Please help me sleep train my toddler
October 5, 2015 5:55 AM Subscribe
Experienced parents of Mefi! I know there are so many of you! So, I've posted this question on a forum specific to sleep challenges but received no feedback so turning to the green. My 14 month old has refused for the past two months to sleep in her crib...it started around the time that she started pulling up an walking... She is now walking steadily so this milestone has been reached. Please help us transition her back to the crib soon because baby #2 will arrive in a few months and I'm getting too big for us all to be in our bed.
Our sleep routine used to be this - we'd give her milk, read her two stories and a little cuddling in our bed...once she fell asleep, my husband or I would pick her up and move her to the crib where she'd stay asleep and sleep till about 5AM (yay) which was fine for us - we had no problem bringing her back in the bed for an hour or two.
At about 12 months she began waking up the instant you placed her in her crib...screaming, crying refusing to go to sleep even after rocking her back to sleep for 45 minutes, patting her back, all the things you read you are supposed to do. After weeks of continuing to get her to stay asleep in her crib we gave up and this large baby is sleeping between us in our queen size bed meanwhile I am growing larger by the day with current pregnancy and super uncomfortable.
Please share with me how you transitioned your toddler to her crib...question - Do I have to absolutely cut out the routine of reading to her in our bed? Since we both work full time, that is the most quality time we have with her...those evening cuddles, reading and fun in our bed before its off to sleep....the books I've read on sleep solutions seem to say the entire routine should happen in her room in a rocker by her bed...which means its either hubby or myself doing it, not both of us-- is that the route we have to go now?
Would appreciate hearing what worked for you...if you have cry it out recommendations, any ways to do it gently and gradually would be helpful...we're open to all ideas...i understand from lots of people there are ways to do things and different schools of thought on sleep training...and open to hearing all of them -- especially from those who have had a good experience with CIO. We're worried of course that letting her cry it out would sour her incredibly sweet disposition.
TIA for suggestions!
Our sleep routine used to be this - we'd give her milk, read her two stories and a little cuddling in our bed...once she fell asleep, my husband or I would pick her up and move her to the crib where she'd stay asleep and sleep till about 5AM (yay) which was fine for us - we had no problem bringing her back in the bed for an hour or two.
At about 12 months she began waking up the instant you placed her in her crib...screaming, crying refusing to go to sleep even after rocking her back to sleep for 45 minutes, patting her back, all the things you read you are supposed to do. After weeks of continuing to get her to stay asleep in her crib we gave up and this large baby is sleeping between us in our queen size bed meanwhile I am growing larger by the day with current pregnancy and super uncomfortable.
Please share with me how you transitioned your toddler to her crib...question - Do I have to absolutely cut out the routine of reading to her in our bed? Since we both work full time, that is the most quality time we have with her...those evening cuddles, reading and fun in our bed before its off to sleep....the books I've read on sleep solutions seem to say the entire routine should happen in her room in a rocker by her bed...which means its either hubby or myself doing it, not both of us-- is that the route we have to go now?
Would appreciate hearing what worked for you...if you have cry it out recommendations, any ways to do it gently and gradually would be helpful...we're open to all ideas...i understand from lots of people there are ways to do things and different schools of thought on sleep training...and open to hearing all of them -- especially from those who have had a good experience with CIO. We're worried of course that letting her cry it out would sour her incredibly sweet disposition.
TIA for suggestions!
Can you get a small loveseat in her room? You'll probably need it when there are four of you, anyway.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:00 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:00 AM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I find the “big bed” is crack cocaine to little people. I would advise a sleep routine that doesn’t involve that temptation at all. A comfy seat of some kind in kiddo’s room/space and a new method like books or stories or music being introduced... as milk time is also likely coming to an end in a while and it would be good to foreshadow that change.
posted by French Fry at 6:17 AM on October 5, 2015
posted by French Fry at 6:17 AM on October 5, 2015
It wouldn't be a bad idea to do the nighttime routine in her bedroom so she can get used to winding down in her own space. You'll likely need to do this, anyway, once the new baby comes, and the inevitable times that you and your husband will have to split duties between putting the older one to bed while you feed the newborn. My husband and I just put blankets and floor pillows down so that we could stretch out and be comfortable reading on the floor.
That said, it sounds like the main problem is that she doesn't know how to fall asleep by herself in her crib. How is she for naps? Does she sleep in her crib for those? If she goes down in her crib for naps, then it shouldn't be too hard to train her to do the same at nighttime. If she is bad for naps, too, then it'll probably take a bit longer for her to adjust.
This website has a pretty good description of a few sleep training methods. We ultimately did a 2 min/4 min/8 min checkin followed ultimately by extinction, because it became clear that the checkins just made him more wound up. In less than a week he was going down without a peep and sleeping happily in his crib for 11 hours. He just turned 2 and has been on this schedule since 11 months.
posted by gatorae at 6:22 AM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
That said, it sounds like the main problem is that she doesn't know how to fall asleep by herself in her crib. How is she for naps? Does she sleep in her crib for those? If she goes down in her crib for naps, then it shouldn't be too hard to train her to do the same at nighttime. If she is bad for naps, too, then it'll probably take a bit longer for her to adjust.
This website has a pretty good description of a few sleep training methods. We ultimately did a 2 min/4 min/8 min checkin followed ultimately by extinction, because it became clear that the checkins just made him more wound up. In less than a week he was going down without a peep and sleeping happily in his crib for 11 hours. He just turned 2 and has been on this schedule since 11 months.
posted by gatorae at 6:22 AM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
We do everything in her room. Get changed, do potty (in the bathroom), then reading in the room. I usually just read to her on the carpet in her room, except for the last book which we read in her bed, after which I say good night and turn out the light.
Couple of other things we do:
Regarding the light , we got her a small bedside lamp, which isn't as bright as the overhead one, and that probably helps as well.
We also use white noise so that this masks any random noises through the night that might wake her up.
She has some toys in the bed to cuddle with, whish she loves.
She now also liked to be under the blanket which got some getting used to.
I'd talk to her and explain how this is her bed and how the whole routine is going to go. As far as crying, she might cry for a couple of days, but it's important to not give in. She'll learn pretty quickly (hopefully).
posted by pyro979 at 6:39 AM on October 5, 2015
Couple of other things we do:
Regarding the light , we got her a small bedside lamp, which isn't as bright as the overhead one, and that probably helps as well.
We also use white noise so that this masks any random noises through the night that might wake her up.
She has some toys in the bed to cuddle with, whish she loves.
She now also liked to be under the blanket which got some getting used to.
I'd talk to her and explain how this is her bed and how the whole routine is going to go. As far as crying, she might cry for a couple of days, but it's important to not give in. She'll learn pretty quickly (hopefully).
posted by pyro979 at 6:39 AM on October 5, 2015
We transitioned to a twin mattress on the floor around then. It seemed to be earlier than most people went that way, but it meant we could lay down with him, snuggle, etc, in his space, rather than ours.
posted by tchemgrrl at 6:47 AM on October 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by tchemgrrl at 6:47 AM on October 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
If your daughter doesn't know how to self soothe herself to sleep, I would focus on that first.
One thing that we've done is make our son's bed a place he wants to go to. We have one of those music and light aquariums and that goes on and then we talk about the fish. I also have a routine with a few of his stuffed animals where they say they are tired and want to go to sleep and ask for a cuddle.
It doesn't really matter what you do, but you have to be consistent about "this is bedtime. It's time to go to sleep." Most nights he goes to bed on his own easily. Sometimes I'm back up three or four times repeating "go to sleep."
Throw some blankets on the floor in your daughter's room and do your reading and cuddles there. I got to a point in my pregnancy where the two of us didn't fit in the chair anymore.
posted by betsybetsy at 6:55 AM on October 5, 2015
One thing that we've done is make our son's bed a place he wants to go to. We have one of those music and light aquariums and that goes on and then we talk about the fish. I also have a routine with a few of his stuffed animals where they say they are tired and want to go to sleep and ask for a cuddle.
It doesn't really matter what you do, but you have to be consistent about "this is bedtime. It's time to go to sleep." Most nights he goes to bed on his own easily. Sometimes I'm back up three or four times repeating "go to sleep."
Throw some blankets on the floor in your daughter's room and do your reading and cuddles there. I got to a point in my pregnancy where the two of us didn't fit in the chair anymore.
posted by betsybetsy at 6:55 AM on October 5, 2015
tchemgrrl: "We transitioned to a twin mattress on the floor around then. It seemed to be earlier than most people went that way, but it meant we could lay down with him, snuggle, etc, in his space, rather than ours."
Our daughter hated her crib, and we finally gave in and switched to a very low twin bed on her second birthday. All of her sleep problems literally went away overnight. My wife and I have been saying ever since then that if we had another kid who hated the crib, we'd switch them to a bed as soon as they could walk. This was in apartment without stairs though, and our bedroom door was less than 6 feet from her bedroom door. I might be less comfortable with it in a less safe home.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:58 AM on October 5, 2015
Our daughter hated her crib, and we finally gave in and switched to a very low twin bed on her second birthday. All of her sleep problems literally went away overnight. My wife and I have been saying ever since then that if we had another kid who hated the crib, we'd switch them to a bed as soon as they could walk. This was in apartment without stairs though, and our bedroom door was less than 6 feet from her bedroom door. I might be less comfortable with it in a less safe home.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:58 AM on October 5, 2015
Hi SanSebastien. I have a three year old and my sister has a 2 year old and my other sister has had three different babies/toddlers and we come from a family who likes to SLEEP (more like, we just can't stand sleepless nights) so we are sleep training masters, haha.
