Sleep Issues - Clinton,IA

This is probably not going to be a very helpful post but I have a 3 year old who I still rock for a couple of minutes before he goes to bed. We call it "rock-a-bye time". I did the same with my 5 year old until he was about 3.5 and decided he didn't want to rock anymore. We all go up to my room, the kids sit on the bed and I read them a couple of books. Then the 5 year old lays down on my bed while I rock the 3 year old for a few minutes. After that, both of them go to bed and I lay down with the 5 year old so that he gets his cuddle time too. I wouldn't miss those night time cuddles for anything.

I never let my kids cry themselves to sleep. I was never able to do that. But you have to do what you think will work. No one has the answer on how to get a child to magically go to sleep on demand. The kids get older, start playing harder and harder, and soon, they are falling asleep on their own with no problem. How often do you see a Mammasource request asking how to get their 4 year old to sleep through the night or got to sleep without a bottle? But for now, you have to do what you feel comfortable with. If that means continuing to rock your son to sleep, there's nothing wrong with that. If it means letting him cry himself to sleep until he stops crying, there's nothing wrong with that either.

Believe me, before you know it, your son will be starting kindergarten and you'll have moments where you really miss those rocking times.

i highly discourage the cry it out method. what it doesnt do is give kids a safe, happy, plesant attitude about sleep and bedtime, what it does do is help them lose trust that you will be responsive to their needs.
www.askdrsears.com
carefully consider the options when dealing with sleep. you may, in a few days, weeks, months, be able to get your son to sleep using the cry it out method. but at what cost. if the majority of parents use the cry it out method, and the majority of kids have various issues discipline wise, then... the system is broken. the fix is to do the opposite of what 'everyone else' is doing. respond to your baby's needs. yes, there are limits and after a year old its ok to place limits on your child. but its not ok to leave him alone, crying in his crib. your instincts are telling you that - and its for a reason. its good your husband has these feelings as well, as it means that hes strongly bonded with his son! this isnt as common as it should be, and anything that can encourage that bonding would be great.
heres my suggestion for immediate consideration.
if your husband really doesnt want to do this, what does he want to do? and .. why doesnt he do it? it is exhausting for you, and i know the feeling of being just tired of baby-care at night, so let your husband have some one on one time with baby and he can take care of the whole bedtime routine his way. would that work?
www.askdrsears.com has many reasons babies dont/cant sleep and ways to get them to sleep. night light, white noise, books or something in the crib... these are things that are REQUIRED for my son, almost 2 years, to go to sleep. he NEVER was allowed to cry it out under any circumstances (unless i was afraid i was going to hurt him - please let baby cry if you are at your wits end!) he did cosleep off and on, he didnt sleep 'through the night' until he was between 15-17 months and even then it was not consistent.... its still not. so because you may have many many months left of losing sleep, i guess the tough love i have for you is to get used to it. even when they leave the house, you will always sit up nights wondering about them.
:D
anyway,
the more sensitive you are to your sons reaction and needs, the easier it will be for him to grow independently. independence is ONLY learned through dependence. you have to depend on someone else in order to know how to be independent. let your son depend on you, then when he grows more independent, he will depend on you when he needs help! :D
i hope that makes sense.
;D

Actually, I think your son is too young to let cry/scream for any amount of time at bedtime. I know it is hard, and my advice on the subject isn't popular because it seems inconvenient, but maybe you can try getting him to sleep without any upset. I hope the advice I typed below can help you work out a peaceful bedtime routine that is satisfying to all.

I know you've got a 13 month-old, and at that age they might seem so much less like a baby and more like a toddler but the information here from Dr. Sears still can apply if you care to read it: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070300.asp

Also, if none of that above sounds good to you I suggest trying a completely different approach...I often had to put my baby in an umbrella stroller, tilted back onto the back wheels, baby/toddler tucked in with blankie and/or toy in his hand to fidget with...and keeping the stroller tilted back onto the back wheels, slowly walk around the kitchen table with the lights down low (lavender candle perhaps) and some nighttime music playing. You may get somewhat dizzy (wee!)but your little guy will most likely fall right asleep after a couple dozen times around very slowly. I always enjoyed getting a little walk time in each evening because it is good exercise. This is also a nice way for daddy to get the baby to sleep with no tears. Even if it is you who is on stroller duty, once baby is asleep in the stroller and you've let the sleep set in...his daddy can carry him upstairs and put him into bed. Sounds to me like your 13 month-old is just having some strong feelings about security and you can gently ease him safely through this phase with healthy reassurance. To let him know he's not being deserted, you must be close to your son. He is simply too young to understand what you are trying to get him to understand. Your son won't understand you're not deserting him unless he has the physical closeness he's trying to get from you--in other words, he is screaming in his crib even though he sees you standing there...because he needs to be close to you. I think it's a good thing you've got such an in-tune husband who doesn't want his baby to cry...some men I hear about are having emotional indifference towards their children and I think that would be very hard to live with. I hope things get better--and you know, they will. It just doesn't seem like it now. Give it a year and you will be having a much simpler time. I wish you good luck!

