My 19 Month Old WILL Not Sleep in His Own Bed.

When my husband deployed, my son had problems sleeping in his own bed. He needed that extra security of knowing that Mommy would be there and not disappear like Daddy did. As soon as my husband came back, so did my son's sense of security. He adjusted fairly well to going back to his own bed. He also started consistently sleeping through the night.

We still get the occasional night where he wants to be in our bed. I don't think my husband minds at all. He enjoys the closeness with his son. We still get our own private time as a couple. It's a situation that has worked for our entire family.

Personally I don't agree with letting a child scream in their bed. It really becomes a bad association for the child and can make things even more difficult. At least it does if your child is anything like mine.

I had a similar problem with my daughter. We used a reward system -- for every night that she slept in her bed all night, we put a sticker on her chart; when she filled the chart, she got a big prize, something she had really been wanting (thought I'm embarassed to say that I can't remember now what it was). I hope that helps! Good luck!

There is a great book named "Toddler Wise". It helped my daughter with the same issue until the second baby came just recently. Now she needs to begin again once the adjustment time is over. Hope this helps.

Hi M.,

You could start by letting him fall asleep in your bed. Make sure he's really out and them put him in his bed. He'll get used to waking up in his own bed after a short time. When he wakes up, tell him you are proud of him and what a big boy he is and that Daddy will be so proud of him when he gets home. Use lots of positive reinforcement.

Good luck!

I have seen this done on Super Nanny. She tells parents to put the child in the bed and to sit by the bed until the child falls asleep. Each night you move farther away from the bed until you are outside of the door. I believe as long as you are in their site it should work.

Won't hurt to try it. Also have you tried giving him a nightlight in his room. You may even allow him to sleep with his favorite toy. I do this with my son, then once he falls asleep, I move the toy.

Good luck!

My 22 month old loves to sleep in the bed with Mommy and Daddy, and loves to have his "Nanny" (my husband's grandma watches him every day) hold him while he naps. She even did the same thing you did--taking his crib down and setting up a twin bed so she could lay with him, in the hopes that he would go to sleep. Of course, it didn't work.

Then one day my friend Aimee watched my son. She's great with kids, but she's not the warm and fuzzy types that he's used to. I had warned her that she may have trouble getting him to nap. When I came to pick him up that day, I was expecting to see her at wit's end. Instead, she happily reported that he had taken a nap for 2 hours, all by himself! She told me she read him a book, then told him (matter-of-fact) that it was naptime. She laid him down on the bed, and when he started to whine she simply said 'No crying' in a nice but firm tone. Then she left. No hovering, no laying with him, no nothing. And once he figured out that Aimee wasn't going to play his little game, he went right to sleep.

Since then, Nanny has instituted this policy with great results (it helped that she began putting him down on her bed, which has less light and toys to keep him awake). I have also started putting him down in his own bed at night. We get a bath, brush our teeth, then while he lays down in the crib (on new Spiderman sheets that he's very proud of) we read the same two books every night. He still cries once he realizes that I've finished the second book, and he begs for me to take him into our room to go "night-night." I think part of this is that he misses how much cuddling we did before he went to bed before (which I'm going to work on spending more time with him before bed). Part of it is also due to my husband, who works second shift. When he comes home at night, it wakes my son up. Rather than struggling to get him back to sleep, he just plops him in the bed with us (I think he secretly likes spending that time with us, too). But no matter what, I'm sticking with putting my son down in his own bed at night. I know that after a while, he will figure out that this is just the way it is and he'll stop crying, just like he did for Aimee.

Hope this helps! And good luck with your husband coming home soon. I know you can't wait! My husband was in Iraq for 8 months, so I now how stressful this time can be. We didn't have children at the time, and I don't know how I would've survived if we did. It takes a lot of guts, that's for sure. God Bless!

We went through a similar situation with my husband on deployment. About three weeks before his return I started the new Ferber book: "solve your child's sleep problems"....very strictly. It was SO HARD the first couple of nights, but it has worked very well! (my son is 15 months). I broke down and bought a video monitor, which helps me with the transition. I think end the end, it was harder on me than on my son. It DID help the homecoming though!
(I am usually very opposed to cry it out methods, but it didn't seem to hurt him any....i nursed until 13 months, and had him in bed with me from 6mos-13 mos....and still hold him for naps ;) )