Anyone want to offer sleep help? (2.5yo)

[kristenk]

Main question: How did you STOP lying down with your child to help him/her fall asleep?

Details: DD has had a regular nighttime routine for well over a year and it was super-easy to get her down at bedtime (bath, diaper, jammies, sleepsack, hugs, tuck into bed and leave the room). We'd sometimes hear her talking or singing to her stuffed animals, but she was totally fine in her crib by herself. That all changed when she started a 2.5yo preschool program. At the end of the first week of school, she didn't want to nap by herself any longer. At the beginning of the second week of school, she didn't want to fall asleep at night by herself, either. She got toally freaked out when we left, so we started staying with her.

Now, we have an aerobed on the floor next to her crib. It takes about 20 minutes for her to fall asleep at naptime, but closer to 45++++ at night. Plus, when she wakes up around 1:30am, one of us goes to camp out on the mattress for the rest of the night.

I'd like to stop spending a good portion of my evening lying down in the dark in DD's room, but I don't want her to freak out. She's not as anxious at bedtime as she was when this whole thing got started. Does anyone have any ideas? I know that she is capable of (and happy) going to sleep by herself b/c she did it for 18+ months. Anyone have a time machine I can borrow?

[trumansmom]

Your Ellie and my Eleanor are leading parallel stories. I could have written the exact same post, except she didn't start preschool, so I have no idea what caused the shift. :(

Anyone?

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04

[Wife_and_mommy]

Have you tried holding/cuddling her for a while before you put her down? That's what I do when DD is in need of extra lovin'. She'll go down fine once she's gotten her little love tank filled.

I hate to say it but you might have to let her do some cio esp. if she's gotten used to you staying with her and won't accept anything less. I know that would drive me bananas after awhile.

I hope things are better soon. I totally hear you on the difficult bedtimes!




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[kristenk]

Aha! We just need to change their names! LOL

[KrisM]

We didn't have quite the same situation, but close. Before DD was born, DS slept on the floor in our room for half the night and then was in our bed. It required one of us to lay with him until he was asleep - up to an hour or so. Shortly after DD came home, DS got his new twin bed set. He was very excited to sleep in it (Thomas sheets :) ). DH ended up sleeping with him the entire night for 4 nights. Then, I took over.

I told him he would be fine sleeping all by himself. I layed there for 5 minutes, then told him I would be back in 2 minutes to check on him. I came back in 2 minutes and layed down for another 2 minutes. I then said I'd be back in 5 minutes. I came back and layed down for 2 minutes again. I repeated the 5 minutes/2 minutes until he fell asleep.

When he woke up during the night, I would lay with him and tell him he could sleep all by himself. He fell asleep pretty quickly and I would then leave. I told him that this is what I would do.

The next night, I started at 5 minutes out and went up to 10. I still did the 2 minutes in betweeen.

I think it was the 4th night that I started just sitting on his bed, instead of laying down. I kept my "out of the room" time at 10 minutes.

When he woke up during the night, I would sit on his bed until he fell asleep. It was probably a week into it when I started sitting next to his bed.

Overall, it took a couple of weeks to completely stop having to lay down with him for falling asleep. Now, we generally don't, but every now and then, he'll ask for 2 minutes :). Usually, I'll do that 1 time. He'll also call out a couple of times before he falls asleep and wants to be covered up or something.

He was 25 months old when we did this.

Naptime was something else. He had been napping on the couch. One day, about 6 weeks after I got him sleeping in his bed at night, I told him he would start napping upstairs, too. At this point, it was easy to do. I'm not sure why. I had been laying down with him on the couch for nap time, but I didn't have to when I moved him upstairs to the bed.

Good luck.

[SJ mom]

I was just about to post the same EXACT scenario except mine is DS and we just started this sleep disturbance-1 wk, he started 3 wks ago. We had DS cry it out last pm which worked just like when he was a yr old and we did the first time around. The difference is he can get up out of bed now and open the door. Tonight he got up out of bed 4 times before I finally got him to sleep...1 hr after starting the fiasco.....

I think I will try the holding for a longer time before putting him into bed and then the gradual leaving of the room and him CIO.

I know that at the new preschool program he sleeps well at nap time. Hang in there as I too will attempt to hold onto my sanity. Great to know I am in some fine company.

[Lmoor]

Hmmm... I think maybe it's the age. My DD started climbing out of her crib, so we switched her to a twin bed. She seemed insecure, so we started doing the same kind of thing - laying down with her. She did okay the first couple of nights when we'd leave while she was awake, then she started pushing for more and more time, and then wanting us to stay until she fell asleep. When I realized what she was doing, she was getting a lot less sleep and having some cranky days. So, I decided to get tough! (Not really that tough!)

