Dear mummies and daddies,
My LO is now 6 months old and is truly a bundle of joy for us. She's been going through so many changes in the last week (rolling over both ways, sitting up unaided and creeping around on her belly). As a result, her sleep seems to be affected and I was wondering if anyone else has gone through the same at this stage, and what I should do about it.
From about 3 months old, we started timed comforting for her sleeps, and she got to a stage where I could put her down in her moses drowsy, and she would self settle herself to sleep without a fuss. We moved to a big girl cot last week, and initially was sleeping in her Moses, in the cot, but now we've taken her Moses away. As a result, when she stirs, suddenly she's rolling around in her big co bed, instead of self settling back to sleep.
Would anyone recommend using a sleep positioner, to 'strap' her in place? Or should I just let her roll around the cot, even though its waking her up, and just ride this stage out? I was looking at this sleep positioner:
amazon.co.uk/Snoozzz-Sleep-...
Alternatively, using a sleep positioner may just be delaying the inevitable...one day, we will have to take the sleep positioner away (it goes up to 3 years, and looks like it packs easily for travel, though).
Secondly, she now screams and screams when I try to put her down and wants to be nursed to a very drowsy state before being put down to sleep. On the one hand, she's still very teeny, and if she needs comforting by mummy then I want to give that to her. On the other hand, she'd been self settling for the past 2 months, and by nursing her to sleep now, am I undoing all our hard work and creating a 'bad habit'? I fear I am giving her mixed messages, because I always try to put her down when she's full, clean, and showing some sleepy cues like yawning but not super-sleepy, (in the hope that she will self settle) A couple of minutes after I leave the room, she starts crying , and her crying escalates so much, that within 10 minutes, I'm in there nursing her to sleep. I'm just worried that she is going to learn that if she cries loudly and for long enough, I'll be in there to nurse her to sleep.
According to the Wonder Weeks chart, she's in the middle of a developmental leap, so maybe I should wait till she's out of this stormy period before I try self settling again.
Sorry for the long email, but any thoughts/ advice/ anecdotes would be much appreciated
Thanks