In reality how do you get your toddler to sleep?

[lancslass17]

Just wondering if putting them in cot saying good night and leaving is a myth?

They went to sleep on their own from about a year old. They both had dummies for comfort.

Daughter is 2.5. Bath, story & milk & into bed. Give her a kiss and leave the room. She’s normally asleep within 10 minutes but sometimes plays with her cuddly toys for a while. She’s self settled for a long time, not sure we ever did anything specifically. Even as a baby she wanted her own space to go to sleep. Never like being cuddled when trying to sleep!

It’s not always constant though. We’ve gone through phases. Just before she was two, we went through a month of her screaming when we left the room. So we sat in the dark not making eye contact until she fell asleep. When we moved her to a bed, we had a month of her being a horror and getting in & out of bed for up to an hour. She eventually got bored!

We’ve cut nap to an hour max and it’s def made a difference to her falling asleep quickly at bedtime!

I left my 14th month old to cry, took one night at 5 minutes, the next at 2 minutes then the third night he went straight to sleep. He's nearly 2 and asks to go to bed now.

I never ever thought I would but I've got two children and am a teacher. It was killing me staying up did 2 hours rocking him, I was at breaking point. If he was to ever cry for more than 5 mins I'd go in or if he was ever overly distressed.

Half hour beforehand there's milk then it's ten minutes or so of calm playing/TV and snuggles, pyjamas, teeth, saying goodnight to everyone then bed with a teddy. Usually goes off to sleep quickly and quietly but sometimes cries a bit first if there are distractions going on. Rarely long/upset enough to warrant us going back to see if she's ok.

PJ's and teeth, supper and milk with wind down reading in the lounge, upstairs for teeth and bed, 1 story in bed, night night kiss and out the room.

She was good at going to sleep from 6 months or so, but we sleep trained at 7 months and she's slept through since. Rock solid routine (Peppa, book, milk, bath, teeth, song) and just one comfort toy in the cot with her so it's a quiet place. A few months ago (she's two) she suddenly started protesting again at sleep and nap times, but singing to her as we put her down seems to have done the trick.

Here it is read, talk about our day and cuddles then night night.

Two DS’, 4 & 6. This is fairly recent though, it’s been almost 6 years of staying with them til they fell asleep.

We have had a fairly strict routine (bathtime, story time, special song and bed) and have since my first child was about 5mths old. Oldest still needs a bit of hand holding and extra cuddles sometimes, but it’s recently ‘clicked’ for my 2 yr old who now says, “I do it,” and starts getting into bed when I finish the story. Just perseverance imo (now I’ve said that can’t even begin to imagine what bedtime will be like tomorrow - oh well).

I do put mine to bed, say goodnight and leave. But she has always hated any kind of fuss at bedtime, she much prefers to be left to it x

Bath, teeth, story then into bed! Sometimes he goes off straight away and sometimes he’ll sing songs to himself for about half an hour before dropping off.

Big bottle of milk and dh gets them to sleep from about 18 months. Stories then cuddling.
I breastfed during the night if they woke but we found it better dh did bedtime from that age as it meant I could hand over and have an evening

My son is three. After stories, he hops in to bed and we both give him a kiss and cuddle and say goodnight & that we love him... then go downstairs. He sometimes shouts to see if we're still there but we just say yes & he's happy with that. He normally plays with his little bunny for 10 mins and sings songs to himself then he's asleep.

DS never slept. He just had 'big blinks'

At 18m old we were fed up of lying in his dark room for an hour while he jumped about the bed so we said goodnight and closed the door. No crying and he fell asleep a lot quicker, he has never been the type of child to fall asleep during play/eating and obviously we were distracting him to much being present. Now at 2yr 11m he gets teeth, a story, last toilet trip then cuddles and goodnight.

I sing my nearly 3 year old to sleep. But then I've never tried the close the door and walk away approach. Singing works fine for us

Not a myth, although maybe in the minority. Absolutely not being smug, but to back up my answer to your question, my 2.5 year old's bedtime has been like this since we sleep trained her at 10 months. She's fiercely independent though, so this was a given. Teething, general sickness or overtiredness means she needs help, but 98% of the time she falls asleep herself about 10-15 mins after saying goodnight and closing her door. She rolls around in the dark (picking her nose) and singing before she nods off.

