Help My 14 Month Old Wont Sleep

I'm sorry to hear you are having sleep troubles. I have a 15 month old and he doesn't sleep through the night either. I have to get up for work so I need sleep. Here's what I do to cope: my son sleeps with me so I don't have to get up when he wakes up. I also go to bed earlier.About once a week, I have my husband get up early with my son so I can sleep in.

I think many children do not start sleeping through the night until they are 2 or 3 years old.

Some kids are just higher needs individuals.

Can you let her be and just meet her needs. My 2nd son was/is high needs He slept with us until HE was ready to move to a crib he was over 2. He woke up to nurse at night until he was 16months old. He still prefers to be held and snuggled in our bed until he's sleepy, and some nights he still fusses at going into him own bed at night, but it only lasts a couple of minutes.

I'm afraid that you probably prolonged the process by doing CIO...Forcing a child to cry herself to sleep just does not work...all it does is teach the child that either I have to cry harder/louder/longer for Mommy to come get me and I need to cling to her when she comes because I feel insecure. Or it teaches her that Mommy doesn't care....either way it prolongs the growing up process.

She's just a baby still enjoy her, let her be a baby, let her grow and mature at her own rate. It's worth it to get an independent secure child on the other end of all this hard stuff

This is really hard, I know how hard it is to go on such little sleep...I'm no expert on this situation but I can tell you what I did with my son...and hopefully when he gets to your daughter's age I won't be writing what you are writing. We tried the "No Cry Sleep Solution" at first, and for some parents that works great but our little guy didn't go in his crib easily either and would cry if we put him down and he was awake at all...then of course, if you do get him in his crib, when he wakes up not in my arms he freaks out and we start all over again...so we had to let him cry it out...we started easy with like 5 minutes of crying and increased it every night until finally we let him just cry it totally out...it took way longer than three hours, we'd go in every half hour or so and say "it's ok" maybe put our hand on his chest, try to put his pacifier in...I thought he was going to cry all night...I felt terrible...he eventually fell asleep and when he woke up again in the middle of the night same thing, went in "it's ok" put my hand on his chest, offered him the pacifier and left...oh he cried so terrible...it was really quite awful...this went on for three nights and then magically he just started sleeping through the night...I guess he just figured that it wasn't worth it to cry. He still cries a bit, but nothing like those three terrible nights...some babies have to cry it out...even though it breaks your heart...and it's especially a hard transition since she wants to be next to you in bed...but take heart in knowing, she won't remember that you made her cry if you choose to do it. Now, if my son me trouble to go to bed I just go get involved in a TV show, clean the kitchen, talk on the phone, try to tune him out :) by the time I get around to checking on him he's fast asleep...and yes, I do pick him up still sometimes, there's always some reason to do it, sick, teething...but trust me, unless your daughter has a fever, it's just better to let her figure out how to calm herself...even if you're staying in the room at first just to let her know that you love her and you are there watching over her. Good luck! I know how hard it is when you're not getting sleep.

I think I would try some white noise, or maybe have a CD playing lullaby music. if that does not seem to work I think I would look into a sleep specialist. I have a friend that took her son and after a few weeks her kid was sleeping through the night.

hi E.,
well first I'm sorry to hear that your going through this, it must be very h*** o* you and it sounds as if it has been going on far too long. I know you said you tried comforting her in her bed but when you left she would cry. What you may want to try is when she cries and you comfort her in her bed ( assuming your not picking her up at all and not much talking, just soothing coos and patting her belly whatever works) leave the room and let her cry for a couple min. before re-entering the room, each time she goes back to crying stretch out the time that it takes you to get back to her by a couple minutes like 5 minutes the first time, maybe 7-8 minutes the second time. I know it's h*** o* mom's because we wanna just RUN to our kids but you have gone over 1 whole year without a good nite's sleep mom, do you realize that??? and being single and having another child must be challenging enough, I commend you on your patience, my 2 year old relapsed and would wake up in the middle of the nite just like a new born so this is how I was told to nip it in the but and it worked, if nothing else maybe you should consult your pediatrician or see how regular her nap times are well good luck to you :)

We put one of our pillows in our son's crib and our top sheet off our bed (smells like us) and he started sleeping most nights in his own bed. He still joins us sometimes.

