Baby can only sleep while nursing

She is 7 months old and it didn’t bother me that much before because I just would rot in bed with her on my phone, but it’s seriously driving me nuts now. She goes to bed very early at like 6 PM because she wakes up so early, 5 AM, no matter what time I put her to sleep she’ll wake up at 5-5:30. Anyway, this would be fantastic because I would have all evening to do whatever, but I don’t since she won’t sleep alone. I’m forced to go to bed with her. This has left zero time for me and my husband to spend any time together and I’m rushed all before bed to cook and eat dinner and do homework as I’m in college. This has started to seriously put a weight on my mental state but I refuse to do cry it out. I never let her cry and now we have a nanny while I’m at school who she cries with like the whole time so I’m even more against it as I feel she cries enough with her. Hope that makes sense. Anyway, for moms who went through babies who wouldn’t sleep alone, what did you do? I try to just remind myself “they’re only little once” but I have zero time to myself and I need the evenings to start to feel like a human again.

I’m right there with you with my 4.5 month old. Hope you get advice because I’ve been asking in so many places for over a month and no one can help me. I’m slowly losing it.

Keller said:
I’m right there with you with my 4.5 month old. Hope you get advice because I’ve been asking in so many places for over a month and no one can help me. I’m slowly losing it.

Same here!

Keller said:
I’m right there with you with my 4.5 month old. Hope you get advice because I’ve been asking in so many places for over a month and no one can help me. I’m slowly losing it.

CIO or just live with it are two answers I’m sick of hearing lol.

@Laken
I refuse to do CIO. I am also tired of being told “it’s temporary!” “It goes by so fast!” It’s just unhelpful and dismissive. I have had some success with holding and rocking to sleep alongside music, but it’s so time-consuming, and I’m so exhausted. I need to be consistent.

@Keller
Completely agree.

@Laken
I keep seeing a lady on TikTok who teaches gentle sleep training (no crying involved). She has lots of videos explaining her method so you don’t have to pay for courses or anything unless you feel like you need extra help. Kendra Worth.

Just sending some love, this was me. Mine would only fall asleep nursing and I was trapped for naps, for overnight, just all the time. I’d eat things lying down, only use plastic forks to not make noise, like it was crazy. I definitely felt a lot of judgement from extended family for ‘giving in to it.’ A few things I realized after the fact - first that I could/should unlatch her when she was just nursing for comfort but asleep and done eating. I really thought it would wake her but realized it usually didn’t. After that, I could sneak away while she slept too, but often didn’t fearing she’d wake up. I absolutely could’ve started sneaking away sooner.

@Jaden
Thank you, as I too feel slightly ridiculed for my choices. My husband won’t even tell his side of the family what we do because they’re so judgy. They say all the time how I baby her, so we know it’ll just make it worse (I baby my baby? Crazy :rage:). I try to unlatch her; half the time she’s fine, other half she’ll wake up and restart the process. And when I do unlatch with success sometimes, even if I sneak away, she wakes up 15 minutes later, so I’m right back which almost is more frustrating than just laying there and giving in. I try to let her lay on her tummy as everyone says that’ll get a deeper sleep, but she doesn’t like it and just lifts up and gets frustrated. I appreciate knowing it’s not just me though. :heart:

@Laken
Yeah 100% I got so much crap for it, but you cannot spoil your baby. Mine’s 3 now and great, we have a great bond. In the early months, mine would also wake when unlatching, which kinda trained me not to do it. I think just at some point it will work, so just keep trying. Because I gave up trying and definitely stayed in bed much longer than was probably needed. I’ll say too, when I gave in and bought a Woolino sleep sack (after she was done with swaddles), it seriously improved her sleep. It’s so good at temperature regulation, I think she was waking up from being cold or something before. I mean I was cold co-sleeping with no blanket :joy:.

@Jaden
Definitely. Like the $100 sleep sack? I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get really desperate lol.

Laken said:
@Jaden
Definitely. Like the $100 sleep sack? I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get really desperate lol.

Yeah it’s expensive, but it also lasts soooo long. We bought the 18-month one finally around like 14 months I want to say, and she still wears it at 3 years. People resell them too, so you can watch for BST groups.

@Jaden
Oh really? Wow, good to know!

Laken said:
@Jaden
Definitely. Like the $100 sleep sack? I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get really desperate lol.

Which one is $100?

Sutton said:

Laken said:
@Jaden
Definitely. Like the $100 sleep sack? I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get really desperate lol.

Which one is $100?

Woolino, I had never heard of it; just looked it up and was a little surprised lol.

@Laken
Thanks for sharing! Yes lol, many things make me surprised with baby products! Some things I think would be cheap are expensive and vice versa.

Sutton said:
@Laken
Thanks for sharing! Yes lol, many things make me surprised with baby products! Some things I think would be cheap are expensive and vice versa.

Same here!

@Laken
For what it’s worth, people say that it’s actually worth the money. Since it’s merino wool, it keeps baby warm in the cold and cool in the heat. The one that’s $109 is for 2 months - 2 years. So instead of buying multiple sleep sacks per season and per age, you just have one or two Woolinos. I can’t speak from personal experience though. I’ve just read a lot about them since I’m thinking about getting one.

The book ‘Precious Little Sleep’ has some tips for slowly weaning the sucking sleep association. Might be helpful. Maybe you can get it from your local library?

Vesper said:
The book ‘Precious Little Sleep’ has some tips for slowly weaning the sucking sleep association. Might be helpful. Maybe you can get it from your local library?

Thank you :heart: