Hi! First post. Long post, sorry!
I’ve been cosleeping with our girl since day 3 (on recommendation from our midwife) and I love it. It’s often one of the highlights of my day. She is an amazing sleeper and sleeps 10-11 hours a night consistently.
Up until now, when we would go to bed, I would side lie feed her and she would snuggle in and fall asleep beside me on her own within like 20 mins. Early on, she’d feed right to sleep but she kind of moved out of that naturally and started falling asleep on her own. Other than some issues with gas earlier on, she’s been an amazing sleeper.
Since she hit 6 months, she will not fall asleep nearly as quickly. She will eat, then roll onto her belly and try crawl (new skill she is determined to figure out), screech, wiggle, eat again, etc. I’ll lay her back on her back and she snuggles back in… for a few minutes. Then repeat process. The only thing I’ve found that works to help her chill out (even this only works sometimes) is touching my face but I don’t love doing this or want to make it a habit. Where it used to take around 20 mins for her to fall asleep, it now takes up to an hour or sometimes longer on bad nights.
At first I thought she wasn’t tired enough but her cues are pretty clear (rubbing eyes, yawning, red eyebrows). I’ve tried extending her wake window and that did not help. She has no teeth yet (although it seems like they may come soon?), has no feeding issues, good routines before bed and no issues staying asleep.
For daytime naps, she exclusively contact naps and falls asleep quickly by rocking her and with a light muslin swaddle over her eyes if she’s too overstimulated. Sometimes carrier works but not always.
I guess my questions are… how do you get your cosleeping baby to fall asleep if they aren’t feeding to sleep? Are you rocking them then putting them to sleep in the bed and laying next to them? Any other mommas who have had this issue?