Transitioning to the cot. Help!

[modified]

My daughter is almost a year old and has slept in bed with me since day 1. I'm a single parent who likes baby cuddles through the night so it has worked incredibly well up until now.

I currently don't have a bed frame so we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Pixie has started waking up and moving about, not waking me up. Many times I've woken to her playing on the floor. Given the mattress is on the floor, this is okay but I do plan on having a bed frame somewhat soon. I initially though of getting a bed guard but I'd need to buy multiple to cover the entire bed and there's still no telling if she'll hoist herself over that too. She's also starting to wake up more when I eventually go through to bed and sometimes takes hours to get back to sleep.

So really, despite myself not being ready for this, it needs to happen.

Last night, I went to bed at about 12:30. When I went in woke up so I picked her up, put her in the cot and lay on my mattress with my arm through the bars resting on her stomach.

At first she rolled and babbled and stood up and sat down and stood up and pushed her legs through the bars and fell down and stood up and cried once. When she cried, I got up, lay her back down, gave her a kiss, lay down myself and put my arm through the bars. She took my hand in hers and rolled a bit and babbled a bit then her foot poked out the bars, her head hit the pillow and she went to sleep.

Ah, I hated it! When she was, eventually, asleep, I removed my arm from the bars and it took me forever to fall asleep without cuddling her. I missed her D': But I need to get over that.

Now this morning, I tried to do similar. Took her through to the room, lay her in the cot, gave her a kiss, told her I loved her and I lay down on my mattress, arm through the cot bars.

Nope. She was having none of it. After an hour, I gave up, put her in my bed and she was asleep within minutes.

She's been cuddled to sleep every nap time and every night.

I don't know how to break this in the least painful way possible for us both... help please!

 

[SoupDragon]

No advice, but just wanted to comiserate as we're in a similar boat. DD slept beside me most of the night from day 1, either in a cosleeping crib or in our bed. She used to settle to sleep in her own space just fine, but then the 4 month regression hit at the same time as a 5 week bout of diarrhoea, and now she needs cuddling to sleep except if she falls asleep in the car.

I get her to sleep in my arms and lay her in the cot, and she's just started spending the whole night in there instead of coming in with me partway through the night, basically because she hasn't woken to be fed.

I'd also be interested to hear how to get LOs to settle to sleep without being dependent on cuddles, though if it's a case of wait-it-out, that's fine, she's not going to want me to cuddle her forever...but I can't/won't do cry-it-out. More concerned for daytime naps when she starts at the childminder in a few weeks, though she will cuddle her to sleep if required!

I hope you find your answer soon!

 

[modified]

No, I won't do CIO either. I would totally, and very happily, cuddle her in my arms and put her down but she won't go to sleep that way! And hasn't for a long, long time. We literally have to be lying down in bed with one arm under her, one over her. If she had a cot bed, it'd be fine - I'd be more than happy to climb right in there and cuddle her to sleep for as long as she needed but I don't, hers is a small space saver one and I don't have the money for anything else.

Sigh!

 

[SoupDragon]

I've only recently started being able to lay DD down for daytime naps...my mum got her a toddlepod and she sleeps well in it Sometimes she wakes up before she's ready to, and then I'll pick her up and cuddle her for the rest of her nap, but most of the time she's ok. I always had her tucked in under my arm at night but now she's a 100% tummy sleeper she prefers to be just next to me. I'm hoping this is actually the start of her learning to sleep through, especially as I'm going back to work soon.

I really just don't know where to start with getting her to fall asleep in her cot at all!

 

[modified]

Well I took her through about 10-15 minutes ago. Got into my bed like usual, cuddled and rocked like usual. When she closed her eyes, I got up and put her in the cot.

She woke up fully before she was in the cot so I just lay her down, pulled the quilt over her and sat down next to the cot, my arm on her side (she's a side sleeper), rocking her like I do in bed. It's not ideal but I figured it's a start?

 

[smurff]

I'm having same trouble, we Co slept with our LG till she was 18 months, we were having another baby and it wasn't fair that the new baby would disturb her so we put her in her own room she went straight in straight to sleep and she's never come in bed with us since and that was over a year ago. My lb on the other hand won't even go in his own room let alone in the cot, he's 14 months now and we try putting him in awake and he just screams, we put him in asleep and he just wakes up and screams. I don't believe in controlled crying so I guess we'll just have to persevere

 

[modified]

She;s actually slept in her cot every night since I first tried. I put her in awake but sleepy and sit with my arm through the bars rocking her.

But she's waking up through the night multiple times so I end up taking her into my bed. I think her cot is too small. It's a very small space saver cot and she's a massive fidget in her sleep so I believe she's hitting body parts off the side and that's what's waking her up... I don't know how to fix that - I can't afford a full sized cot