Sleeping in a cot is overrated!

When Charlie was born, he slept quite well, on average 5 hours at a time then up for a wee feed and back over for about 3 hours. I was happy enough with this arrangement but then when the 4 month sleep regression hit, it all went to pot.

Up until a few months ago, Charlie co-slept with me, with his cot attached onto our bed. It wasn’t ideal but this arrangement worked for us. Charlie’s sleep was pretty non-existent most nights wakening on average 5-6 times, so it felt like I was at least getting a bit of rest lying down feeding him multiple times a night.

Recently though I decided it was time to move Charlie to his nursery to see if his sleep would improve. Instead it went from bad to horrendous! I was at my wits end so I reached out to other mums on Facebook asking for sleep tips and advice. I got a lot of advice, info on sleep techniques and information for sleep specialists. I was if I’m honest a bit overwhelmed by the amount of advice and everyone’s opinion on what would make Charlie sleep better.

One thing I was adamant about was after researching sleep methods, I was not prepared to let Charlie cry it out at all! So I was relieved that there was a technique which emphasised the no crying approach. I read up on Jay Gordon’s no cry sleep solutions and was seriously considering this as a possible sleep training method to try and follow.

Problem is, I am quite weak at night time, I give in too easily. I knew following a sleep training method myself wouldn’t be easy so I was also curious about the sleep specialists too. Could someone give me a tailored plan that if followed, Charlie would sleep. I would also be held accountable by the sleep expert if I wasn’t following their advice, but the price was making me hesitate as they are quite expensive.

I decided we needed to try a few other alternatives before I would fork out for a specialist. So I started with the simple things, playing relaxing music every night, using a lovely aromatherapy oil to massage his feet.

We did this routine for a number of nights and although the sleep didn’t get much better, I stuck with it. Then one Saturday night, Charlie was being particularly difficult to get over to sleep. He was feeding and then climbing down off my knees and lying on the floor and repeating a dozen times. He wasn’t crying or giving out, so instead of lifting him up immediately I thought I’d just leave him to it. I was fed up and quietly screaming in my head, despairing at the thought of another long night of no sleep. I realised I’d been sitting in the armchair in his nursery for about 5 minutes and heard nothing. I leaned down to Charlie and he was asleep on the floor!

I crept out and went downstairs to watch a movie with Davy convinced he would be awake in the usual 30-40 minutes of going over. Three hours later and he woke up for a quick feed and then back onto the floor for 5 hours! It was fantastic! When he woke on Sunday morning at 5.30am, I was so well rested, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and we just got up to play in his nursery.

The next day feeling quite smug about this new sleeping arrangement, I googled if it was safe to let a toddler sleep on the floor before I got carried away with myself! There were a few articles on how it isn’t safe due to dust particles in carpets and safety concerns but there were also a number of articles mentioned a theory called Montessori.

The child’s mattress is on the ground so that they have the independence to leave their bed and play and move about freely if they want to. It backed up my idea to let Charlie sleep on the floor on his cot mattress so we went with it. The cot was moved out and the mattress positioned on the floor. We even borrowed my parent’s cot mattress to make the floor sleeping arrangement slightly bigger. Charlie is such an active mover in his sleep, rolling about hitting off the sides of the cot, so I was hopeful this sleep arrangement would work.

We are now about 3 weeks into the sleeping on the floor arrangement and although Charlie’s sleep was slightly better for the first couple of nights sleeping longer periods between feeds, he has still had a fair few restless nights as well. I honestly don’t know why he wakes so often, it’s the million-dollar question, but Charlie has been teething again and he did have a cough for a couple of nights which didn’t help the sleeping situation.

My next stage in the night time saga, is to try slowly and gently wean Charlie off feeding altogether. Over the last week I have managed to drop the remaining feeds in the early evening when I come home from work. Normally Charlie would have rushed to me and straight away been clawing at my top for a feed. Now I still pick him up and cuddle him but we distract him and get his dinner into him asap to curb any ideas of being hungry.

As Charlie now only feeds at bedtime and through the night, I need to work out how I can get Charlie to fall asleep without a feed at all through the night! Although I am not in any rush yet, I enjoy our wee night feeds together now and feel moving him to a floor sleeper and dropping the evening feeds is enough for now.

What I have learnt over the last 17months is that the sleep routine has changed over and over again and no two nights are the same in our household.