AIBU to make DC's room safe and leave them to it?

[HyacinthBouvier]

Posting here for traffic - DC does not sleep. At least three wakings last night between 21:30 and 5am, when he is up for the day. We have tried pretty much everything except controlled crying, which is not an option for us.

Have been googling 'how not to lose my mind with sleep deprivation' all morning and came across the Montessori method of baby-gating the child's room and leaving them with their mattress on the floor to sleep or not as they please.

He is only 13 months. I will properly baby-proof the room. This is ok right?

I sort of guessed he was finished feeding because he was falling asleep otherwise he would have continued to actively feed. This guessing game only lasted about 5 days though because once the association had been broken he would just unlatch himself when he was done.

When we first started the training he would get upset and pull himself up as soon as I left the room so I would leave him for a minute and then go back into him. I wouldn't make any eye contact and would just lie him back down whilst gently but firmly saying, "its bedtime (insert name). When I left he would get up again but then I wold leave it 2 minutes before going back into him and would repeat the above. The intervals would then be 4 minutes and then 8 minutes. He was never left longer than 8 minutes but it felt like a lifetime sometimes!

The first night took him about 50 minutes to go to sleep and then with each subsequent night that time lessened until by day 5 he would just stay lying down and gurgle to himself in the cot when I left the room and he would usually be asleep within ten minutes.

If at any point he woke during the night I would follow the same routine as above of the 12,4,8 minute intervals of going into his room and just lying him down.

This routine was also followed for nap times.

I can completely understand your concerns about your DS not tolerating stories etc because of his age.

When addressing sleep issues what worked well for my 10 month old will in a lot of ways need to be altered to suit a 13 month old for reasons like the one you gave.

My Sleep Consultant made a very detailed plan and routine to tailor to my son's individual needs (including being age appropriate) and the problems I was having, it wasn't just generic advice she was giving me if you know what I mean. If you were to contact her she would come up with a plan specific to your DS's age and to address the individual problems you are having.

People hear the words sleep training and sleep consultants and wrongly assume it's all about leaving babies to cry when it's so much more than that. The fact our phone call consultation was over 2 hours long just shows how complex an issue it can be and how professional a service it is.

A lot of people confuse CC with CIO which is why they are so against the idea.

With me she discussed the 5 or 6 methods of sleep training she deals with and so then you would tell which one you prefer and then she tailors a plan to suit yours and DS's needs.

I don't know how bad things are for you at home, but for me my life was near unbearable. I was getting about 4 hours of broken sleep a night, I was exhausted, tearful most days, I dreaded the days with DS because he was so tired and irritable and I knew he'd never nap and I would dread the nights too. I stopped enjoying him. I was fighting with DH all the time too because we were both exhausted and stressed. We'd tried various solutions ourselves but we couldn't see the woods for the trees and we didn't really have a clue if what we were doing was helping it just making things worse. I told DH that I just couldn't cope anymore and that's when we looked into getting the advice of a Sleep Consultant.

Those first few nights of implementing the new bedtime routine were difficult and doing the CC was hard at first but the difference it made to our lives, and the difference it made to DS, was unbelievable. It only took 5 days in total to achieve a wonderfully sleeping child which was nothing really when compared to the months if sleepless hell I'd already endured and the months of sleepless hell that would have lay ahead if we hadn't have done something.

As I've said, the advice she gave me was fantastic and it changed our lives for the better. I understand that CC isn't for you but there are so many other options available and other ways to improve your DS's sleep so do consider speaking to a Sleep Consultant if things do get intolerable.

You have my sympthy - but you have identified one of your problems yourself.....I understand the not feeding to sleep thing, I really do, but, there is no way my child will go to sleep if I put him down awake....
He hasn't learnt to self settle. At the end of each sleep cycle he is waking up and needs help to get back to sleep. I do understand your sleep depreciation unfortunately - there were 'days' when I was awake for 48 hours. The only thing I can say is whether you choose to address this or not - things will get better. They will just get better more quickly if you decide to help him learn to self settle. Although I did not in theory like that famous nanny without any children of her own who believed in control crying (I don't support controlled crying) - I did find her sleep book incredibly helpful and used to buy it for other sleep deprived mothers. Hope you can sort things. In my sleep deprived mind foggy state, I once drew a picture of my son and considered every part of his body and what changes I could make to improve his sleep - and it was the start of making positive adjustments that gradually lead to him sleeping through the night. Good luck.

I really sympathise, you must be exhausted. I'll be a bit blunt - I know you said you won't do any CC but in that case I think you're asking for the impossible. Every parent would love a nice gentle way of teaching a child to sleep better with no crying but if it existed there would be an awful lot fewer of these types of threads. My personal view (and it's just that so of course others will feel differently) is that it's our job to PARENT which means lovingly teaching a child what they need to cope in the big wide world. That means sleep and the ability to self soothe before their beloved mummy cracks up from exhaustion. And enough sleep to support their healthy development. As a pp said, sleep is essential to a child's development and I fail to see how a few nights of intermittent crying through sleep training is more detrimental than prolonged sleep deprivation.

I know you've said CC isn't an option and that's fine, totally your call, but my opinion is that is the only solution and your only other option is to try and struggle on as you are. If there was a better option everyone would be doing it and sleep training wouldn't be a thing!

I really do sympathise, your situation sounds so hard and you're doing amazingly to be able to even type at this point. Best of luck with whatever you decide but like others have said I simply can't see your proposed method working and surely your child needs a proper nights sleep in a proper bed not playing all night then intermittently crashing on the floor in the same room as a mattress which they don't even recognise as something to get on to sleep? I don't want to sound blunt or dismissive of your views but you've asked for opinions so people on a forum will inevitably say things you may disagree with.

Thanks to those who took the time to tell me what did/didn't work for them, I really appreciate it.

It's been hard not to reply sarcastically to those posters who are 100% confident that they know exactly how to settle my child.

CC is not the only solution for a lot of people. I don't believe that self settling or self soothing is the best thing for my DC. Just my opinion. Happy for people to disagree with me on that, even if their way of doing so is to point out that I've failed to teach my child something that will apparently cause developmental or behavioural issues or my favourite, that I need to PARENT him - wow.

Anyway, going to leave this here for now as its not great for me to read the many ways I'm doing a terrible job at mothering when I'm already sleep deprived

OP - it really wasn't my intention to upset or offend you and I meant my statement in a very general way, that it's our job to teach our children how to do things, that's what I meant by parent. As I said, feel free to disagree! Best of luck to you going forwards.

Your only mistake is posting this in AIBU. There is a 'sleep' board under 'Being a parent' that you might want to post on, or ask MNHQ to move this one? You will get poster who disagree with certain methods but there are some really knowledgeable, regular posters on there who might be able to help.

Also, if you don't think self soothing is good for your child how are you expecting them to sleep longer stretches? Self soothing doesn't mean screaming to sleep, it means having the ability to put themselves back to sleep to link sleep cycles more effectively.

Are we talking about controlled crying here or cry it out? I'm a bit unsure as they're 2 seperate methods.

I'm not sure you're being particularly realistic OP. I mean, fine if you don't want to do CC, entirely your choice, but there's a reason why people recommend it - it is often very effective.

So you're not prepared to bite that bullet, but at the same time you want to get some sleep. Difficult. I think the leaving in his room thing sounds a bit nuts to be fair and no way to foster better sleep. Maybe hire a sleep consultant if you can afford one.