I don't recommend the Cry It Out method. Personally, I think it's cruel to do that to a child who isn't going to understand why you're not comforting them. As a parent, it's your job to provide comfort and security and I think CIO undermines that. There's a reason why it feels wrong to listen to your child cry! With our daughter, we've done a more gentle transition. Our bedtime routine was to feed her, brush her teeth, read her a book or two, and then rock her while playing a lullaby CD. To phase out the rocking (although continuing to rock wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion), perhaps you could simply cut down on the amount of time you're rocking him. Cut the time down by 2 minutes each night until you're just laying him down in the crib. When you reach that point, perhaps replace the rocking time with rubbing his back for a minute or two to give him the comfort and affection he'll be missing from not being rocked. Also, keep in mind that your son may be going through some tough times with teething and may occassionally need the comfort of being rocked or held for a few minutes longer.

I had a lot of crying when I tried to put my first child to sleep at night. I had no family or friends to consult so I called my doctor. He said to let her cry. She was very young...I think 6 to 9 months old. The first night she cried 45 minutes and I sat out in the hall and cried from listening to the long ordeal. The second night she cried 20 minutes. After that, she never cried again when she went to sleep at night. That was 26 years ago.

I don't think I would go 45 minutes again. Maybe 20. That is even painful. All I can tell you is that she survived and the problem was gone in two days.

In hindsight, you might want to ask your doctor what 20 or 45 minutes of crying would do to a baby's health and well being. I know it is VERY painful to hear your baby go through all of that. I have to believe every child is different and you just need to keep trying different things.

We use the book Good Night Sleep Tight by Kim West. It works great. And it is a no cry solution. It has worked wonders on our 7 month old and 2 1/2 year old. They both sleep every night 7-7 and put them selves to sleep. All your son needs is to learn to fall asleep on his own and the book helps with that.

Crying it out is very difficult. Try to go as long as you can tolerate, go in and check on him - don't pick him up. Lay him down, rub his back, whatever, but don't get him out of the crib. When he settles back down, leave again and do it over.

Beleive it or not, this really will only last a few days. Each night will get a little bit shorter until he learns how to put himself to sleep by himself. You are doing him a huge favor in teaching him how to do this that will help him his whole life. Not to mention yourself as he will be able to put himself back to sleep during the night without waking you up.

We used a book called Sleep Sense which is downloaded off the internet. It was an easy ready with lots of suggestions and a good mix of many of the sleep theories out there.

Good luck,
K.

I have also never been able to let my kids just cry it out for as long as it takes. I know there are parents who do that and it works fine for them. If you want to try it, certainly do. But I've always set a mental limit for myself as to how long I can let it go. Maybe it's only 5 minutes, then you have to go in and reassure him. Maybe you can wait 30 minutes and see if he can calm himself down. But I think it helps to know what your limit is.

I'm also a firm believer in routines, and comfort objects are great. My oldest son has a Cookie Monster he's very attached to, and he never goes to sleep without it. My 2-year-old varies between objects he's attached to, usually whichever stuffed animal he's obsessed with at the moment. But I think it does help to have some sense of predictability in their beds, knowing that animal or blanket or "lovey" will be there.

If it were me, I would try to set up a sleep routine. Start some time in advance, maybe with a bath if you do that every day. Wind down, ending at the time that you declare to be "bedtime" (8:00 is probably good). Then give him the bottle, set him down in his bed, with a nice "I love you, and now it's time to go to sleep." Then I'd leave the room and set the timer for however long I could stand it. After that amount of time, I'd go in and reassure him. At first it's hard, and I know I might give in at that point and consider it a good try. I'd get him out and rock him to sleep. Then I'd do the same thing the next night, trying to wait a little longer. If he wakes up during the night, again wait as long as you can to see if he can put himself back to sleep.

It's not a perfect system, but I know this is what I would do. I can only stand to listen to them cry for so long, but at the same time, I know that they will learn to settle down if I give them the chance. There is a happy medium between letting them cry it out with no intervention, no matter what, and picking them up at the first sound. It requires some time and can be very frustrating, but it's worked all right for two kids (both successfully sleeping in their own beds!) and hopefully will work with our 8-month-old I'm ready to insist that she go to bed awake. Good luck!

