u/Large-Implement4838

Hey everyone I’m honestly not sure if this is the right sub so let me know if it’s not! I tried the sleep training sub but damn they’re fucking rude over there.

I’ve been cosleeping with my baby pretty much since birth. Just a high needs baby and absolutely not ever been willing or will be willing to let him cry himself to sleep.

I’m just wondering if anyone here maybe has had any luck with gently transitioning baby to their own sleep space? I’d love to be done breastfeeding by 1 year, and get back to sharing the bed with my partner. Don’t get me wrong I’ve honestly loved the closeness cosleeping has brought us. And I’m not willing to push any kind of method my baby won’t tolerate. But like I said it would be nice to just get him happy in his own sleep space, not even expecting him to STTN. Any advice?

Hey everyone! I’m looking for some possible insight/advice/solidarity if anyone reads this and feels their baby was the same/similar and have anything to add?

From birth, by baby refused all sleep that wasn’t on my chest. The second I’d put him down he’d wake crying within 5 minutes. He would never settle with the “give him a chance” approach, he’d always escalate. Me and my partner took shifts holding him, looking back I’m not sure how we survived!

He is now almost 6 months old and since around 3 months he sleeps happily beside me in bed in the C curl position. I never planned on co sleeping - it’s never something I believed in or wanted for us. But it’s happened out of desperation and the need for some sleep. My partner sleeps on the couch and I don’t sleep well with no duvet - it’s miserable sometimes lol! As much as I love to snuggle my baby and will miss having him close one day - it’s just not sustainable and I want so badly for him to sleep in his own cot.

He is very high needs. We have tried Ferber briefly but I’ll be honest I can’t listen to the cries they are so desperately sad and panicked, he does not self soothe. The second he’s picked up again he calms. We have been trying the pick up put down method. He is definitely learning something from it because last night for the first time ever, I placed him down drowsy (after the 9th pick up) and he fell asleep on his back in the cot! However he then woke 5 minutes later crying again. This happened another 2 times before I brought him into my bed for the night, we’ll try again tonight. I’m thinking because bed time was dragged out over an hour due to not feeding him to sleep in my bed and him resisting sleep, this made him overtired and he couldn’t settle.

I suppose I’m just wondering if anyone has had success with more gentle methods, and how long it took? I’m in no way judging people who choose CIO or Ferber - I just know my baby doesn’t have the temperament for it.

I’m not expecting baby to sleep through the night, he is exclusively breastfed and I’m happy to do up to 3 night wakes honestly! I just wish he would sleep independently in his own space for safety and sanity reasons. Also I plan on strictly weaning from BF at 1 year so would be ideal if he wasn’t co sleeping as well by then.

I will add that in terms of a schedule it’s different every day tbh as his naps are very unpredictable - he’s never been a great napper. Sometimes he’ll only do one sleep cycle so he’ll wake at 40 min mark and is grumpy and very tired before the 2 hr mark, sometimes he’ll sleep 2hrs and his next wake window will be almost 3 hours! I know this probably isn’t ideal when it comes to sleep training so any advice on how to get him onto a somewhat proper schedule would be appreciated too.

Thanks if you read this far! lol