Babies and toddlers who fight sleep

willwrite4food

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I'm finishing up an article on infants and toddlers who fight sleep for a parenting website. I could use a few anecdotes from parents who have "been there, done that" to round out the piece. Did you have a child who found it difficult to put himself to sleep? Was it during the infant or toddler years? How did you remedy it? I've already spoken to two experts but wanted some parent experiences to share as well. You can PM me if you like.
 

WildScribe

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I used to rock my son every night. It would take forever to get him to sleep, and forever again to get him back to sleep after he woke up to eat. One night I was so tired that I put him in the crib downstairs, shut the door to the bedroom, turned off the monitor, and said an apology for being a bad mom. He went right to sleep. And slept all night. (I could still hear him through the door if he cried.)

And thusly has he slept ever since.
 

Dai Alanye

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As a practical matter, car rides almost never fail. Lying down with them also works but you often drop off before they do.
 

Jersey Chick

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Oy - my son was like that. Last summer, I would have to lie on the floor in his room until he fell asleep. Sometimes I would fall asleep waiting for him. He and his sister shared a room, so it was even worse when she wasn't home (she went to visit her grandparents in FL over spring break last year and the boy was up until 2 AM EVERY night before I got smart enough to shove a few pillows under his sister's covers so it looked like she was there.)

We broke the habit with my son simply because for the month my husband was in the hospital, my mom put the kids to bed. There was no way she was lying on the floor (I'd have to pick her up every night :D) - and voila - the habit went away.

For the most part, when it happens now, it's an indication that he's getting sick. Then I have no choice but to drag the rocking chair into his room and have to rock him until he drops off. I usually end up falling asleep in the chair as well - which is murder on my neck and back.

The boy is going to owe me huge :D
 

Sonneillon

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I stay up late, so it was relatively easy for me - I'd let my son stay up until he was so tired and cranky that he'd literally fall asleep while having a bottle. Then I'd carry him upstairs and put him to bed. However, if we really NEED him to go to sleep, my husband holds him on his lap, back to front, and wraps his arms around him to rock him - Jake fights and screams at being held still for about five minutes. After that, he starts to drop off, and soon is dozing against my husband's chest.
 

Dulvarian_Eldritch

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I'm a father of three very different children.

Since the second one was born, my wife and I have held a fairly structured routine. Into their jammies, teeth brushed, and good night hugs and kisses from the parent not putting them to bed. The other one reads Goodnight, Moon and Just in Case you Ever Wonder and a good night prayer. We've been doing the routine for over four years now. It works like a charm, or at least, it used to.

Our oldest is a girl, the second is a boy, and the youngest is a girl, all two years apart. Things went great until we moved the youngest into a toddler bed. We used to sit on my oldest daughter's bed and when we were done, my son would go into his room, and they would all get a good night kiss and off to dreams they went. Not so with number three after we got new beds.

First it was that we weren't supposed to be on her bed. Then it was she wouldn't be quiet for stories. Then it was she would start calling for my wife once we left.

She fights everything. At two, her biggest kick is 'I do it myself'. You can't tuck her in, you can't do anything for her. She gets it into her head that she doesn't want to go to bed and it's throwdown time. Since the girls share a room, we have to take her out so the oldest can sleep on school nights. She is two, of course.

It sounds terrible, but I put her on the couch with me and tell her that if she gets down she will get spanked. She cries for a while and I watch TV, write on my laptop, or play XBox. About the time that she stops saying that she doesn't like it, she goes to sleep. It can take anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. She never gets up, but she will often throw her blanket onto the floor and beg for me to get it since she knows I won't let her get down.

The only trouble we've had other than her nearly constant struggle for independence is that my son would get out of bed and play with his toy cars or trains in the light that spilled down the hall from the living room.

All kids are different. The third one is so much like me that I want to scream sometimes. I love her, she is cute and adorable, but sometimes I don't like her very much. My wife and mother laugh at me because #3 is the most like me.
 

HeronW

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Keep to a routine:

Don't let the kids tell you, you reinforce without arguing, without coddling, without cuddling, just quietly put them back in the bed. The big thing is no confrontation, kids want that attention to stay awake. It can be awful the first few nights but they will adjust and learn good habits.

