out there and different theories about baby sleep, sleep training, and co-sleeping that it can be overwhelming.

My best advice? Honor what your baby is telling you she needs but balance that with making sure you get what you need. Like I learned the hard way, you cannot be a good parent if you’re not sleeping and having negative health impacts. Listen to what feels right for you and not what your mom, mother in law or friends tell you. Only you know what is right for you and your baby.

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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival! Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed: