I am a stay at home mom, I have a 17 month old and a 10 week old. My husband is amazing and allows me to sleep until 9 am because I am still getting up in the middle of the night with my youngest. We have a monitor in our room for my 17 month old because her room is on the other side of the house and we can't hear her. Every morning between 6 - 6:30 am she wakes up crying. My husband will usually go and change her (because her diaper hasn't been changed since 8pm and is completely full) or because she has lost her pacifier and he will try to rock her back to sleep so he can get a few extra zzz's. The problem is that she wakes up crying every morning and lately won't fall back asleep. I think my husband contributed to the problem by setting up this routine of going to her every morning because she wakes up the same way and pretty much the same time everyday. This makes my husband pretty grumpy too. I'd love any/all advice on how to make waking up for the both of them better. I know some kids will wake up and play in their cribs for a while which she does when she wakes up from nap time most of the time.
We went through the same thing. Finally we just ignored him for about 30 minutes. Usually he would cry for 2 minutes or so and then fall back asleep. He just got used to being catered to everytime he cried. He usually woke up about 30 minutes later much happier. It is hard but try it. It might work. Good luck!
L. Wells
Your 17 mo old is definitely going to realize she is getting attention and not want to go back to sleep. However, 6-7 am is a natural wake up time for most children. You can't force her to sleep later. As they get older they will need less sleep so she is probably just ready to get up! Both of my kiddos are early risers and my 4yo hast been getting up around 5:30 his entire life!
I used this for my daughter to help keep her from waking up cranky and possibly allow me 5 miutes to pee first before I went in to get her without her waking the whole house first. I warn you that you have to get a little creative, but it is a cool routine that I do now for both my kids. Every night I remind them to check their "cubby" when they wake up. Their cubby is a small shelf on their book shelf. We use the word cubby because that is the word they use in daycare for their place to put their things. Anyway, after they are asleep, I will go in and put something in their cubby. It might be a book, a toy from a resturant, small tube of lip gloss for my 3 year old, car for my son, etc... and I will rotate books through and usually if they wake up before me, they will sit in bed and play with this item for a while. I monitor both my kids, so when I hear them up, I get up and so far that has stopped the waking up crying. Also, I had to put a night lite in for my daughter around your daughter's age because her room was dark and it bothered her and if she tried to read the book, couldn't. hope this help. I also will leave a sheet of paper with a sheet of stickers. This is the cheapest. Sticker book at walmart is like 2.96 and has about 20 pages of stickers. Good luck and hope this helps to give dad some freedom back.
HI! I didn't really read your other respnoses, so sorry if this is a repeat. My son used to wake up around 6-6:30 and I would chnage him and give him a drink of milk and put him back to bed and he would slepp for another hour or so. Well about a month ago (he is 19 months, it must be this magically time of toddlerhood) he would still wake up, but would not go back to sleep. He might fall asleep if I rock him, but then wake up if I lay him down and wouldn't sleep even after crying. So finally I just let him cry or whine for 10-15 or 20 min. just to see if he will slepp (no it hasn't worked yet!). But he settles down and will talk to himself. Then I change him and he likes to listen to music and read books in bed for a while. (the repeat disc button on the cd player helps alot, because once the music stops, he is done). Anyways so I guess he has worked a schedule out for himself and now he has been waking up at 6;45 and he gets the whole milk, books, and music routine. That is what he asks for right when he sees us. So we get at least a half hour more of rest. It is hard because he has been going to sleep at 8 instaed of 7 usually thanks to the time change and waking up earleir, but he is still getting at least 10 hours of sleep. I did have to move his nap a little earlier, but it is working out good. I hope this helps and I hope you find a little routine that works best for you. Having little toddlers with thier own minds is hard work!
Hi C.
I think you answered your own question.Her schedule is set although she could use a couple more hours sleep at her age.What dad is doing is right she needs to be changed and then she feels comfortable and is ready to start the day.The only thing I can think of is keeping her up a little later,if that works for you guys?Another suggestion maybe dad can go to sleep a little earlier,again if this works for the both of you(there is a sacrifice give and take whatever choice you make)You can look at this as a blessing and dad (granted he has had enough sleep)can use this time as a bonding time.Remember you guys are the parents and whatever works for you is what works for the family that being said the little one is uncomfortable when she wakes up and dad takes care of that and she is so happy to spend that time with him she doesnt want to go back down.Babies sleep patterns change and this may not last for that long you could keep doing what you have been doing and see if she goes back down after a week or two
Best Wishes
S.
Hi C.,
When I read your post, I thought I was reading about myself! I too, have two small kiddos right in line with the ages of yours. Our two yougest are 20 months and 14 weeks, so we have the baby in our room and a monitor for our toddler, whose room is upstairs. We've experienced, like many others I'm sure, the painful "wake in the night" process, and fumbled our way thru what worked best, what helped, what was tolerable, what was a disaster. While there's no "one size fits all" answer, we knew our daugther is quite headstrong and so unfortunately we had to suffer thru a few nights of crying it out (all of us, I might add!). What would always get me thru these hardest nights was knowing that no matter what, the next morning she would wake with such a blazing happy smile, ready to greet me with a hug, and all was forgiven. And in the end, we made it thru and now have semi-normal nights and mornings -- a huge improvement, for sure.
I agree with Kari that the darkened room may definitely help. You may also consider using "overnight" diapers -- which are usually a bit thicker and seemed to help with my daughter (her normal diapers weighed a ton when she woke up).
In addition, we have a video monitor on our toddler. She went thru the phase (and still does during random times of the night) where she just cries out in an effort to get us to come in her room. Sometimes it's for just a few minutes and other times it drags on until she gives up. For some children you can go in the room, console them and then leave the room again, but in our case, that just seemed to make her even more angry if we went in and then left again. So, that wouldn't work for us, but we hated that we had no way of confirming that she was truly ok. With the video monitor, we are able to see her and know that she is fine, and we can also tell if she is sitting up, standing in her bed, etc. Sometimes she sounds so insistent, but we look at her and see she is actually laying down, and we've learned when she does that, she'll fall back to sleep within 10 minutes or so. She also does this in the morning, when she wakes too early. This may help your husband a lot to just watch her, know she is ok without having to go to her, and see that she falls asleep. When he leaves, he can bring the monitor to you, where you can continue to keep an eye on her while you are resting and she sleeps, without having to go back and forth (and back and forth) to her room.
I hope these suggestions help a bit. Our video monitor is beyond great -- we have the kind that are hand-held size -- and it has helped tremendously during the painful bedtime and morning "cryouts".
Best of luck to you!
My son is like clockwork when he gets up no matter what time he goes to sleep.
I don't know about you but I would be cranky when I wake up and find myself wet, probably cold, and you know, some kids wake up hungry and need something to eat first thing in the morning.
We had the same problem with our grumpy little girl in the morning. So before I go to bed at night I sneak into her room and change her diaper. She goes to bed at 7:30, so between 10:30-11:00 she's in her rem cycle and it's really easy not to totally wake her up. Plus we don't go to sleep until after the news anyway.
you may try to make her room a little darker for in the mornings. My son use to wake me un in the mornings at 6am because it was sunny in his room so he thought it was time to wake up. After I put a thicker curtin up he slept a little later which helped me sleep a little more. Also you might try just before you go to bed changing her diaper so shes not as wet in the mornings and not letting her have nightly drinks try to cut down on drinking after 6pm. Yes I know she will be thirsty but just let her have a sip or two each time she is thirsty. This way she wont be as wet in the mornings also which may allow her to sleep alittle longer aswell.
