Hi everyone, I'm new to the forums and not too sure how this all works but would love some advice...
I have an 11 month old son and every night ends up sleeping in bed with me!
I will give you an outline of his daily routine...
We are up at about 7-8am and has breakfast, stays up for about an hour or 2 then goes down (after a breastfeed, dummy, light wrap and rocking) for a sleep for an hour in his cot, but when he wakes I rock him again and he will usually go back to sleep for roughly another hour in my arms.
When he wakes up next its time for lunch and again stays up for roughly 2-3 hours then will have an afternoon sleep where again he will have a breastfeed, dummy, light wrap and rocked to sleep, put in his cot to sleep for about an hour then I will rock him to sleep again and he will sleep for another hour in my arms.
When he wakes its about time for tea, bath and play and stays up about 4-5 hours. At around 8pm its time for a breastfeed,dummy, light wrap and rocked until asleep, and put into his cot. This is where the fun starts....
Now if he goes to sleep and into his cot at 830-9pm then he will wake at least 2 or 3 times before midnight. When he wakes during this time I just put the dummy back in, rock him again and put him back in the cot.
Now I admit I am lazy and this is where the problem is as I know I've created this bad habit, because now after midnight I've had enough of the constant rocking and in and out of the cot so I just put him in with me and here he will stay until morning. But even with being in bed with me he still wakes and is on and off the boob all night, so I still don't get all that much sleep.
A good night is when he wakes maybe twice but other nights he'll wake more often and be very restless.
I spoke with a child health nurse who advised me just to wrap him and that giving him a rock was ok and put him in his cot. I did try this and it made no difference. I also bought a book on sleeping babies. I tried the suggestions with no luck just a lot of crying and a very upset little boy who became very clingy. I don't want to go through that again, I don't want him to have to cry to go to sleep.
So having said all this if anyone has any good advice I am willing to give it a go as he needs to sleep in his cot not with his mum, he needs to be able to go to sleep without all the aides that I currently use to get him asleep and we both need sleep - decent sleep. I cant tell you all how frustrated and snappy I get that my 2 older children and husband suffer so much.
So please help.
Thanks to all who reply....coconut xx