The key to little ones sleeping well is routine. They (most of them at least) love routines because they know what to expect "first we do this, then we do that, and then I go to bed". As others have said, you are going to have to give up the reading in bed. If it helps, don't look at it as giving up the quality time and cuddles you have with her, you can still have quality time, but it's going to have to start to be done in her own room so that she knows that happy times are not just for "mom and dad's room". If you are going to take the crib away from her when the new baby comes anyway, there's no point to getting her used to it for just a few months. You can do the mattress on the floor thing, or get a toddler bed like this one (my kid LOVED it) soyou can do the sleep training in something that she'll use for at least a few years, not just a few months.
Anyway, back to the routine. Make sure you mostly use the same timeline every night, a few variations are ok, as long as your kid knows things are moving in the general direction of going to bed. Here we do bath>dinner>brush teeth>read a book with dad>get a book and a plush toy for bed>good night kiss. And that's it, either he falls asleep quickly or not, but he stays (happily) in his own bed since he knows mom and dad's bed is not an option.
You can do this, it just takes a little work, and it's better for everyone if you all can sleep well in your own beds before the new baby gets here.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 7:41 AM on October 5, 2015
The key to little ones sleeping well is routine. They (most of them at least) love routines because they know what to expect "first we do this, then we do that, and then I go to bed". As others have said, you are going to have to give up the reading in bed. If it helps, don't look at it as giving up the quality time and cuddles you have with her, you can still have quality time, but it's going to have to start to be done in her own room so that she knows that happy times are not just for "mom and dad's room". If you are going to take the crib away from her when the new baby comes anyway, there's no point to getting her used to it for just a few months. You can do the mattress on the floor thing, or get a toddler bed like this one (my kid LOVED it) soyou can do the sleep training in something that she'll use for at least a few years, not just a few months.
Anyway, back to the routine. Make sure you mostly use the same timeline every night, a few variations are ok, as long as your kid knows things are moving in the general direction of going to bed. Here we do bath>dinner>brush teeth>read a book with dad>get a book and a plush toy for bed>good night kiss. And that's it, either he falls asleep quickly or not, but he stays (happily) in his own bed since he knows mom and dad's bed is not an option.
You can do this, it just takes a little work, and it's better for everyone if you all can sleep well in your own beds before the new baby gets here.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 7:41 AM on October 5, 2015
- Follow sleep cues to find the right bedtime.
- Do your bedtime routine with books, hugs, and kisses.
- Put her in her crib, say good-night gently.
- Walk to the door, walk through the door, shut it behind you.
- Do not open it again until morning.
- Do this every night for three nights.
We did this ourselves last spring. I spent weeks on the gradual process and it was soul-destroying: little hands reaching for me, little voice calling for me; my heart would want to give in and my head would struggle to stay in charge, night after night.
Then one day, at our wit's end, we walked out and closed the door. Yes, it was hard, but it was not nearly as hard as being in the same room. I could bear it with the door shut. I could bear it in a different part of the house. I could bear it even better when I went to the grocery store and left my husband home, as he didn't have as much anguish. He would text me with "He's Down!" when the baby fell asleep each night, and each night it took less and less time.
So that's what we did, for three days. And after three days it was routine. Baby figured it out, and we figured it out. I'm not saying it was magic or that it was magic forever, because he still tests us or starts new bad habits, but he can put himself to sleep in his own bed and I know how to stop the habits. We close the door each night for bedtime and each day for naptime, and he knows what to do.
I wish we'd never tried the gradual thing as it was weeks of hell. We should have done full extinction from the beginning. We would have saved weeks of heartache.
Other tips: if you don't have a white noise machine or a video monitor, I recommend both of these. Our white noise machine really helps to create a calm, quiet environment. Video monitor is good so that you can keep an eye on your baby in the crib, making sure that the upset noises are just that and not a baby in danger. It's ok if you obsessively watch the video for the first few nights (or weeks), but eventually you'll watch it less and less, and finally you'll have nights where you'll forget the monitor completely.
posted by aabbbiee at 7:46 AM on October 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Our six year old daughter would still be in her crib, I think, if we let her be. Our 2.5 year old never spent a single night in her crib. She slept with me until she was one, and then went directly to a queen sized bed in her room. Her doors shut tightly and the room is safe, but she has still never given us much of a problem. Plus I can sleep in there with her from time to time.
