Help - sleepless mama and baby

[jgirl77]

My DS is 13wks and has always been a great sleeper until now (I promise I did appreciate the sleep!). We're trying to get him into the cot from the bassinette. We moved the cot into our room and have followed the exact same bedtime routine. He will sleep for a few hours then wake up, then I try everything - rocking, dummy, shushing.. but I don't really want to feed him cos I know he's just waking up cos he's in a new bed not hungry (and I don't want him to start getting used to feeding at night). Usually by 5am I give in and put him back in the bassinette so we can all get some sleep.
Can anyone give me any tips on how to make the transition easier for both of us?

[mum2charli]

The only thing I can think of is wrapping him (if you don't already) to make him feel more secure. The bassinet would have been more cosy, comforting than the big cot. It took my DD a few nights to get used to it as well and I found that wrapping her and tucking her sheet and blanket in tightly helped to make her feel more secure.

Hope that helps....sorry I don't have any other ideas :thumbsup:

[sueliz]

Ah - welcome to the land of major growth spurts!!!

The good news here is it may not be the transitiion from basinette to cot that has caused interruption of routine, but babies have a pretty major growth spurt around this time and seem to throw their routine right out the window!!
You may actually need to give him a couple of extra feeds for the next few days as he could well really be hungry.
The same thing happened to us with our DS, to my best friend, my sister-in-laws, and so many other mums I have spoke to. In fact, my best friend warned me about this before it happened which was great preparation for when it did!

[jgirl77]

mum2charli - yep I do wrap him as well - though he's a little houdini no matter how well I wrap him.

sueliz - that's interesting. I wonder if I should hold off moving him (I just don't know if it's still safe to keep him in the bassinette as he tends to move around now). We're going away at Easter so I wanted to get him used to sleeping somewhere new as he'll be in a portacot then (not mine but a hired one). Any idea how long the growth spurt lasts?

[babyluv]

Hey there
Know exactly what u r going through. Had to move bub into a cot on tuesday and hadthe worst sleep he has ever had!
All I did was just nurse him off to sleep then lay him gently in there for the first night this seldom worked but by the next day I stuck with it through the day and now we r good. He sleeps on his own in there. I did wrap and give him a dummy to help but yeah.
Also my bub has been unsettled generally andthe midwife at mothers group said that he is just going through a change and most bubs do this at 3-4 months and then settle beautifully.
Good luck
Amy

[sueliz]

sueliz - that's interesting. I wonder if I should hold off moving him (I just don't know if it's still safe to keep him in the bassinette as he tends to move around now). We're going away at Easter so I wanted to get him used to sleeping somewhere new as he'll be in a portacot then (not mine but a hired one). Any idea how long the growth spurt lasts?

Hey there!

Usually around 5 days or so from what I remember. Then all of a sudden, it was back to normal! I did need to give him extra feeds during this time though, so he was actually feeding around every 3 hours during the day whereas normally he could go every 4 hours. I needed to do the 2.00am feed again for a few days as well.

When I made the transition from basinette to portacot, (we had this set up i our room as we had air con in our room and DS's room where the cot was set up was just far too hot!), I wrapped him and had him sleeping on the basinette mattress in the cot. I made sure this was in the middle of the cot so that if he rolled off, he wouldn't be caught between the extra mattress and the side of the cot. (He didn't actually move around that much though when wrapped).
It might not be ideal and seem like it could be a hazrad, but we had one of those angelcare monitors set up underneath so if he rolled off or anything the alarm would go off anyway.
Good luck - let us know how you go! :)

[jgirl77]

Thanks girls - we decided to make it a slower transition and have placed the bassinette in the cot for the last 2 nights and he has slept easily with no problems. Tonight will be the big night when we take the bassinette out of the cot. Will hopefully be ok. He has slept yesterday in the cot for day sleeps so I'm feeling more confident now.
Thanks for all your help!