Sleep/Night Time Problems

hey all,

My little boy is 13 months and since he has been born we have struggled with getting him to sleep right through the night, he has got himself into a routine a few times then something always throws him out of it again.

I am 20 weeks pregnant and we have just moved house so he is in a new room which i understand must be hard for him but he is down at 8-8.30 then up again about midnight which only a drink of milk will settle him then he is up at least another twice if not more so as you can imagine i am exhausted but the time morning comes. I would love to try and get something sorted before the new baby arrives as i dont think i could cope with no sleep.

Please give me any advice you have as my hv is useless.

Thanx,

Claire xx

Hey i no exactly how you feel and must be alot worse with already being tired during pregnancy,

i found a great way with my sone who is now 2 and sleeps from 7.30 till 7.30, i kept being told i should try controlled crying with my son when he was about 10 months but it seemed such a horible way for me and my son,, but the way i do it now is based on that,

i give my son a bottle downstairs at 7 get him dressed and calmed down, at 7.30 i take him 2 bed have a routine so i read a book and he relaxes, i also have a cd player in his room that reads books to him, i leave the room within 15 minutes when im comfy to and my son seems calm, i then sit in my room for 5 mins, yeh my son would cry but after the 5 mins i go bak in and lay him down i dont cuddle him or talk 2 much coz he will expect that everytime and it will take longer, i then leave the room and this time stay out for 10 mins, when i go bak in i repeat as before and leave for another 15 mins then repeat and do 20 mins,, it may seem sad seeing them cry but they get tired and my son has not cried over the 25 min break so it does work for me, these days he is alseep by the 10 min gap but doesnt even cry at all,

if he wakes in the night i do the same thing so they no they cant get away with it, and in the morning i give lots of praise and all is forgiven so u wouldnt need to worry about that, its an idea that worked for me, if you need any more info on this u can always message me il be happy to help,, hope u get this sorted asap, good luck xxx

Hi girls

I was about to start a thread about this but found this one!

My daughter is 21 months and has always been a good sleeper. The problem is getting her to sleep to start with.

Our routine at the moment is bath, bottle in her room and cuddles, this is all done by Daddy so if he is not around she ends up cuddling in with me in bed as she shouts for Daddy constantly, he loves this by the way!

It is taking Daddy longer and longer to get her to fall asleep, most nights is about an hour and half of cuddling in then as soon as he puts her down she screams until he goes back and cuddles in for another 15 mins or so and this goes on until she is exhausted. She still wakes up most nights about 3am and nothing settles her but a bottle!

Tried controlled crying last night and it broke my heart, she threw up from screaming and then Daddy went in and comforted her so it was all for nothing.

To cut a long sory short, Grace has a major op on her skull so we dont like to let her cry incase she gets a headache etc, probably over protection, but regardless of this I am not going to try CC again for a while, if ever.

Any ideas would be great!

Thanks girls

p.s I am pregnant too so could do with a new routine asap!

xx

hey claire,

first of all congrats on your pregnancy. whats your due date ?

well some good news, tyler is 19 months now and riley is 4 weeks old. As you can tell from above i was knackered with pregnancy and getting up with tyler during the night but when i was 8 months old we decided we really should find a way to sort this.

like you claire, we used to let tyler cuddle into us either down here or up in his room until he was sleeping ( he also had a bottle of milk) but it was 2 much so we decided to start putting tyler to bed between 8/8.30ish and just give him his bottle & a kiss and say good night then shut the door then sit and make sure he was ok in our room with the monitor on ( tyler has always been a sicky baby/toddler and has had alot of problems so we sould never go downstairs incase he was sick) and since we done that we havent had a problem. well we have but because he hasnt been very well recently but he is sleeping right through the night so there is def hope.

i hope this helps xx

I find it's best to keep the bedtime routine short and simple. We give her a bath, put on Pjs and read a short story.  I also find that she sleeps best when she has a security blanket. When she does wake up, I put her back to bed and tell her it's bed time. I will check on her after about 5 mins then again after about 10 mins. It works pretty well and we don't have major problems.