Is it possible to sleep train and bedshare?

I’m NOT ready to stop bedsharing with my almost seven month old daughter (30w today) but I also need better sleep. It takes too long to get her asleep in the evenings (around an hour) which involves her falling asleep on mine or DH shoulder after walking with her, then we try our best to get into bed without waking her. She has a routine, we give her a bath at the same time every night, followed by some outside time with exposure to cool air, which calms her rather than wakes her. She used to nurse to sleep but lately she will finish feeding and insist on being rocked instead. She does this for naps too.

She also didn’t used to mind sleeping by my side, in the alcove of my arm, but now she insists on sleeping on our chests, which limits are movements in bed and gets uncomfortable because she now weighs seven kilos. If she wakes up she will cry until one of us gets up and walks with her again, then it’s the same tricky business of getting back into bed without waking her. DH helps if I ask him, otherwise this is all me.

I need her to self soothe better. I need better quality sleep. I never wanted to “sleep train” but I think I’ve pushed myself to my absolute physical limit, and now something needs to be done. My lack of sleep is starting to get seriously unhealthy and isn’t benign anymore. But, as I said, we’re NOT ready to stop bedsharing so telling me that I should do that is just pointless. I just need more hours sleep.

Tonight (it’s the middle of the night here) I tried to encourage her to self soothe instead of walking her for the fourth time. I laid her in my arms and stroked her belly and whispered to her in the same way I do when I’m walking with her. She kept her eyes closed and she whimpered a lot and reached for me, on the edge of full blown crying the whole time, some tears breaking through, but I think I did sense some progress. It was just new for her. I tried to keep going for as long as I could but she would keep getting so close to sleep, but not quite crossing the finish line, so many times. A pacifier did not work, she’s not used to one anyway so I didn’t think it would. I tried comforting her for over half an hour til I couldn’t stand her pain any longer and I felt it was emotionally affecting us. So I got up and walked her. But the first twenty minutes or so just felt like she was learning a new skill, as I said, until it turned and I could sense emotional damage to her, so I immediately responded.

I’m looking for advice to improve my quality of sleep whilst continuing bedsharing with my daughter. I think you need to have bedshared to understand what I‘m going through. Maybe I should have comforted her in intervals? It’s hard to step back.

And don’t even think about criticising my choice to bedshare. It’s MY daughter, we do it safely, and it is what is best for MY family.

Thanks, I’m looking forward to good advice x