wants to sleep in my bed

Help My 7 1/2 month old girl has developed the need to sleep in our bed. For the last 6 wweks she has not been sleeping at night very well and has been waking up screaming every 1 - 2 hours. She would sleep anywhere from 7 - 10 hours a night. When we put her in our bed she sleeps fine. This is fine but not everynight all nigh Can anyone give me an idea on how I can break this habbit and get her to sleep all nigh in her cot. We still have her cot in our room as she is not sleeping through. I have gone back to work in the last 3 weeks but she is still at home as my in laws are staying with us and looking after her during her day, otherwise nothing has changed. any ideas would be great HELP I need the sleep !!!!!!

Regards

Annette
the one with the bags under her eyes

Hi Anette

I hope you get a bit more sleep tonight. One way of looking at it is she must REALLY REALLY love you guys to want to spend so much time with you !

Wondering how she sleeps during the day ? Maybe you could try the same routine that you use during the day for the night sleep.

You could try moving the cot out of the bed, maybe out of sight out of mind may help !

Another thing that may work is to start wrapping your little one again. My baby is 6.5 months old and I had to start wrapping him again when he was 5 months old because he just wouldn't go to sleep. Even if you rocked him!

I am a new Mum so don't really have much idea ! Maybe you could ring your state child help number, ours in NSW is Tresillian. I have rang them before and they have been absolutely brilliant with real practical advice.

Hope it gets better

Kristy

Hi Annette,

So sorry to hear you're having such a struggle. We had some very similar problems with our daughter which started a little earlier than your little girl, but just like you I know how helpless it feels when there doesn't seem to be a way out.

I won't go into heaps of detail as the story gets kind of drawn out, but the main point is that I was basically on the verge of falling apart. Not enough sleep plus grumpy baby all the time from her not having enough sleep and I wasn't even having to go to work!

Anyways, the only thing that really helped was a book that a friend loaned me called 'On Becoming Baby Wise'. A lot people don't seem to have the patience to give it a go, but believe me, it really works. It is just based on the idea that good sleeping patterns and routines are learned just like everything else and then teaches you how to teach your baby. It's obviously a little more difficult starting late like we did (as opposed to having the info from the start) but well worth the pay-off.

Alynta was out of our bed in less than a week and now sleeps 7.30pm - 7.30am then 10.30-12 and 2.30-4.30.

I'm definitely no expert parent, but the principals we learned in the book definitely worked miracles.

Would love to hear how you go. Thinking of you.

Hi Annette, reading your story brought bad all the bad memories of trying to get our daughter Jorja to sleep thru the night (unsuccessfully!!) - until 3 weeks ago. Jorja is now 9mths old and sleeps thru 6 out of 7 nights from 6.30pm to 5.30am. We were at our wits end when I went to see a clinic nurse. She basically said that we were doing everything wrong - rocking her, pacing the hallways with her, feeding her thru the night, letting her sleep in our bed etc. I couldn't see how we could do anything differently but alas there was hope!! I watched a video called 'A Good Night's Sleep' - available thru most clinic health places. Basically sleeping is a learned thing and we weren't teaching Jorja right. What I found out and have used every night since is this - the feed, play, sleep routine. You must have a routine. I give Jorja her solid food at 5pm. Play for 1 hour, bath at 6pm, play for 20 mins, bottle and then into bed by 6.30pm AWAKE! Jorja sleeps on her tummy and has music playing (Norah Jones is the selection this week!). I stand over her and pat her on the bum for 2 minutes. Walk out of the room for 2 minutes and let her cry. 4 minutes in, 4 minutes out. 6 in, 6 out. 8 in, 8 out and so on. She is usually asleep on the 2 minute pat but some babies are persistant. We NEVER pick her up once she is in her cot (unless this is a problem - vomitting etc). We don't look at her and we don't talk to her once she is in her cot. It was really hard the first couple of nights as she was so used to being picked up the minute she cried. But after night 2, she slept thru the night - yeah! I would definately recommend this routine to you. I can go into more detail if you like in another email but the main points are the feed, play, sleep routine, the 2,4,6,8 minute routine and don't pick your baby up thru the night. It seems mean but believe me, most babies will thank you for it if they could.

Hope this helps,
Belinda.