Do you stay with your toddler until they fall asleep?

[Sprite21]

DD is 16 months old. After her bedtime routine I put her down in her cot and she insists on me holding her hand until she falls asleep. I don't mind usually as I just read mumsnet posts on my phone. But sometimes it takes a while and DP gets frustrated because dinner is ready. He thinks maybe we should just leave her to cry because other babies seem to just go down.
I just wondered what other people do? Am looking teaching her that she needs me to fall asleep? She sleeps through most nights now so I can't complain there.

[abbyfromoz]

Nope. DD is 21 months now and we used to rock her to sleep or pat her on the back but decided to stop that quite early on so it wouldn't become a habit. She has a 'nigh nigh' (pacifier) and her 'gogo' (a comforter) and a bottle. It works well but i have no idea what we will do when we stop that routine!! :-(

[gillian88]

I stay with my 2.8 yr old until he falls asleep! Doesn't bother me, he's only young and it's not like he's still going to want me to do it when he is 16!! so I'm enjoying the closeness while I can, cos they grow up and become independent wayyyyy to quickly!!

[5madthings]

Some babies and toddlers need this extra reassurance and some dont.

Ds1 needed it.

Ds2 needed it.

Ds3 needed it.

Ds4 sucked his thumb and self soothed from an early age.

Dd is 25mths and varies some nights she needs me to stay with her, others not.

I dont see it as a hardship as they are only little once and they grow out if it.

My dp is regularly not here at bedtime as his shifts include nights, evenings and even.if he is on an am shift he often has to stay late. I evolved various techniques to.make it easier, i tended to.put older toddler down.first and keep.the baby with me in the evening, i would feed the baby whilst settling toddler if i.had to.or put yhem.in a swing or wore them.in a sling or for ds2 and ds3 i tandem.fed for a while so woukd lie in ds2's bed and feed both to sleep and then transfer ds3 to my.bed.

We have always co-slept and they have each gone happily into.their own.bed at 2-3yrs old. we have always still had a set bedtime routine and got them down by 7:30 -8pm etc so.had an evening once they were asleep. We eat dinner at 6pm.

Dp and i jusy never wanted to leave them to cry so didnt, we would stay or sit by the door or potter doing stuff or go in and oyf or i would feed or lay down etc it depended on the child and what their needs were.

At 13, 10, 8 and 4 the elder boys all sleep fine and are very independent etc. The elder three go to bed on their own yho ds3 will still have a story and ds4 will gave cuddles and story in.bed.


I dont think its pandering or letting them rule the household, some children need it, others dont and i would rather help mine learn to sleep gently without leaving them to cry etc.

[gourd]

No. We never did it. I read something that basically said do whatever works for you - BUT choose something that you would be prepared to have to do for a VERY LONG TIME. Therefore we decided to never do this in case we haev to do it for months and months or years. Instead we'd pop our heads round the door every so often and reassure her (less and less frequestly as she began to drift off) till she realised that just because she couldnt see us didn't mean we weren't tere and also that we were not going to play with her or get her out of bed as it was bedtime. This seemed to work for us. We've only had two-three nights at a time on about three accaisions in her liife after 6 weeks old, where she woudlnt settle straight away or woke in the night distressed. Mostly she's been going to bed at bedtime and staying there quite happily till morning. She does wake in the night sometimes - and we hear her growling (like a bear) and playing and laughing to herself in bed - she doesn't get out of bed in the niught though. Her room is dark and she doesnt have a night light or anything (doesnt seem to need one), which may be part of the reason that she stays in bed. She's nearly 2 and a half now. I think you just ahve to do soekthign that helps them seltte but which you feel you can sustain for a prolonged period should the need arise (hopefully it wont). We also felt that going into her room and messing about/talking to her too much etc woud actually wake her up and distract her from sleep, disturbing her further, and we felt the smallest intervention possible was better, so we did just the minimum that seemed to work and left it at that. At first we did to go into the room and go up to the cot but gradually we started just popping our head round the door and saying "Shh, time to sleep now" or something like that and this also worked -we realised this was better.

[hazeyjane]

Our dcs have always settled to sleep with one of us there.

It isn't that they rule the household, it is just part of the bedtime routine, and we are all happy with the way it works.

I don't get the, not being possible with children close in age, or more than one dc, our dcs are 6, 5 and 2.7 and they all go to sleep, with one of us there. Including bath and story, bedtime takes about an hour, a little bit logen for ds (2.6), but he has sn, and has a different routine to the girls and takes a little longer to settle.

There was a time when the dds were about 2 and 1 and we had just moved house and they were very unsettled, and would take forever to go to sleep, with us there, and we tried different ways to get them to settle, but nothing seemed to work. I remember reading the No Cry Sleep Solution, and it made me feel much better about working out a solution that suited everyone, whether that is co sleeping or whatever works. We sat and rejigged the bedroom layout, worked out a new bedtime routine, started it much earlier in the evening, and accepted that they settled better with one of us there, and it has been fine ever since.

(Now if I could just get ds to wake up later than 4.30am life would be sweet!)