Some of the things we use: we give her clear expectations now. Two books only; then we sing 3 songs; then we turn Baby Tad (Leapfrog toy with lullaby option) on for 3 minutes (we tell her we will rub her back for 3 minutes, and when you push Baby Tad's hands, he says "1 minute till night-night" - up to 6 minutes). Then, when Tad stops, I tell her "OK, it's night-night. You can listen to Tad by yourself, but Mommy is going to go bye-bye now, and [Name] needs to sleep by herself."

For some reason, giving her these expectations have really helped. It makes sense, I guess. Why wouldn't you keep pushing if you were them?

Anyway, we do let her cry, if it's just the whimpering kind, for up to 10 minutes.

Oh - and we installed a string of butterfly lights in her room, on a timer. Since she can't tell time yet, we set those for 6:30am, and we tell her she cannot leave her room until the lights come on. Another way to set expectations.

I'm not saying these things always work perfectly, but they certainly have helped. She gets really excited when the lights come on in the mornings and talks about how they come on and she got up. Trust me, we have also spent plenty of nights running back and forth to see why she's screaming. And just the other morning at 3am, I gave in and slept in her bed. But it's definitely not every night. When those nights occur, I talk to her about it before bed the next night - that she needs to sleep by herself and all night... It usually helps.

I like to think that I'm being sensitive and responding to her insecurities most of the time, but when they start the negotiations, I can tell my little one is thinking of everything to keep me in the room, and I know that she will not be getting enough sleep ("sing songs," "Change my diaper," etc). I'm trying to be responsive enough but also realize that if I don't set some boundaries around nap time, she will not get the sleep that she needs (or I will not get the sleep that I need!)

GOOD LUCK!!! Sorry so long, but HTH!

[kristenk]

Thank you all for the suggestions. We're still muddling through right now. The good news is that the 7 hour babysitting marathon (aka family wedding where DD was not invited) and the weekend away for DH and I are both over and we can try to make some changes. (We didn't want to accidentally make things worse.)

I think tomorrow's the night. We're going to try to go from lying down in the dark next to DD's crib to sitting in her doorway reading. I'm sure she won't like it too much, but I want to see DH for more than 1 hour at the end of the day. I think I'll still lie down with her for naps right now b/c it doesn't take too long for her to sleep and I *really* want her to nap!

We'll see how this weekend goes. Send some good sleep vibes our way!

[kristenk]

Thank you so much for your post! I'm thrilled it was so long b/c it gave me a lot to think about. I love the idea of butterfly lights in a timer. I've been trying to figure out some sort of way to signal that it's an okay time to get up, but I hadn't come up with anything. We definitely need to come up with a clear routine. Actually, I guess we have one, but I don't think it's quite long enough for DD. We don't read to her at night right now, and I'd like to start that. I think we might be making quite a few changes this weekend and have a thoroughly planned out (and explained) routine.

[kristenk]

Thank you! I really like your ideas. Do you have any idea how long the 5 minutes/2 minutes took when you first started?

DD is okay with us leaving the room as long as we leave the door open if we tell her we'll be back in a few minutes. I'm wondering if she'll just try to stay awake if we keep coming and going. I guess she'd get used to it and eventually fall asleep. Hmmmmmm.... Do I really want to sit in the doorway on a tile floor reading, or should I do the come and go approach?

[KrisM]

I think the first night it took about 45 minutes total until he fell asleep during one of the 5 minutes out. I was just in our bedroom, which is next to his. A couple times when he was calling for me, I would answer him that I would be there in X minutes. That helped, too.

For us, the total time went down pretty quickly. It's nice to be able to go downstairs at a reasonable time.

[KrisM]

It didn't work for us, but others have used a clock radio programed to come on with music in the morning. DS just wasn't interested and hated the music being on in the morning.

[kristenk]

I've heard of using a clock radio before, but not lights on a timer. Some days DD is up at 6:30, some days it's 7:30. I think the clock radio would wake her up earlier than necessary some days. The lights shouldn't wake her up, but if they're on, she'll know that it's actually an okay time to get up (theoretically, of course!).

Right now, we're having a problem with "I want to go to Mommy & Daddy's room." We bring her into our bed in the mornings and I think we might have to either cut that out completely or have a third party (aka butterfly lights) announce when it's okay to go to Mommy & Daddy's bed. I think it seems too arbitrary coming from us since she doesn't understand the clock.

[KrisM]

We actually have started waking him at 7, if he's not already up. We've found that a more consitent wake time helps all day long. Usually, he's up between 6:30 and 7:00, but would occassionally sleep until past 7, too.

We have the same problem with coming to our room. He's gated in his room, so he just stands at the gate and tells us he wants to come in. He seems to understand when we say it's too early and he needs to go back to his bed. We do let him in after 6am.