Bedtime Has Become Extremely Challenging

Hi C..

I've been where you are. My daughter is now 2 and used to have the same sleep problems. I tried everything, like you and it seemed like nothing would work. Then a friend gave me the book "Healthy sleep habits, happy child" by Marc Weissbluth, M.D.

I started reading it and learned that my daughter might have been fighting the sleep because she was overtired. So, I tried putting her to sleep earlier than normal. She did cry a little, but in a few days, she went to sleep by herself without a peep.

I highly recommend getting a copy of that book. It helped me.

Good luck!
K.

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Ditto on the Weissbluth book! It's hard to listen to CIO, but it's worth it. If you really follow the book, you will have a good sleeper for life. We have used it for both kids, 4 & 1. It's not always easy, but it makes for a rested family.

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We are big fans of Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Weissbluth and the cry it out method worked for us. Our daughter is now 13 months...it's possible you might need to take a look at how much overall sleep your daughter is getting (naps + nighttime sleep). She might require more/less sleep. Weissbluth's theory is sleep begets sleep.

Doing the same routine for naps and bedtimes is a huge help. Room darkening shades (home depot), lots of activity during awake hours and now that the weather is getting nicer, more outside time will help too.

Good Luck

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I know it may not be popular, but you really do need to let her cry it out. She is testing you and so far she is winning. You & she both need to get your sleep. IMHO, 15 minutes of crying is not long enough. Be tough and don't feel bad! If she is fed & dry, she doesn't need anything but sleep and it is up to you to let her learn how to get it. Establish a bedtime routine (if you haven't already), and stick to it. In my experience it should be simple and short (no more than a 1/2 hour). Then lay her down and leave the room. Period. I highly recommend the book "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. I used the techniques for both my kids and they are great sleepers (ages 2 1/2 & 12 months). Good luck!

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A few questions:

Is she sleeping well during the day? She's 8 months and should be getting at least one good nap during the day...like two hours or two one or two hour naps...then bedtime around 7 or 8pm. Now every child is different, but that is what I did with both my girls. If she's over tired from not napping during the day, she won't want to go to sleep at night and she will be restless.

What time are you starting bedtime? If it's too late, she's wound up and won't want to go to sleep. When they get over tired they just fight it after that.

Have you tried a warm bath before bed?

I know what you mean by crying when they cry. I was a wreck with my first. I trained her to need me from the beginning. She slept by the bed and I patted her bottom and stuck that pacifier in her mouth every time she grunted. As a result when I finally decided she need the crib..she couldn't sleep on her own. If she woke up, she couldn't lull herself back to sleep. I was a walking zombie.

At some point you have to realize that you need your sleep. This is what I did with mine at about nine months or so....when I finally couldn't take it anymore and was hallicinating from sleep deprivation.

I took her to her room, read her a story while I nursed her with a soft gentle voice...lights low. Then I put her down. I patted her bottom a minute or two and then I walked out. During the night when she woke up and started crying I went in, put her back down, patted her bottom a minute or two, told her it was night-night time, and walked out. I let her cry for 15 minutes then went back in and repeated the process.

The first night it took about four or five repeated trips to the room...I was exhausted. The second night maybe three trips. By the third and fourth night it was maybe two times. After a week she was sleeping six hours straight.

Do not pick her up. Lay her down, pat her bottom, shhhh her, maybe sing a short song. Talk quietly, keep lights low or off, don't pick her up. You give in and she will scream until she gets her way.

On one occassion my daughter screamed so long when I wasn't home (had gone back to work part time at night) that she threw up in her bed. She was hoarse all the next day. I cleaned her up when I got home, cleaned her bed, rocked her a minute and then put her back down. She never did it again. My hubby has a stronger constitution than I do.

At any rate, I had to train her to go to sleep after training her for months to need me. It was awful.

I didn't make that mistake with the second. She got nursed with the lights low, got her story while we nursed, maybe I would sing her a song and then she went in her crib....at three weeks old. She immediately fell asleep and has never been a real problem when it comes to bedtime. She's three now and after we do stories we lay her down. She sticks her little bottom in the air and most of the time I swear she's snoring before I get out of the room.

