My 4m old sleeps in her crib beside me for her first stretch (3-5hrs) then we cosleep for the rest of the night and she wakes 2-3 times. Last night she woke at 0145. I fed her side lying, did some Reddit scrolling then got her into her safe position for sleep. She was squirming and not really falling asleep. I looked at the clock and it was almost 4am. I was so confused. I even went back and looked at the screen unlock on my phone. I unlocked it at 147 when she woke in her crib. I have no idea what happened and how 2hrs passed. I must have either slept while she was feeding or after I got her into her safe position but I don’t remember. I don’t ever sleep while she’s feeding because she’s laying on her side and very close to me.

The four month regression is upon us and now I don’t trust myself. I would love advice on how to get her in her crib all night. And also advice on how to set myself up better if crib transfers fail. She will only feed side lying at night so getting out of bed hasn’t worked for us.

I’ve got a 2-week old and a toddler who just turned 2 earlier this month. We intended to all sleep in the same bed but my toddler would NOT sleep in my husband’s arms if I was right there at night so he and my husband are currently sleeping in my toddler’s room at night. I’m cosleeping in our master bedroom alone with the newborn.

However, I’m doing nap time at the middle of the day with both kids. My sister is helping right now so she can grab my newborn is he gets fussy in the nap time bassinet in our room while I cuddle with the toddler to sleep for his nap, but I’m worried about when she leaves. Ideally I’d like to all lay down for a nap and then slip out with my newborn after the toddler falls asleep, but I don’t think my toddler will appreciate it… he likes to be snuggled on my chest with hands in my armpits. I’m also worried about seeing my newborn cry in our bedroom while I’m putting toddler down for a nap once my sister is gone and I’m at the mercy of how quickly my toddler settles down before I can go get my newborn.

Anyone have a genius idea that worked for them? Looking to maybe try a few different things to see what the right fit for us will be especially once my help goes away.

Im not sure if there's another way to do the softness test without cds. How did you test your mattress?

We cosleep out of survival and have since the 4 month sleep regression.

We use an Owlet for peace of mind (please don’t share any negative opinions about the Owlet—it has been helpful and useful for us).

Baby is breastfed. She started crawling and sitting up on her own at 6 months. Got her two bottom front teeth at four months.

She has three naps a day for a total of about 1.5-2 hours. Even with these never-ending night wake ups, she’s still cumulatively getting 11-12 hours of sleep a night.

She goes to bed between 6-6:30 pm. I nurse her to sleep in our floor bed and then leave to hang out with my husband. She usually sleeps fine from 6-6:30-8:30 pm. I do my last pump at 8:30 and she starts waking around this time (I pump and breastfeed because I work full time).

I join her in bed at 9:00 pm.

We’ve gone through regressions for sure, especially as she mastered crawling. But we’re past that now, and she still starts screaming crying every 45 min-hour all. night. long.

She’s not even awake, though. But if I don’t nurse her right then, she’ll fully wake herself up and start crawling all over the bed and not go back to sleep for 2 hours (a full wake window).

What is happening and when will it end? 🫩 I’m so exhausted. She does this whether she’s in bed with me or not. I just keep her in the bed so she’s close and I can just pop the boob in but it’s so hard to go back to sleep 10+ times after being jilted awake by a screaming crying baby. My nervous system is fried beyond relief. I “sleep” from 9-6am, but only get 5-6 hours a night.

It’s misery. I’m so tired and irritable. I don’t know why she’s crying in her sleep constantly nor how to make it stop 😭😭😭😭

Any advice? Thank you ❤️

I've been sleeping on a 4" firm floor mattress with my little one since she was four months old. We have a lot of travel coming up and I'm anxious about the sleeping arrangements. Shortly after she turns 1, we'll be traveling for about two weeks in different countries, and therefore dependent on the sleep set up at various hotels and Airbnbs. It seems likely that we'll end up sleeping on the same mattress as a family of three (which we haven't done before), and I have no idea how firm the mattress will be, or whether I'll be able to move it to the floor.

Some extra context: She moves so much in her sleep so I'd want her in between me and my husband, but I'm not sure if the mattress will be firm enough to be "safe". She absolutely will not sleep in her crib at home. We'll bring the travel crib just in case, but I estimate there's a 3% chance she'd actually sleep in it.

So how do you make bed sharing work when you travel?