How old a toddler are you talking? I put my 18 month old in cot, hand him a dummy and walk away. All babies are different, mine can't really be soothed to sleep - if I was to keep standing there singing lullabies or whatever it would keep him awake.

Mine just turned 18 months and has started going to sleep by himself. We put him in the cot and he turns his back to us and goes straight to sleep. If you’d asked me even a few weeks ago I would have said it would never happen but it has! I think it’s the result of having a clear routine every night.

I breastfeed mine (14mo), and I breastfed his older brother as well. After that stopped working I would lie in his bed (he had a single bed from about 18 months) and pretend to fall asleep. DS2 is in a cotbed and will be for ages yet so I can't do that.

I would actually like to move to putting him in the cot and saying goodnight, but any time I try this he doesn't have the faintest idea what is going on, so I can't really do anything like gradual withdrawal and I just don't have the faith that any kind of crying method will actually result in sleep and not great trauma so I don't want to try. I'm vaguely hoping that at some point he'll understand being asked to lie down and so I can sit by the cot instead, but at the moment breastfeeding works, is fairly quick and not hugely taxing for me as I just sit there playing on my phone.

He does wake up a lot more often than DS1 used to though. At this age DS1 was probably waking once, maybe twice a night whereas I don't think DS2 has ever slept more than 3 hours in one go and most nights he wakes every 1.5-2. If it's under 2 hours between wake ups I bring him into bed with us. This does seem to be slowly lengthening since the most recent bout of illness/teeth/jabs/learning to walk which all unfortunately happened at once.

But I did look back through my old journals with DS1 the other day and I was pulling my hair out at 14mo with him and everything improved massively by 16 months and became manageable so I'm living in hope of that again.

DD is 2 and a half. For the last 3-4 months we have had a bed time routine which works well as we were starting to have bed time issues without a routine. Now its bath, PJs, warm milk, x2 stories, light out and door closed. I was surprised at how quickly she took to the routine.

17 month old, has bottle, closes eyes and goes straight to sleep. I realise that could all change at any minute or any day, particularly when she gets to 2 or 3, but so far so good!

I do the same bedtime routine that I've done since she was about 12 weeks old (although now in a slightly different order!) of milk, bath, teeth, sleeping bag, stories, cuddles, bed. Say night night, close the door and off she goes. Or she doesn't, in which case she plays with her Teddy and sings to herself until she does. Rarely hear a peep until the next morning.

I'm aware the next one might be a nightmare but sleep is the one thing I've always prioritised and worked on, and so far so good.

16 months and we read a story then put him into his cot and leave. Probably 6 nights out of 7 he rolls over and goes to sleep without a murmur, the other 1 out of 7 he shouts when we leave so we end up going in and out - he never falls asleep with us in the room, though, he seems to find it too distracting so we never leave him to cry but we try and calm him and then leave again. On a really good night he points to his cot at the end of his story. We did gradual withdrawal sleep training at 9 months, though.

I put my DS in his cot, said goodnight & left the room & closed the door, I did it from birth so he never got used to being ‘fed to sleep’ or ‘cuddled to sleep’. GF routine which I know is hugely unpopular on Mumsnet but it worked for us, he was always a great sleeper. A lot of it must be down to luck as well, as another PP said, DS was always very independent as a baby, never wanted to be cuddled or picked up, so never seemed to mind going to sleep on his own.

For a long time we went back and forth with sleeping in our bed, waiting for her to go to sleep (sometimes an hour plus) and all the other trails and tribulations. At 3.5years old she now will have a story in bed and then listen to Beatrix Potter story's until she falls asleep alone. That's dc2, DC1 was a dream from 1 years old and littlest is still feeding to sleep but trying to feed and put down rather than falling asleep on the breast. The most important thing (in my humble opinion) is them trying to recreate when they fall asleep when they try to resettle, be that breastfeeding, holding hands ect. When we stayed with her she would wake a few hours after shouting for us to come back and we would have to repeat (only a few months ago). We've started to crack it now and finally she will listen to the groclock and stay in bed until the sunshine. At 3.5 she has only just started to sleep through. Which after our experience with DC1 was staggering.