Do you have anything in her room that makes noise to kinda drown out the sounds around her? Like a fan or humidifer or something along those lines, that helped my 4 year old sleep through the night and it blocked the sound of me leaving the room. Good luck

Well I just went through this same situation with my 10 month old daughter. She would have to fall a sleep by being held. I would then put her in bed, turn on her music and prey that she would sleep through the night. Well that never happend. She woke up 3 hours later crying and as soon as I would get her back to sleep when I layed her down she would wake right up. I would be so frustrated that I would finally just take her to bed with me. Just from a whim one night I decided to hit the repeat button on the cd player and see what that would do. Well she woke up once and when I rocked her back to sleep she stayed a sleep (in her own bed)until like 7 or 8am.
And let me tell you I am going on either day 6 or 7 and she is now sleeping through the night. I don't know that will work for everyone, but it might be worth a shot. I guess my little one just needed to hear her music all night.

Good luck- I know how frustrating it is. It finally got to the point for me that I started crying from lack of sleep, frustration and probably my pregnancy hormones.

This sounds just like what we went through with my son, around the same age. He'd fall asleep fine in our laps or on our shoulders, but the minutes we put him down, he would scream his head off! He'd also wake up during the night, crying for attention and I'd only get maybe 3 hours of sleep at a time. We were desperate to find a solution that worked because we were so exhausted all of the time!

The answer that worked for us came from a website called www.sleepsense.net. We had to pay $49 for the information -- and I'm pretty sure it's all "licensed" and such, so I can't just link it here (don't want to get in trouble!) -- but I can tell you that it's basically a way to systematically "train" your child how to put himself/herself to sleep.

The first night we used it, it took him about 2 hours to finally fall asleep (you do things in steps, and have options as to whether or not you want to be in the room w/ your child), but then only about 45 minutes the next night. By the third night, he was out in 15 minutes, and slept through the whole night! We were sooooo relieved!

Overall, I would say it took him a week to 10 days to really adjust (still woke up at night a little bit, etc.) -- but then he was okay. Now, I can put him down for a nap or at bedtime when he's still awake (but I know he's tired) and he'll put himself to sleep. What a relief to have him self-soothe again!

I hope you will consider it. It was the only thing that made a difference to us and I'm glad we used the info she had.

Good luck to you . . . here's hoping you get a full night's sleep very, very soon!

Hi,
my name is K. and i am a mother of one 10mth old boy. my boyfriend and i were having trouble with our son sleeping through the night as well. he would wake up like 4-5 times every 2 hours or so. then we finally read this book that was given to us a long time before that we should have read a long time ago. the name of the book is healthy sleep habits, happy child by marc weissbluth,m.d. you should try reading it. after we read it our son sleeps like a champ. we have him in the bed by 7pm. he still wakes up once between 12 and 2am but then we feed him change him and he goes right back to sleep until about 6:30 or 7am. then he has scheduled naps at 9am and 1pm. the book says children are supposed to have 14-16 hours of sleep for brain development. i hope this will help.

I was in the same boat with my daughter who is now 3 and a half. She would not sleep through the night unless it was in my bed. Now, I'm not sure how you would feel about this, but sometimes you have to do what works for you, not what some expert who has never spent a night in your home says to do. At 2 and a half, my daughter slept in my bed with me every night. This past December, I transitioned her into her own bed and she sleeps there most of the time now. She does climb in bed with me (without waking me up!) if she wakes up during the night and gets scared. I was so worried that letting her sleep with me would lead to years of bedtime problems and difficulties, but the reality was, we were both happier people when we were both sleeping through the night instead of the up and down and frustration of reading everything, trying everything, and having nothing work. I am the single mother of a 3 and a half year old girl and I finally had to just do what worked for us. There is so much expert advice against family bed, but if you think about the far reaching benefits of a good night's sleep, isn't that what matters in the long run?

I guess I can't really say much if you are absolutely not wanting your daughter in bed with you. I was firmly against it also. But she transitioned nicely into her own bed when she was ready and I'm sure by the time she's in kindergarten she won't want to sleep with mom at all anymore. Hope this helps or at least offers some understanding as to what you're going through.