Positive ideas for getting 14 month to sleep on her own please.

[mumtodd]

My dd is 14 months and for a lot of reasons has not learned to sleep on her own. She sleeps in our bed at night. She can't sleep unless I stay with her and hasn't slept in her cot for months. Our main problem is bedtime in the evening. She will only settle in our bed and as it isn't safe to leave her alone one of us sits with her every evening. I think it is time for her to learn to settle herself but have no clue how to go about it. I would not be a fan of controlled crying. I would be interested in hearing if anyone else has been through similar and what would they suggest.

you poor thing!

DS is a bit over 1yr old, and he's starting to settle himself at night. he's always slept in his own cot though.

Could you get one of those cots with the removable side, so it's like she's in bed with you, but she's not? Maybe try that for a few weeks, then put the side on but keep her close by, then move her into her own room?

With DS is found half the problem was me not thinking it'd even happen, until i bit the bullet. I don't like CC either- what i did was go to him, pick him up without speaking to him, give him a drink of water, make sure he wasn't wet / too hot / ill etc, then pop him back in his cot. I'd let him grizzle (but not cry) until in the end, he would grizzle then go to sleep on his own. Sometimes now at night, i hear him grump briefly, move around, then go back to sleep by himself.

I don't know if any of that is helpful

You are right to want to get her to sleep on her own, and it will take some time, so you need to be prepared to keep with it and not revert to her sleeping in your bed.

The key thing is to get her back into her room and into her cot, and I think given that she is used to sleeping with you, one of you will need to sleep in her room for a while - maybe on a single blow-up mattress. If you have a cot with a dropside, then maybe leave that down, with the blow-up mattress right alongside - so she feels very close to you. Once she is used to sleeping in the cot,(after a few days or a week or so) you should be able to just stay on the mattress until she falls asleep, and then put up the cot side and return to your room. Then gradually you will need to move the mattress further away from the cot, then dispense with the mattress and sit on the floor, move further away etc. You should expect this process to take several weeks. If she wakes up in the night you need to be consistent and not let her into your bed at all. You could also look at making her cot/room special in some way - a new toy, bedcoverings, curtains or something to encourage her.

Try the BabyWhisperer books and website - you should find useful information on this, that doesn't involve controlled crying.

Good Luck - it will take time, but will be worth it.

Whilst I can totally understand how you feel, having got 2 kids myself, I have come to the conclusion that trying to get them to sleep on their own in a room by themselves is actually fighting against nature.

I've been through the same thing as you've described and I did resort to controlled crying but I totally understand if you feel you can't do that as it is very upsetting and stressful but the upside is that it works very very quickly, I remember with my DD we only did it for 2 nights and the 3rd night she slept through by herself.

BUT, DD is now nearly 4 and since about the age of 2, once she was out of the cot and in a bed, she used to regularly wake up in the night and come into our bed, and so you might find that you manage to get her sleeping on her own now but sooner or later she will find her way back into your bed!

I have many friends who all say the same thing and the only solution we've all found that works, meaning everone gets a decent nights sleep, is not to fight nature and what we've done is simply to move DD's bed into our room. She sleeps in her bed, DH and I sleep in our bed and we all get a good night's sleep, and I know that once she's that little bit older, she of her own accord won't want to sleep in our room any more and will want her own space and will go into her own room.

That has been the solution for us, I know it doesn't suit everyone, but if all you want is a decent night's sleep then it does work.
Good luck!

we had a similar problem after coming back of holiday doing what you've done to try & settle ds.
I found by putting him in his cot for night time sleep & sitting with him for a while then going to the next room - he cried & i kept popping into him, then calling out to reassure him. This has worked!
For day time sleeps we now do the same.

Try pick up / put down - Baby Whisperer technique. Not as scary as controlled crying but should get you the result you want.

Check the website if you haven't heard of it.