Need Bedtime Help!

We had a similar problem with my dd at that age. We started letting her sleep in a pack n play in our room next to.my side of the bed. Everyone got their sleep that way. Plus that thing was noisy to get in our out of so I knew if she was climbing out. If you dont have one, you could just put his crib in your room. The other option would be to gate him into his bedroom, use 2 baby gates on top of each other if you have to and just let him cry it out. If he is staying up that late he his probably super tired so it shouldnt take long for him to.cry and fall asleep. After 1 or 2 nights, you can take the gates down and just use them as a threat, if he cant be a big boy and stay in his room he gets the gate. If he is getting into things while you are sleeping, its a safety concern, so do what you need to.

It might be hard but you need to ignore the crying and have him get use to the concept and like others said, don't give in. You should go in and check on him before you go to bed and if he's awake, try reading him a story or calming him down.

A friend of ours told us about letting our child "cry it out" like momto1andahalf mentioned in her post.

We hired a baby sitter and went out for dinner and a movie and let the babysitter deal with the crying that jerked on our heart strings.

Once they establish the habit of sleeping they will keep it up unless you take them back to the old bad habits.

Good luck to you and yours.

Set a bedtime routine. (Bath, teeth, story, etc) lay him down in HIS bed and walk away. Honestly, unless the child was screaming or something, I wouldn't worry about if he's actually asleep or not. He has to get used to sleeping alone. If he does wake up or cry just remind him that it's bedtime and put him back to bed. Do NOT give in. You may have to sacrifice sleep for a couple of nights, but he will eventually get with the program.

ETA: DD is 18 months old, and she shares a room with her sister (6 month old). Their room is at top of the stairs. So I put a babygate in the doorway to prevent her from falling down the stairs if she wakes up in the middle of the night or early in the morning before me. I leave the door open ski can hear the baby and move in and out of the room quieter since the door sticks and wakes her up. Some nights she'll fall asleep in 5 minutes. Other times it may take up to an hour. She just gets her lovey and a book. She. Coslept as a baby, but now she NEVER sleeps with us.

He's old enough to start understanding a bit, so you just create a bedtime routine and talk him through it.

We had the same problem with my daughter, except that she refused to sleep in the crib after 2 weeks of life. The next 10 months she slept in bed with us, which meant that my "bedtime" was 7 PM for months! (I'd sneak out and go watch TV and do grownup stuff after an hour or so, when she'd be reliably too deep asleep to notice me leaving). Finally she got big and moved around too much for me to sleep comfortably (she always left daddy alone, ha!), so I started transitioning her to her crib.

I'm not gonna lie: she cried a lot. But crying it out was the only thing that worked for us with such a strong willed child. The pediatrician said as much ("if you've tried everything else, it's probably the case that the only way she'll learn is the hard way"). Within 3 nights, she had gotten the idea and would sleep on her own.

She's backslid every time she's been teething (will still sleep in her bed, but doesn't want mom and dad to leave the room), so we had to go through a few periods of re-training her to sleep alone, which thankfully means only a night or two of some crying. As she's gotten older, we've been able to talk her into it. "Now we've had bath, so we read. Now we read, and mom and dad give you a kiss, and it's time for sleep. Night night baby. We love you! See you in the morning!"

It might help to actually skip the crib for your little one and put him in a toddler bed (or a twin bed with a generous rail on the top part of the bed to make sure he doesn't fall out while sleeping), making it all about "now baby can get up out of the bed all on his own, and can play with his toys in his room!". That way, you emphasize the independence angle, which might appeal to him since he likes to slip out of your bed on his own.

Bedtime routine and Ferber method. Be consistent and don't give in. It's in the best interest of everyone, including your son.

We used Ferber, early. It worked and continues to work for us. DS walks from the sofa to his crib after milk and a story. He asks to be put into his crib. He turns on his mobile, pulls the covers over himself, and gives us a smile. We tell him we love him and close the door. He puts himself to sleep within 5-10 minutes. If he wakes in the night I sometimes hear the mobile going, or I see evidence of some "fun" he had by throwing his small stuffed animals out of the crib during his night escapades.

He stays in the crib. We don't remove him from the crib. He sometimes wakes up during a light sleep cycle. He puts himself back to sleep without getting distressed.

I'd never get any sleep if our wriggly DS got into bed with us. Also, the thought of our escape artist having access to the apt, unsupervised, while we are sleeping is really scary.

good luck to you and yours,
F. B.