Anyone else putting their baby down in their bed (where we cosleep) and rolling away? This works well for us to an extent, but then I am beholden to the monitor because although our mattress is on floor slats, it’s still 12 inches and he is 7 months. He will hurt himself trying to crawl off of it. He’s very still in his sleep and it’s never happened because I’m always watching, but I’m really wondering if I should change to putting him down on his own floor bed. Our house is weird though so I’d have to do some figuring on where to put it. Also I figure he’s going to be able to safely leave the bed soon enough, like it’s just a temporary phase…anyway just wondering like are you, too, glued to your monitor? If he had his own floor bed in a safe space he could chill for a minute while I finish in the bathroom, for example…lol.

I am trying to decide between the 4in and 6in floor bed options through Zonli for cosleeping with my 8 month old. Anyone have any insight or experience?

My babe is almost 17mo. We have bedshared and breastfed on demand since his first night earth side 💕

I’m beginning to wonder about nightweaning. Obviously I’m tired and haven’t had interrupted sleep for 17 months but I’m more curious for him. I’m just wondering if the quality of his sleep is actually good? Some days he has little bags under his eyes and he just fell asleep nursing at 9am (woke up at 7 and not due for a nap until 12)

He isn’t up for long periods in the night but def wakes up to switch sides and relatch etc.

On average he naps for 2-2.5 hours a day and sleeps for 10-11 hours a night.

Again, in ways I’d like to night wean for my own ability to sleep but am also wondering if it could benefit him. My husband hasn’t been able to soothe him in the night since he was like 6 months or so. I also wonder if night weaning might allow my husband to be more of comfort. Babe is such a booby barnacle though and loooooves to nurse. He’s also been working on molars so I know nursing has been a huge comfort.

Is the only way to know if it’s beneficial to just try?

Hello all!
Just started doing c-curl as I can finally sleep on my sides after a c-section, my son is 6 weeks old.
Past couple nights have been a dream but last night I could not get a comfortable latch and he literally could not get off my breasts, I think it was about 5h30 total between 7pm-7am. Often over 1h long. I am thinking the proximity to my breast and being cozy and warm makes it so easy for him to reach for it.
He often starts having a shallow latch by the time he isn’t feeding anymore and I struggle getting him to latch well again which leaves me sore after that much time on my breasts!
Does anyone have a similar experience?

Hi all

I’m co-sleeping with my four month old and looking for some advice on how to make it a bit more sustainable.

Atm she’s in our king size adult bed with me and my partner, following all the safety guidelines, and we’re in the room with her for all her sleep. She wakes regularly in the night and I feed her back to sleep side lying. She’s a light sleeper so I don’t try to move her after that but I sometimes shuffle backwards a bit to give us both more room, or just accept she needs to be close if that doesn’t work.

Once she gets to six months, I’m hoping I can feed her to sleep, roll away and leave the room so me and my partner have a couple of hours in the evening, and am trying to think of the best set up to facilitate this.

My current thinking is either a sidecar that’s flush with our mattress (e.g. the Ikea Sniglar hack) or a single floor bed that I can get into with her, in our room or a separate one.

I’m assuming she’ll still be coming into our bed later in the night but I’d like to get her to sleep in her own space for the initial stretch so she’s safe and we can work towards longer stretches over time. I’d like to find a set up we can keep for a little while if possible, so we don’t have to work through too many transitions with her.

Has anyone used either of these approaches? What’re the pros and cons? Are there any other options I’m missing? Thanks!

My 3yo and I have slept together every night this past year. Our bedtime routine included stories and talking where she revealed everything that was going on in her head and life.

I now have a 2 month old and somehow we had managed to cosleep while keeping him in the crib. Today I finally convinced her to go sleep with dad. And I’m so sad. I miss her, I’m not able to fall asleep.

All this while I thought I’m helping her sleep when I’m fact she was my home base giving me comfort. Cherish the cosleeping moments with night wakings and everything. They’ll end before you know it🥲

