I have a 10 month old daugheter has been sleeping thru the night for a couple of months now, waking up around 9 am. I started putting her in her crib alone and letting her fall asleep. She would wake up in the middle of the night look around grab her pacifier and go right back to sleep. Recently she has been fighting to go to sleep alone. She wants me to hold her or lay with her while she falls asleep. Once she asleep then I can lay her in the crib. She doesnt even take naps during the day anymore, and when she does I still have to hold her. She only naps about 20 -30 min. She has also been waking up in the middle of the night crying. I tried comforting her, I give her pacifier and put her down, I have tried to give her warm milk but nothng works. I think I made the mistake of putting her into bed with us a couple of times and now shes hooked. I recently noticed that what she wants is to come to bed with us. If I put her into bed with us she falls right to sleep. If I dont then she will just cry all night long. During the day the same thing. She wont go to sleep alone for anything. She will cry like the world is going to end sometimes for close to an hour. I give in and go and get her. Does anyone have advice? Its getting to be a pain. I dont know if I should let her cry for such a long time. How do I get her out of that routine of sleeping with us and how do I get her to fall asleep alone? Should I just let her cry herself to sleep?
please check out the website askdrsears.com it is full of great sleep info. And it talks about the draw backs of letting a baby "cry it out" there are alternatives that don't make your baby feel abandoned. May you both get some peace and rest.
hi M.,
i know your feeling with this situation. about a year and a half ago we went on a trip out of state and our daughterat that point was sleeping on her own just fine. well when we came back from our trip suddenly she didnt want to sleep in her own bed anymore. needless to say i allowed her to fall into the habit of sleeping with me. eventually it got to a point where my husband could no longer sleep in the bed with us and he moved to the couch. since that trip she has slept with me and i tried everything to get her to sleep on her own. i hot her her own toddler bed hoping that would help. i bribed her. i layed with her. nothing worked until last night i got her her own twin size bed. and even though i still had to lay with her until she fell asleep she slept all night in her own bed. for me its been baby steps to get this this way and i still have a long way to go.. my advice to you is do what you need to when you need to. just dont let it rip you and your hubby apart. eventually she will have to learn that she needs to be on her own. good luck.
Hi M.,
I have two children, a boy age 6 and a girl age 4... My son went through that same kind of seperation thing when he was a baby. My husband had the great idea of putting his (or you can use yours)shirt in the crib with him so he can smell him. Might sound kinda weird, but it worked and I gradually moved the shirt back away from him for about 2 wks and then took it out completely and he was fine. If you have a small blanket also would work... Hopefully this helps a litte :}
K.
Our now 4 year old was always a terrible sleeper (thanks to me, unfortunately)
At the age of two he was still not sleeping through the night and would end up in our bed every night. Out of sheer exhaustion I would let him sleep there. Every time i put him back in his own bed he would cry and keep getting out of his bed. Although I really didn't mind having him in our bed, it definately contributed to his poor sleep habits.
I bought a book called 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' by Marc Weissbluth, and it turned our lives around. One thing that I learned from it was that our son needed a lot more sleep than he was getting, and naptime was very important. At 10 months old, your daughter still needs her nap. When they don't get enough sleep babies go into overdrive and it makes it much harder for them to fall asleep on there own.
Try getting her to nap an hour earlier than you normally try. She may be more tired than you realize and is having a hard time falling asleep once she's in 'overdrive' mode. The key to all good sleep habits in kids is that they need to be able to fall asleep by themselves. Once they are able to do this it resolves most of the sleep issues that they have.
The author had good suggestions for each age as to how to get them sleeping better (and to fall asleep on their own). I bought the book at Amazon.com...
Good Luck!
Hi, I think that this is a phase that kids go through. The same happened with my daughter. She might just grow out of it, or you could try and let her cry. She will tire herself out. What I did with her and my son, because he got use to our bed from the beginning was to let him fall asleep with me, but as soon as he is put him in his bed or crib. when they wake up at night let them cry for a longer period each night. Like the first night 5 mins, than 10 mins than 15 mins. However long it takes for them to get that you won't rescue them always. LOL
Good luck.
If you don't want your child to continue sleeping with you, you have to stop doing it. That's it. Babies don't understand one circumstance over another. When we started sleep training, my husband wanted to go in and pick up DD and soothe her the "first time." It took some tough conversation on my part and some trial and error on his for him to come to the realization that we needed to tough it out.
We started sleep training around the same age as your DD. It is very hard to listen to the crying for the first two days. It didn't take much longer than that, but you MUST be strong. Of course, I understand this isn't everyone's philosophy... do what you are comfortable with. I just know that most nights, we all get to sleep through the night now and have for 8 months! There's a lot to be said for that and for the fact that DD puts herself to sleep for naps and bedtime now.
Good luck... pick a belief that you feel strongly about and stick to it! Parenting and learning (teaching, too) is all about CONSISTENCY. (I'm a teacher, too.)
T. B.
Mom to Katie, 18 months
the longest 'they' say for a baby to cry is an hour, so I feel you are right about not letting her cry more than an hour! to be honest I don't think crying longer than the baby's wieght in minutes is good (so a 17lb baby should cry 17minutes maximum- this is something my lactation consultant said- not sure where she got it from but it kind of makes sense? I mean YOU try crying for an hour!)
I could not 'sleep train' my now almost 4 year old for naps- he was a terrible napper until 18 months & I don't know what happened at 18 months he just became better at napping, yay!
I also tried letting him cry to go to sleep for naps & 'they' say if they cry for an hour, then that's that & the nap is over- so I gave up and just did what ever I could to get him to sleep- wearing him in a sling(www.thebabywearer.com/forum) & then eventually rocking him...
Bedtime is another story, in my opinion. There *is* such a thing as co-sleeping and if you and your husband are into it don't listen to anyone else & just keep baby in the bed with you. you'll hear that it's hard to get baby *out* of bed but from all I've heard it's not always necessarily as hard as you think/hear...
if you don't want to have your baby in your bed (& it's really YOU who doesn't- not what OTHER people will think/tell you), then there are a lot of books on gentle ways to 'sleep train'
just click here & scroll down to see all of the Sleep books:
http://www.thebabywearer.com/cgi-bin/bookshop.pl?locale=u...
Hang in there & know that while this is frustrating, it'll all work out and your baby will eventualyy get it figured out with your gentle guidance :-)
First before you try any advise fromm anyone, decide what you are going to do. If you feel that it is better for everyone tht she sleeps with you then do that. There is nothing wrong with it. Just make sure that she has a SAFE place of her own in your bed. If you decide that she is to sleep in her own, make sure that she is fed clean and mostly tired before you put her to bed. It could be that there is just too much going on in her life to sleep or so she thinks. Walking, teething, this is when they start to feel the preasure of those horrible molars. The molars pound their way in unlike the front and side teeth that push. this could be what ails her. If you feel the same give her a dose of whatever teehting medicane you are using.