Hi D.,

I do feel for you - sleep issues really divide people/parents. I would recommend doing a bit of resarch on what to expect from children at different development stages/ages. From what I've researched from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the WHO, brain researchers and other pediatric psychiatrists, young children do not benefit from sleep training that separates the child/parent or includes a crying it out alone method. Recent resarch on CAT scans show that prolonged crying alone can produce brain bleeds and other problems. Dr. Ferber is an excellent example of a doctor who changed his CIO method after reviewing new research.

My mother-in-law, with very good intentions, gave me a book on the reccommendation of a friend - Babywise - it seems innocent at first and supposedly widely popular, but it's written by a man who has no medical/psychology training. Most of the examples used in the book are based on imaginative children. This is just an example of many books written without good research. I guess I'm saying - don't worry about what supposed experts might say. They're probably not really experts at all. Go to respected sources like American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization.

In my personal experience, rocking and other soothing young children to sleep does not hinder them from later learning how to fall asleep on their own--when they are ready. It's a process, but I'm guessing that your son still needs help and comfort from mom and dad - if anything he's developmentally advanced because he's learning to be conscious of his surroundings.

Best of luck to you.

Hi D.,

We just started doing the same thing with our 17 month old daughter. I got a book called Sleeping Through the Night. It's good. It's a bit gentler than other books I've read. She talks about how hard it is for parents to listen to the crying. She says the baby is just really frustrated that the sleeping routine is not going how he remembers and that he just wants to go to sleep. I've also read that babies cry because that's all they really can do to express themselves. Their brains have become trained to go to sleep in a certain way and when you try to change the habit, it's strange for them, so they cry.
We decided to stay in the room too, so our daughter wouldn't feel abandoned. The book comments that it's important for the babies to go to sleep by themselves so they can put themselves back to sleep when they wake up during the night. So far it's working well (we're going on 2 weeks); our daughter hardly cries at all anymore and there have been several days where she doesn't cry at all. Hang in there and good luck.
Oh yeah, she also mentions that the crying is way harder on the parents because we have a lifetime of our own sadness, etc to project onto the baby's crying and that the baby is just frustrated, not scared, lonely, etc.
A.

2 suggestions

A) put him down and leave, let him cry it out which YES is very hard but after a few nights it usually doesn't happen anymore. Turn some music on, watch tv, go to the otherside of the house just occupy and distract yourself from hearing his screams.

B) put him in his crib and sit next to his crib or lay down next to his crib on the floor and ignore his whines and donot give him eyecontact or pick him up. He can see you but your not giving him attention so your letting him know it's bed time.

I would suggest doing something about his nighttime bottle routine in the near future too. After 12mos. anything like that becomes a another habit to break down the road. I had that problem with my daughter and I was weak and kept giving in, finally at 2.5 years old I got tough and let her cry it out. It literally only took 3 days and was no longer a issue. First night is the hardest and every night after was easier, it was harder on me than it was on her.

What's wrong with rocking him to sleep? How much of your time could this take? He is going to be grown up and asking for the car keys in a blink of an eye. Enjoy this close time with him each night and you both will be happy that you did.

I have raised two into their 20s and now have a 6 year-old, so know how quickly the close, cuddling, rocking time is over.

I am a big supporter of comfort objects. My 3 and 1 year old both have blankets. They really help to calm them down when I am not with them and since I have a part time job it comes in handy. I also have the baby einstein turtle that hooks on the crib and plays music for at least 15 minutes. But these might be learned behaviors, and you might have to keep on rocking.... or just let your son learn to fall asleep by himself and just survive the next week. good luck and take naps

Hi D. -

We did the exact same thing with our then 8-month-old. We went through her bedtime routine, laid her down in her crib, and then stood next to her crib while she cried for about an hour. Absolutely awful, I agree. However, the next night it was only 30 minutes of off-and-on crying, the third and fourth night was about 10 minutes, and on the fifth she happily rolled over onto her side with her blankie and went to sleep. This was actually what her pediatrician recommended (we asked) and she said that it typically takes about a week.

I agree that it's absolutely horrible to listen to your child cry, but I think it's much more important to let him learn to fall asleep on his own. Hang in there and good luck!

K.

You meed to start a routine. It can be whatever you like as long as it is close to same everynight and around the same time. I would also suggest that you spend sometime in his room with him before putting him down. My husband and I take my son up to bed in his pj's we read books and rock and just wind down, my son is still young so he is nursing so the last thing we do before bed is to nurse. We have a little poem that we say. then we lay him down. I know there is a warning against stuffef animals in childrens cribs, but my son has had a stuffed monkey since he started sleeping in his own crib when i am not with him he cuddles the monkey and calms himself down, even if he waked up at night i hear him fumble around until he finds the monkey then he chatters a bit and goes back to sleep.