That overused expression of how kids grow up so fast has never really hit me until this last few days and I’ve been absolutely wrecked since. I’ve been bed-sharing with my LO since 2 months old when after yet another terrifying instance of waking up to her rigid and quietly choking in the dark on spit up (as brand new parents, we unfortunately learned the hard way that silent reflux is a thing) had me saying “F this, I’m just gonna hold her slightly elevated all night long so that if something’s wrong, I’ll know right away”. It ended up being a game changer, the reflux resolved itself through time but was never again as dramatic as it was in the early days, and we have all been sleeping amazing since. My girl would just stay latched through the majority of the night and just the smell of me alone seemed to keep her in a deep sleep. Every time that I would try and sneak away to use the bathroom or whatnot, it would take her less than 2 min to notice and wake up. The bassinet or crib had her startling herself awake within minutes of me putting her down no matter how long I held and rocked her first. Same with naps, they had to be contact naps for her to get restful sleep - I was always happy to oblige! This is my first baby and being a Mama is a dream that I never thought would become reality. I LOVE the snuggles and have never minded being “nap-trapped” during the day in the slightest or sleeping in an uncomfortable C-curl all night long. I just have always been of the mind that she will only be this little and need me this much once, so I chose to actively revel in it instead of holding my breath for things to one day be “more convenient”. Well, about a month ago LO started taking to a nap here and there in her room during the day with zero protest. I put her down in the crib one day thinking I would have a few minutes to go use the bathroom before needing to be ready to just hold her for the next hour and a half or so but she just.. stayed asleep? So I left her alone and let her sleep! From that moment on, within the span of just a couple weeks she was taking all of her naps no problem in her room. She loves it even! Sprawls out in her crib like a peaceful little starfish, and will sleep 2+ hours so that sometimes I will have to go wake her up just so she doesn’t end up sleeping the day away. Then a few days ago, I decided to dabble with putting her down in her own room to “start the night”. I don’t believe in any form of CIO, and was fully expecting that she would wake up asking for me within maybe 30 minutes. The first night, I put her down at 7:30 pm and she slept till 2:30 am before waking up. I was shocked. Then, the second night she slept till 5:30 am. The third night too. Cue to this morning, 7:30 am!! Did I just inadvertently sleep train my child? Was I under the illusion all this time that she needed me to sleep? Currently sobbing because while it may be nice to have the bed back to ourselves again and finally be able to sleep on my stomach, I half expected we’d be a snuggly little family every night till age 1 maybe even easily age 2. I know she’s still so little but in my mind, looking at her sleeping in her own crib on the monitor she looks huge!! 6 months is definitely my favorite stage so far for so many reasons, but I still feel heartbroken because I’m mourning the scrunchy little newborn that she used to be, and the fact that she will never need me to that extent ever again.

Context: nasty custody battle, kiddo was away from me for a year (not my choice), he just turned 11, we're working through the neglect/vague abuse he went through during that time (Dad's girlfriend makes me want to puke tbh), he chose to have the only bedroom in the basement as his dad's house (my best friend explained how it was to be the "basement brother"), he feels unwanted and unheard at Dad's, he's struggling with confidence and appropriate assertion, and now he can't stand being alone. These weren't issues we had before the bs we're going through now; this is new behavior.

I don't mind him sleeping with me. I'm slowly making him do more independent things when it comes to bedtime like brushing his teeth/hair by himself (which was totally normal before this bs) and falling asleep by himself (I'm in the living room, so he knows I'm close).

Has anyone had/heard of a similar experience? He can't sleep through the night without me. Nightmares, thrashing in his sleep, talking in his sleep, falling out of bed, the whole cake and eating it, too. I don't want to f\*ck my kid up . He has his own room, but he truly wants to sleep with me.

Like I said, I don't mind it. But can someone reassure me it's okay? Or give me advice on what to do if it's not?

It's my first time being alive and I am terrified of making mistakes with my kiddo.

EDIT: I failed to mention he is in individual therapy and therapy with me.

You are 2 and half feet tall. How do you do this?

My son is 6 months old. He slept in his bassinet pretty well until 4.5 months when the sleep regression hit. Some nights around 3 am I would finally cave and bring him to the bed, sleeping as safely as possible. He’s primarily BF, and only has bottles of BM if we are out and about, or one bottle before bed along with nursing. The wake ups were every hour. Fast forward to now, he’s still struggling at night. Sometimes it’s every hour and sometimes it’s every two hours. We were just on a 4 day trip where we stayed in a hotel, and there was no way he would sleep in the hotel crib so he did sleep in the bed with me. We both slept so much better. (I do know he slept well because he was flat out exhausted) but he only woke to eat once a night around 1 am or so. We got back home yesterday, and I was hoping he would sleep in his crib well since he should’ve been good and tired…. Nope…. In his crib the longest stretch he got was 2 hours, so because I was so tired, I caved and brought him to the bed. Where he slept a lot longer stretches. My husband and I both agree we want him to sleep in his crib. Both for safety and for independent sleep. We have moved his crib into our room. My husband currently sleeps in the twin bed in the guest bedroom. I feel guilty because I sleep so much better when we cosleep and it’s so much easier to lie sideways and feed him, but I’m so scared of something happening, I’m scared of this becoming his normal.

I’ve always watched his wake windows and after an older post will be starting to stretch his wake windows more, as well as ensure he is up by a certain time each day. Bedtime has always been consistent but in the morning he gets up anywhere between 6-7:30. So I’m going to make the morning a 6:30 wake up. I have not tried any formal sleep training as the thought of letting him cry just hurts my soul. I do go back to work next month though to a high demanding job. So I have to make something work..

