Needing tips on getting a toddler to sleep with less stress

[KerryEK]

Hello. I'm at my wits ends. I'm looking for tips on getting a 13 month old to sleep. She has a routine(ish) of In The Night Garden, 'jamas, teeth, bottle and bed. But it's the actual settling of her which is killing me. After her bottle, I have to resort to a long cuddle of 45 mins or so until she is snoring her head off, then I lay her down. This only results in her standing up and screaming blue murder. So it's back to cuddling for another hour etc.

I'm majorly stressed as I'm due a second child in June and my husband frequently works until very late. What am I going to do with a demanding newborn and a toddler who needs hour upon hour of comfort before she will sleep? I can't abandon a newborn to do this when I'm on my own. HELP!!

Is she very tired at bed time? I had to stop DS sleeping after 2pm otherwise he simply was not tired enough to sleep

If you don't want to push bedtime back in order for her to watch In The Night Garden, how about getting it on DVD or YouTube? A friend of mine had a similar problem, she severly cut down her son's screen time and now he positively begs to be allowed to go to bed and drops off the moment his head hits the pillow. Result!

My sister swears by this:

www.amazon.co.uk/Days-Perfect-Nights-Sleep-Child/dp/0345501802

She was going bonkers from lack of sleep, and it got her child sleeping with no problems in a few days' time. She is evangelical about it now.

The bedtime tantrums have started for me this week...3 consecutive nights. My DD is almost 18 months.

Last night I was on my own and put DD to bed first as usual and as soon as I put her down she stood up and started screaming for a cuddle. I gave her another cuddle but she was wriggling and wanted to get up and play so I just put her back in the cot. I had my 5yo DS downstairs waiting for me to take him up to bed so I just ploughed onwards with his bedtime and tried to ignore DD's screams.

While I was in DS's room DD discovered she could climb out of the cot for the first time so came running in screaming. I took her back into her room, put her back in the cot, tried to soothe her a bit and went back to DS. She jumped out again still screaming and followed me back into DS's room.

I took her back and told her firmly "It is bedtime" and left. She followed me back to DS. After that I just picked her up and put her back with no words at all. After doing this at least half a dozen times DS meanwhile was in hysterical fits of laughter! she eventually gave up and went to sleep.

Tonight I was on my own again and it was much easier. She did cry for a bit but she didn't even bother trying to get out of the cot. I firmly told her it was bedtime, she sobbed for a bit and then went to sleep.

I reckon if my DH had been here last night we would have done it differently...one of us put DS to bed while the other one comforted and probably cuddled DD to sleep. But because I was on my own I had to be a lot more firm and not stand for her behaviour and actually it worked.

Although of course I may be forced to eat my words tomorrow night...

I got a cot bed so I can lie in the bed next to my boy until he falls asleep. Best feeling in the world. I wouldn't miss it for anything and he loves it too.

As for routine, we have teeth then ipad in his bed for a 5 min cartoon.

That probably sounds out of norm to a lot of people but I can tell you I have a very happy boy who loves going to bed to have a special cuddle with mummy :)

Whem my children were young we had a huge family bed. A superking size matress laid directly on the floor for safety, and we all slept together like a pile of puppies. Bliss.

I have a 21 month old DD and have been through this exact scenario. I totally get why you are stressed out, I am a single Mum, working full time with a commute and have been DESPERATE for her to sleep at times. Sounds like you have already found something that might work for you, many of the continual tweaks to our routine have been serendipitous too. The single biggest change was stopping cuddling / feeding her to sleep - a 'prop' in Baby Whisperer-speak. I started putting her down drowsy but not asleep and staying with her. Later this developed into a hostage situation where as soon as I twitched to get out of the chair and sneak off she would miraculously wake up from apparent sleep and scream 'Chair, mummy!' at me so had to stop that too!
As she's got older its clear she understands a lot and she's a good talker so rather than the silent treatment when she was younger explaining what was going to happen seemed to work better (pleading and blackmailing isn't working yet though!). My LO seems to dislike total silence too and some boring repetitive plink plonk music on the monitor helped while she went off for a while.

Good luck and don't despair, we are (just about) living proof that it does get better. May the force be with you! X

What does DS stand for? Sorry new on here