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:25 AM on October 5, 2015
posted by dpx.mfx at 8:25 AM on October 5, 2015
I agree about working to find a way to bedtime routine/falling asleep in her room; a twin mattress on the floor or a low bed can be great for this, since the whole family can be present for the reading part of things.
I wouldn't jump straight to this, but I wanted to throw it out as an option for if you've gotten her falling asleep well in her room but she keeps coming back to your room in the middle of the night: you can set up a little bed or cot for her on the floor in your room, and direct her to that in the night if she wants to be with you instead of in your own bed. This has worked for us with our much older kid (almost 4); we had been working for months on getting him to sleep through the night in his own room, because we too have kiddo #2 on the way, and finally I realized that even if we got him sleeping consistently, he was likely to regress once the baby arrived. I wanted a way for him to regress without him being a) in our bed or b) a parent needing to be awake to help him back to sleep. Beware, though: because we introduced this option after he'd been sleeping (poorly) by himself for a while, it was seen as a privilege; I'm guessing if you go directly from your daughter sleeping in your bed to her being relegated to the floor, she'd see that as an insult and fight against it!
posted by wyzewoman at 11:34 AM on October 5, 2015
I wouldn't jump straight to this, but I wanted to throw it out as an option for if you've gotten her falling asleep well in her room but she keeps coming back to your room in the middle of the night: you can set up a little bed or cot for her on the floor in your room, and direct her to that in the night if she wants to be with you instead of in your own bed. This has worked for us with our much older kid (almost 4); we had been working for months on getting him to sleep through the night in his own room, because we too have kiddo #2 on the way, and finally I realized that even if we got him sleeping consistently, he was likely to regress once the baby arrived. I wanted a way for him to regress without him being a) in our bed or b) a parent needing to be awake to help him back to sleep. Beware, though: because we introduced this option after he'd been sleeping (poorly) by himself for a while, it was seen as a privilege; I'm guessing if you go directly from your daughter sleeping in your bed to her being relegated to the floor, she'd see that as an insult and fight against it!
posted by wyzewoman at 11:34 AM on October 5, 2015
We did CIO at 12 months. Our boy was sweet sunny and happy when we started training, and remains sweet sunny and happy post training. We did not sour him. We did not ruin him. On the contrary, he is better rested, more energetic in the mornings, and we can now put him to bed anywhere, even when we travel.
We did it over five nights where we let him cry for few minute intervals before going in to hug him for as long as it took until he stopped crying (I think that first night it was almost an hour). We increased the intervals slightly each night. By the fifth night, we set our stopwatches for five minutes, and he stopped crying and lay himself down at four. And ever since then he goes down with minimal fuss, and if he does cry now, we know something's wrong and he's not feeling well. I'm so, so glad we did this.
I say "we" but my husband and a trusty pair of noise cancelling headphones did the timing and the going in and the shushing. I contributed (significantly, we both truly believe) by getting out of the house for a long walk and not making his job even more wretched by throwing my own panicky tantrum about it and putting my anxiety on him. We are absolutely certain this worked for us because we didn't let our own hang ups get in the way of teaching our child to learn to put himself to sleep.
In summary: CIO worked for us, our son sleeps amazingly, he loves us deeply and is unscarred, give it a solid uninterrupted chance, you will be fine and so will your babe.
posted by sestaaak at 5:41 PM on October 5, 2015
We did it over five nights where we let him cry for few minute intervals before going in to hug him for as long as it took until he stopped crying (I think that first night it was almost an hour). We increased the intervals slightly each night. By the fifth night, we set our stopwatches for five minutes, and he stopped crying and lay himself down at four. And ever since then he goes down with minimal fuss, and if he does cry now, we know something's wrong and he's not feeling well. I'm so, so glad we did this.
I say "we" but my husband and a trusty pair of noise cancelling headphones did the timing and the going in and the shushing. I contributed (significantly, we both truly believe) by getting out of the house for a long walk and not making his job even more wretched by throwing my own panicky tantrum about it and putting my anxiety on him. We are absolutely certain this worked for us because we didn't let our own hang ups get in the way of teaching our child to learn to put himself to sleep.
In summary: CIO worked for us, our son sleeps amazingly, he loves us deeply and is unscarred, give it a solid uninterrupted chance, you will be fine and so will your babe.
posted by sestaaak at 5:41 PM on October 5, 2015
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posted by mareli at 5:59 AM on October 5, 2015