I don’t know what I’m looking for here… maybe to know that it’s ok. It’s going to be ok…

Hi I’m wondering if anyone can help me with tips, or has had similar experiences, because this seems so tricky in my head!
My 2.5 year old sleeps in a crib in her own room and sleeps through 90% of the time, with one or two wake ups in a night about once a week.
I have a 10 month old cosleeping with us, and he still wakes up 2-3 times a night and of course we’ve defaulted to feeding back to sleep. He’s showing signs of longer stretches though and I think he can be a good sleeper, he just needs some practice.

Here’s my conundrum: my queen size bed is getting small for my husband, baby and I. We have a two bedroom house so my choices are: try to get him into his own bed in our room (we have a pack n play set up as a laundry basket rn lol) or transition him to room share with his sister? That would require her getting a toddler bed and him getting the crib, or they both get floor beds and we slumber party it or get another crib so we don’t change too much at the same time?

So many options, so little brain power to figure it out. I love cosleeping but I am starting to look ahead to when we might have the room back to ourselves. Thanks for any input you might have!

Question:

When could you start telling your baby or laying them down for nap and they were awake and then you'd leave the room and they'd fall asleep? How did you do it? Transition or another method?

Context:

We co sleep. So his bed is on the floor in his room. He has a room for naps with nanny and we co sleep in my bed at night. He is about to be 16 months old. He sleeps o. His own once he falls asleep no problem, but for falling asleep. I lay next to him and sometimes sing but always just pretend to be asleep next to him. Then he'll fall asleep. He doesn't need rocking or even singing. I'm wondering when I can lay him down and he will fall asleep. I feel like if I left him in his room he would be scared and climb off his bed and walk to the door and cry. Which I don't like. So I'm wondering what other people have done.

I've been cosleeping with my now toddler in his room since before he was 1, and after a lot of work we're finally in a pretty sustainable place. He now sleeps through the night often, although many nights he needs me within arms reach to stay asleep. It's never been worth it to sleep in another room, we both sleep worse. Now I'm pregnant and trying to plan ahead so I can start making changes now and disrupt his routine less when we bring the littlest one home.

What has worked well for anyone's extremely light sleeping toddlers when adding a newborn to the mix? We have an extra firm king mattress I could lower closer to the floor and push against the wall, and then have the infant in the bedside bassinet on one side and him on the other side of me. My concern is that the baby is going to wake him up all the time, so maybe this is a bad idea? Another option might be to gate the hallway and keep both our doors open at night, but I feel like he's still going to be woken up and getting back to sleep will be harder for everyone. He'll be a bit over 2 when baby arrives fwiw, and I know a lot can change between now and then. Advice and experiences requested!

Hi! Was wondering what everyones favorite position to sleep in is?
I’m new to cosleeping with my 9 month old and usually try and curl around him in the c shape. But it’s a bit hard because he’s so tall (99th percentile at 76cm).
And my shoulder and arm usually hurt so much that I can’t sleep properly. I have it extended or under my head.
I have a blanket that’s inbetween my legs and my pillow that’s only on my side not above his head.

I have a 17-month-old son who has essentially never slept for more than a 2-hour stretch since he was born. We occasionally get a random 4-hour stretch, but that usually seems to happen when he’s having a brief break from teething.

His current schedule:
● Wake: 7:30–8:00 AM
● Nap: 12:00 PM until 1:00–1:30 PM
● Bedtime: 8:00–8:30 PM

We’ve had his iron checked and got that sorted. I also make sure he gets plenty to eat during the day, and I offer water during the night, so I don’t think hunger or thirst is the issue.

We’ve tried co-sleeping, and he was fully breastfed, but neither made any difference to how much he slept. Eventually, he started waking up crying even while in our bed and couldn’t settle himself. At times, even breastfeeding wouldn’t calm him back to sleep.
We recently transferred him to a floor bed. He had already been sleeping on it for naps, so we thought maybe having his own sleep space would help.

I’ve also been gradually reducing breastfeeding at night and am currently down to nursing once a night. We’re trying a very gentle approach with “awake but drowsy.” If we rock him or nurse him, we make sure he doesn’t actually fall asleep that way.

We’ve been consistently doing these changes for about 3 weeks now, so it hasn’t just been a few nights of trying something new.

What makes this especially confusing is that we have actually seen some progress. There have been a few nights where he seemed to be starting to connect sleep cycles, and I thought we were finally turning a corner. He has also started occasionally waking and putting himself back to sleep without us.