Yes, the child will scream, yell, play with their toys, want to watch tv, do anything but sleep--and you will pay in the next day when they haven't had enough sleep and are cranky. Keep picking the child up, put them in bed and shut the door. Two drink minimum, no time extensions, no conversation once the child is put down to the bed, last kiss g'nite and be consistent with them. This can last 3-4 hours with a difficult child, you may make 50-60 trips to the child's bed but don't get angry at the child, stay quiet, put them back to bed.

Staggered bedtimes work for different ages, give each child some special alone time with mom/dad before going to sleep.
 
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heyjude

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We are at the tail end of a battle with our now-3 year old (today! ::sob:: ). He wanted me to sleep with him every night. He is SUCH a mama's boy. And, to be honest, at one point he was really sick and I slept with him until he was better. Breaking that habit was hard, but I knew I'd end up one of those poor moms who slept every night with the kid and didn't see her own bed until he was ten.

So we made a deal: he could keep his pacifier (which we'd been trying to break him of) and we'd leave his door open so he could hear me. He calls out to me ("are you still there?") and I say yes, go to sleep now. It might not be the perfect solution but it's working and the alternative was worse!
 

lostgirl

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I read a lot of experts books on how to get your baby to sleep and the one thing they all said was that if you make them go to sleep on their own you can cuddle them and do anything in the middle in the night when they wake up because they put themselves to sleep the first time.

I found that to be false. Whether my three-feet-of-fun fell asleep on his own or by me rocking him to sleep he woke up SEVERAL (I mean a lot) times during the night for us it wasn't how we got him to go down to sleep originally.. it was not picking him up in the middle of the night when he woke up...

So I would go in and whisper to him it was okay and mommy was here go back to sleep..and a couple nights of not picking him up and rocking him and what not and he started sleeping through the night...

Now that he's 3, dear lord, it's a battle to get him to go to bed. What works best for us is the bedtime routine.. we do pj's, take vitamins and allergy medicine, read books, brush teeth, then put magnets on the his responsibility chart (and one of his responsibilities is going to bed without a fuss at which point he gets a magnet in the morning when he wakes up) then he gets one drink, and two songs "Hush little baby" and "You are my sunshine" and that's the last we hear of him...

most nights...

nothing works perfectly all the time.. LOL
 

Shwebb

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From the time our first one was born we've tried to keep to a routine. Our pediatrician had us break his habit of nursing in the middle of the night when Ethan was about ten months old. We'd go in every five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, and so on until he went to sleep. I'd hear him crying for me, and I'd start crying because even though I knew I was doing the right thing, it hurt to hear him. My poor husband just shook his head, chuckled, and patted my shoulder while he cradled me in his arm.

My two daughters now share a room; for a while my 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter had a room and the youngest daughter (age 2) had her own because we knew that she'd get bugged by her older sister.

It has been a bit rougher lately because Emmory (the 2 yo) is a night owl, and the other kids are early birds. We just try to keep to the routine. (We? I should say "me" because my husband is rarely home in time to help get them all to bed.)

I read a few books to them all, and then Ethan goes to his room while I lie down with the girls. Emmory is always first--she gets three songs, the same ones, until she requests something different. She kisses me on the cheek and I cover her up.

Eleri gets six songs, but less if she's been naughty throughout the day. Her last song is "Sunshine," and she always asks why she's my sunshine. I always tell her that it's because "If you left me forever, my days would be dark and gloomy, as if the sun never shown in the sky." Even Eleri's kisses are ritualistic--a kiss, an Eskimo kiss, and a smoochy air kiss.

Ethan gets "Sing a Song" song four times, and I must tickle him for the first three of them. On the fourth song, he rubs my arm and snuggles in.

It's funny how within the same sleep ritual how the kids all develop their own variations!
 

Mr Flibble

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My daughter NEVER slept. If you managed to rock her to sleep, the instant you stopped, she'd wake up. Even the car only worked after you'd been driving for an hour or more. In the first three months she managed to sleep about an hour a day.

I finally took her to an oesteopath. Apparantly, because I'm a weeny little thing, she had very little room to move inside me, and had got all kind of scrunched up. The oesteo reckoned this had carried over now she was out - basically she had a headache from stiff joints, but she couldn't move enough yet to undo the kinks.

One session with that guy, and she slept for six hours straight. I could have kissed him, I was so grateful.