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C., if there is nothing medically wrong with your daughter then you have to let her cry it out. Little ones are very smart and she has figured out that you will come to her. She knows that she will get her way. All she wants to do is play and you have to show her that you're "mom" and she will listen to you. I had similar problems with my son and I let him cry it out. I would let him cry for as long as 2 hrs at the beginning. I would go in there periodically to make sure he was fine and would comfort him, without touching him. Let him know I loved him but it was time for him to go to sleep. It was extremely difficult and very painful to me but as the nights progressed he got better and eventually he realized that he had to got to sleep and that mommy and daddy weren't going to let him out. It will get better. Good luck!

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She needs to cry it out. She needs her rest, you need your rest. Crying it out will not hurt her (or you). You need to be strong. It pulls on your heartstrings to hear them calling out and feeling unable to help. Make sure to look at the clock frequently so you have a good sense of time that's gone by. I have 3 kids, all wonderful sleepers, but they all had to learn to be good sleepers by crying it out. It's tough. With my first my husband and I sat crying in the front room together listening to her. It was hard. But after three nights the problem was solved. I'm a huge proponent that kids need to learn to sleep. You are doing her a disservice by not allowing her to learn this important lesson...the first of many difficult lessons you'll have to teach your child over the years. A few GREAT books to read... "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" ...you MUST read it if you haven't already. It was my bible when my kids were young. It is a must-read for all young moms. Also, "Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems" has some good nuggets as well.

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Instead of just letting her cry until you can't stand it anymore, start with 3 minutes. You can handle 3 minutes. Use a stopwatch if you have to. Go in after that time, pat her back, reassure her that you're still there, and then put her back down. If she starts screaming/crying again, wait 5 minutes. THen 7, then 10. There's a really great book by Ferber called something like Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. It really helped us.

We had to start sleep training our son when he was 4 months old. I still use it for nap time, but now I wait a minimum of 5 minutes before I go check on him.

If there's nothing medically wrong you have to just let your daughter get angry and work it out. She's old enough now that she knows full well what she's doing. And you're right, the last thing you want to do is reward this behavior.

Try a white noise machine instead of the lullabies. A humidifier works well too, and is a whole lot less expensive.

Good luck. Stay strong. It could take about a week for her to get with the program, but ultimately she will. And you'll both be better off for it.

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I just heard this program on the radio. It was about a book that 2 pediatric nurses wrote called "Moms on Call" They write about ways to get your baby sleeping through the night by 6-8 weeks of age, no that is not a type weeks, not months. One thing they said was that those aquarium things are TERRIBLE for babies. They provide too much stimulation for them. The basics they talked about were white noise machine, swaddling (don't know if that would work with an 8 mo old) and feeding them right before bed. The website you can find out more about it is www.familylife.com HOpe it helps.

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Dr. Weisblut's book "Healthy sleep habits, happy baby" is great. my baby did start doing some of that around 8 months. She had the base of her mobile and knew how to turn it on and so she would be in her crib playing for ever, singing to the music. Eventually, I took the mobile base out. At 8 months, crying it out is likely to be one of the only solutions that will work but you may need to leave her there for an hour or two. After a few days, she will stop. I know that sounds terrible but it won't hurt her long term, it will actually benefit her and you as you will all sleep so much better. If you keep coming back in to get her, then she will keep doing what she is doing. You can come in, pat her and then leave her - eventually she will be exhausted. Learning to fall asleep and to unwind is hard but babies need to learn how to do it. I know my daughter does it as I hear her with the monitor and she kind of makes this droning noise to herself, sings a bit and then eventually drifts off to sleep.

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Hi C.,

My son went through the same thing when he was about 8 or 9 months old. We tried everything under the sun - bedtime routine, lullabies (which kept him up, he's a light sleeper), and we finally let him cry it out even though it was so hard for me. Other family members had to keep me from going to get him, but in the end it worked extremely well and he goes to sleep without a problem now. I would not let your daughter cry for more than an hour though; that is excessive and not good for your baby. Many people told me that it would only take a couple of days, but it took about a week with my son. We have friends who didn't do cry it out with their first son and finally ended up doing it when he was about 3 years old, which was horrible! They tried getting him to go to sleep with one of them in his room and he would not go to sleep without one of them there. Needless to say, they were extremely tired! When they finally did cry it out, he would scream that his arm was broken, or something else horrible had happened to him for hours because he didn't want to go to sleep on his own. You definitely do not want that kind of scenario - the older your child, the harder this can be. Something else that really helped my son a lot was an earlier bedtime. I put him down around 6pm or 6:30 and he gets up around 6am or 6:30. He wakes at the same time regardless of when he goes down for the night, but putting him down later just makes him overtired. Many parents inadvertently keep their babies up too late. I recommend "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" - it was great for us. I guarantee that she's not sleeping as well at night because she is overtired. Good luck!! I hope that you find a method that works for you and your little one!!

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My daughter did the same thing around that age up till a few weeks ago. It was her teeth and she just wanted to be with us for comfort. She is 13 months now and still teething a bit (all her teeth came at least two months late).
I made the mistake of trying to let her cry it out (going against all I believe but I was at my wit's end) and I regret it. Big mistake. I only let her cry for 20 minutes and since that night, she was deathly afraid of her crib. Even if I put her in there asleep, she would wake up and grab onto me and cry. We got rid of the crib and got her a mattress. It's a twin sized and we just set it on the floor. She loves it and sleeps pretty good! She does still wake up at night but that is because she is still nursing and is not eating regular food too well (that's a whole other issue).

I recommend that you be very careful with the cry it out. If it bothers you and makes you cry, why do you want to do it? Go with your gut feeling. I highly recommend getting some books by Dr. Sears or going to his website. www.askdrsears.com. Definitely look into his reasons why he doesn't believe in the cry it out. I tend to believe him.

I also recommend "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. This was a wonderful book and had a lot of good advice. There is one for babies and one for toddlers. I read the toddler one because mine was just turning one when I got it at the library.
I hope things work out for you. And always remember that everything is a phase. This too shall pass!
K.

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Ugh...that's like reliving months of my daughter's babyhood and then again with my son. My daughter could scream until she was hoarse and my son would have a completely different voice the whole next day because he cried so hard. My other daughter was never as stubborn, but for the other 2 we wondered if they actually finally just passed out from exhaustion. We were certainly ready to some nights! I read Jodi Mindell's sleep book, Sleeping Through the Night: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep. It was great, and worked well for us with our daughter and later our twins. It worked quickly, and her methodology didn't leave us feeling like DCFS might call any day because we were torturing our kids at night. The main focus is to set a consistent bedtime routine that you use every single night and to teach your baby or toddler how to soothe themselves (as opposed to relying on you coming to comfort them) and fall sleep alone. My twins are now 23 months old, and when bedtime comes, we still have the same routine we've had for well over a year now and they literally try to climb in their own cribs because they want to go to bed! No fights, no crying, no problems. It's not magic, though. You do have to do your part in maintaining a consistent bedtime routine, but once it becomes habit it's as easy as any other routine you've got - it's a given, you hardly even realize you're doing it. For us the routine is just bath, pjs, book, brush teeth, and then bed. In the beginning, she runs you through the checking method of going in at intervals to let your baby know you're there and she is ok, but you're not going to pick her up and soothe her. That is always hard, but the intervals are reasonable and my kids "got it" in just a few days, then each had a brief relapse, then they were fine. All of it took place in about a week, and we started with our twins at around 8 months. It was later with our first daughter, and if I had only known, I would've saved myself a lot of grief, stress, and sleepless nights by starting sooner! A pediatrician friend of ours is the one who originally recommended it to me, and I believe the author has a revised version now. Check it out at your library!

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