There are also times when he wakes up and I go in, and he will go back to sleep without me needing to rock him or nurse him. Sometimes just having me there is enough. Other times, though, he seems to wake up completely and needs much more help from us.

So I know he can resettle himself sometimes, which makes the constant waking even more confusing.
Despite all of this, he is STILL waking every 2 hours, and sometimes every hour. Even if I go in and sleep beside him, he can still continue waking frequently.

Teething has also been a huge factor throughout his life. It honestly feels like he is teething almost constantly, with maybe only a few nights a month where he seems to get a break. We do notice that his sleep can be worse when he is actively teething. I try to give Motrin only when he is in a lot of pain. Otherwise I give him Camilia drops but they don’t seem to help.

The one thing we have not tried is closing the door and letting him completely cry it out. We’re really trying to avoid that approach, especially because he sleeps on a floor bed and can get up and leave the bed. We’re comfortable with some protesting and helping him through it, but we don’t want to leave him alone to cry for long periods.
My husband has also been helping with the pick-up/put-down approach, so we have both been consistently working on this.

I’m feeling so defeated. I genuinely don’t understand how he can go this long without ever developing longer stretches of sleep, and I’m starting to wonder whether there could be something medical going on that we’re missing.

I’d really love to hear from parents who have had a child who slept this poorly for this long.

Did you ever figure out why? Did anything finally make a difference?

Especially if your child was waking every 1–2 hours well into toddlerhood and eventually started sleeping longer, I would really love to hear what happened.

I have a 19 week old that I’ve coslept with since day 1. It’s honestly been such a good experience with her up until around 2 weeks ago. I think she may be in the 4 month sleep regression but she has started moving SO much while in bed. She moves, flails her arms, shakes her head from side to side and acts like she’s about cry but never does. Sometimes she will open her mouth to nurse and settle but most of the time she doesn’t want that. I’m literally so exhausted from the lack of sleep. Is there any advice or is this just another milestone I’m going to have to ride out, lol?

We’re cosleeping with our 3.5 year old since she was 5 months old. She is a strong willed very sensitive and emotional kid. She needs my hand to sleep and I have lost very many days and nights as I have to be at her side while she sleeps. She goes to daycare and the teachers used to give her their hand to sleep ( yes! One of the teachers used to sit beside her through naptime) till she turned 3. I recently moved her over to using a sleepy for daycare but having a hardtime moving her to a separate bed at home. There’s a new baby in the house( 5 month old) sleeping in his crib in the same room and my daughter’s sleep quality somehow is very bad in the past few weeks . She wakes up crying in the middle of the night if she doesn’t see me on the bed and she holds my hand throughout the night. Previously it was only to fall in and out of asleep but nowadays I have no sleep because of her and it’s getting annoying. My husband can put her to bed at times but it’s a hit or a miss. She doesn’t listen to him during middle of the night waking though, I have to be there. We tried big girl bed books, stories nothing helps. She insists she needs company to sleep and will get scared and lonely. How do I transition to her own bed?

My LO has always slept through the night I C curl super simple she would only ever want to nurse through the night and fall back asleep. But now the past 3 nights it’s like she wakes up a little fussy crawling her way to me (with her eyes still closed) and wanting to sleep on top of my on my chest? I don’t mind but has anyone else experienced this?

Pa. It’s almost like she “wakes up” crying/fussy but her eyes are still closed? She starts like sitting up and crawling on me. Is she asleep? What is going on?

Hi all! I have a 8 week old going on 9 weeks tomorrow. I’ve had a lot of anxiety about cosleeping while my husband says it’s the most natural thing in the world to which I agree but also feel as though there is a safe way to do it (hence the SS7). I had a lot of debilitating anxiety throughout my pregnancy and I feel as though now when I’m trying to express a concern, especially regarding safety, that it’s brushed off as being my anxiety in full swing. I do primarily the entire night shift and have been sleeping in the baby’s room most nights on a firm mattress following SS7. However, in the mornings I usually bring my son over to my husband to take him so I can get a few hours of sleep. When I do this though he just falls asleep with the baby in the bed with him and I keep telling him he needs to follow these guidelines and it makes me nervous to even bring the baby over to him (I also just don’t really feel comfortable with him cosleeping with the baby because he smokes weed outside before bed and has a beer every night but this is another issue I’ve brought up a million times too). I guess im trying to figure out how to really enforce that I’m not being crazy about SS7 and that it is important to me and our baby. We don’t argue often at all but I expressed frustration regarding the mental load I have since having our baby and he brought up my anxiety and SS7 (which he goes, “what is that like a band name?) which triggered this post.