My 4 Month Old Still Sleeps on Me

Hi A.,
I don't know what to tell you about the sleeping situation. My daughter has gone through all sorts of different sleep patterns. She slept in her room on her bed for a while and at 2 years, she began crawling back in bed with us. When she did this, she would crawl on top of me and lay there and sleep on me. If I dumped her off of me, she clung on for dear life and I for a while I could not break her of it.

Now she is stealth. We don't even notice she has crawled in bed with us. Before we know it, she is in the middle. For a while I would wake up and take her back to her bed. At this point we have left her alone and my husband and I say to her every night...see you about 2 a.m.

My 8-year-old son was a terrible sleeper! He slept in our bed and napped on my chest until he was 3- I had to put a stop to it since I became pregnant with twins. He literally came into our bed every night for the better part of 7 years. When my twins arrived, I vowed to never let them in my bed. I read the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". While it is not easy to break a bad habit, it is definitely possible with practice. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I know the co-sleeping really interferred with my older son's sleep and did not allow him to get the amount of sleep he needed.
I recommended this book to a friend that had a baby almost 2 years ago. She was also going thru a similar experience. Now her daughter naps for 3 hours a day and sleeps 12 hours at night.
Good luck!

Have you found any information on attachment parenting or co-sleeping?

You might be surprised at how you helping her physical and emotional health develop.

You are right to be concerned with tummy sleeping, but try not to get too paranoid - chances are your daughter will be all right on her tummy. I don't know what to tell you about the sleep thing other than that my son didn't sleep through the night until he was almost three. I tried every method in every book and was very consistent with each - it took me a couple of years to get through them all.... by the time I had finally read the last book out there I was fed up and decided that he just needed to be with me. I "gave in" and let him sleep as close as possible... within months he decided he wanted to be in his own bed in his room! The nursing all night got very exhausting and at 15 months old I let him cry basically all night for a couple of nights while I held him and told him it was time to sleep, not eat. He got the idea, and didn't ask to nurse in the night anymore, but still woke up in the night every couple of hours needing a back rub or hug, or drink of water... I think some babies are just awful sleepers, it sucks, but that's life. Now that I think about it I realize it was only three years of my whole life that I spent catering to his nighttime needs - in the moment it felt like it was a neverending nightmare, but now I realize that life will be normal again - until my next baby arrives this summer!!! :):)

Try letting her sleep on her tummy then. At 4.5 months she should be able to hold up her head. PUT NOTHING else in the crib with her. I have gone through the same thing that you are. My son and I still have our belly snuggle time in the morning, but he sleeps all night in his crib on his belly. He refused to sleep on his back ever since birth so I just flipped him over and he slept soundly. This is actually good for developing core muscles which will get your baby up and moving earlier.

I had this situation too. We always held our daughter when she was young, since we walked and rocked her, and were so in love with her cute sleeping form that we couldn't put her down! (Big softies!) But there came a day when she wouldn't fall asleep on her own either, so we had to change it up. What worked for me was I started breaking this habit in stages. I would lay her on the bed next to me before I nursed her, and actually nursed her on her side. Then i would lay next to her/close to her until she started to fall asleep. As she started getting used to this, I would have her lay a little further from me. And she got used to not only falling asleep on her back, but not being super close to me (for convenient all-night nursing). It took us about a week, or so, but it was well worht it. Hope this helps.

20 years ago they said to only put babies on their tummies, now it's back to sleep. It's really what they prefer. Try sleeping with her snuggled into your side on her side. Feed her on your side. Do what's most comfortable. I can't imagine you're getting enough sleep the way things are now. Try swaddling. I know she's a bit old, but it couldn't hurt to try.

At 4 months, it's fine to let her sleep on her tummy as long as she is able to lift her head on her own. We had a very similar situation where my daughter would not sleep for any longer than 1-2 hours in her crib without waking. At 4 months, our pediatrician said it was okay to put her on her tummy. It was like an immediate miracle cure for bad sleeping for her... the first night she slept from 7pm to 2am!! We've seen an amazing improvement with usually just 1 or 2 wakings per night. Since then she has also managed to sleep through the night (11 hrs) on a few nights! Try the tummy, it worked for us! Good luck.