What age did you stop staying in DC's room until they fell asleep?

[Cosypyjamaface]

As the title says, usually we stay with DD until she falls asleep. What age did you move to "night night" and just leave them to it?

For my son it was around his first birthday. Moved from cuddling/ rocking him to sleep to giving him his milk and leaving him to it. I probably would have done it longer but there was a heatwave so the cuddling was counter productive so we tried not doing it.

@AlternativePerspective

Never.

IMO most sleep problems are caused by parents teaching their children not to sleep without them.

So right.

@angelofmum

Never! It's a bad habit to get into and you're setting yourself up for years of settling them instead of them learning to do it themselves. One of my mum friends is a sleep therapist and she spends most of her time teaching the parents how to unlearn the bad habits they've created.

If you’ve got a child who cries to the point of making themselves sick when you leave the room it’s not really “creating a habit”, it’s giving your particular child what they need at that time. All kids are different and some need a bit more reassurance.

Sleep therapists are unregulated and I suspect loads don’t have a clue and just cash in on people’s insecurities. My friend paid a fortune for one who gave her a load of terrible advice (stop bf, prop your 5 month old up with a bottle in front of the tv before bed...). Obviously they’ve got to find some way of justifying their existence and blaming parents for creating the problem is one way of doing it I suppose...

RowboatsinDisguise just to say commiserations on the meds/sleep regression. We had this, albeit not asthma, for what felt like forever (ok, 6 weeks but a loooong 6 weeks) and the doctor eventually agreed to change the meds because Even the baby was also exhausted. It’s a really different type of problem to “just” tricky sleeping and the whining is different and all very stressful. I hope it passes soon for you and I just wanted to say that’s not a small thing and get yourself🍷 or equivalent.

@NoParticularPattern

Oh you’ll get two answers to this. One will be “I’ve never done it because my child is a unicorn who slept like a log from 25 seconds old” and the other will be “still doing it now at 36”.

My daughter is 2.5 and I still stay in her room whilst she falls asleep. I feed her 1yo brother to sleep at the same time. I’ve got so many rods for my own back I don’t ever need to think about standing up straight!

Love this responce made me laugh so much! I do for my 3 and half year old but she has autism and needs someone watching her at all times when awake for safety, who knows she might he 36! Well i really hope not! Lol

@NoParticularPattern

Oh you’ll get two answers to this. One will be “I’ve never done it because my child is a unicorn who slept like a log from 25 seconds old” and the other will be “still doing it now at 36”.

My daughter is 2.5 and I still stay in her room whilst she falls asleep. I feed her 1yo brother to sleep at the same time. I’ve got so many rods for my own back I don’t ever need to think about standing up straight!

@NoParticularPattern

I put my 15 month old down awake and she falls asleep. My husband is still upstairs settling the 4 year old 🤣🤣 I would say it entirely depends on the child, your routine and what you want to do.

@Pantsupyourbum

Never did it either, why do you need too?

Honestly. Some people on here. Perhaps because the child is really upset when they leave and they didn't want to use CIO. perhaps that's the way OP's parents put them to bed so they know no different.

One of mine was fine very early one, other is 7 and still needs me to lay with her.

Still do it with my 5 year old and will do it until he doesn't want me to..

It's just what has worked for us but each child/family is different

Never

He’s now 3 and put him in bed with a story. Kiss him goodnight and leave the room

He sometimes asks us to sit with him a bit longer so we’ll stay for 5 or 10 minutes and then go downstairs

If you’ve got a child who cries to the point of making themselves sick when you leave the room it’s not really “creating a habit”, it’s giving your particular child what they need at that time. All kids are different and some need a bit more reassurance. Sleep therapists are unregulated and I suspect loads don’t have a clue and just cash in on people’s insecurities.

^^ all of this, 100% agree. No child should be left crying like that and those “therapists” are far from expert in some cases. ☹️

Whilst in a cot DS1 settled himself to sleep from a very young age until he went into a bed at about 2 and a half. Then I had to stay with him until about a month ago and he'll be 3 next week. It just happened one night, he was taking forever to fall asleep and I needed to put clean sheets on our bed, I said I'd go and do that then come and check on him. By the time I came back he was sleeping and that was that.

Hoping it'll be as easy with DS2.

My tip, put them into a double bed if you've got the space and they take to it. At least then you're comfortable and if they have a bad night and you end up falling asleep in with them you have some decent sleep yourself. My mum friends are squeezing into toddler beds with theirs and I'm so glad DS didn't take to his! I've put it the old cot mattress on the floor by his bed in case he falls out, but he never has.

@NoParticularPattern

Oh you’ll get two answers to this. One will be “I’ve never done it because my child is a unicorn who slept like a log from 25 seconds old” and the other will be “still doing it now at 36”.

My daughter is 2.5 and I still stay in her room whilst she falls asleep. I feed her 1yo brother to sleep at the same time. I’ve got so many rods for my own back I don’t ever need to think about standing up straight!

You are a wonderful Parent and I have so much respect for your attitude, well done. You don't need anyone to tell you though 😉 I'm still feeding to sleep and co Sleeping - and I love every single cuddle. Mamas unite x

Still doing it because they both want cuddles at bedtime. They are 8 and 10 yrs old. We tried the crying it out method and it didn't work for us. We both work full time and to us it is a bit of cuddle time and physical contact that they need. It will soon stop I'm sure and then I will miss it!

Oh the smugness of the parents who had good early sleepers. Such misplaced pride.

It wasn't anything you did.

The child either does it or they don't, and their parents know them best.

Omg I’m lying here with my 6yo. And while most days it doesn’t take long and I don’t mind, today I’m annoyed. I’m hot and I’m bothered and I’m sore from a minor surgical procedure yesterday. I’m all touched out today and have just had enough. But he wasn’t a baby you could leave, he would just scream until he was sick.

@Duggeehugs82 same! My daughter was around
seven five years old and I was at the point of sitting outside her room for two hours half an hour every night (previously I had been sitting by her bed). One day I just ventured to explain,
"When Otherchildweknow goes to bed her mummy reads her a story, then gives cuddles and says night night, and then she tucks her in and goes downstairs, and Otherchildweknow knows that if she needs anything she just needs to call and her mummy will come back upstairs..." Repeat examples of other kids she knew. For her, it was a lightbulb moment. She wanted to try it and be like her friends.

5 here and we still do it....she had a few months aged 2 where she would go to bed herself, but then we moved house and it all went pear shaped. We tried to tackle it but ended up on the path of least resistance. She will grow out of it, and I catch up on my phone under the bed

God I could never sleep train, these are babies, they need their mum. They wouldn't have survived long in the savannah going to sleep left on their own. You can't undo evolution, poor babies must feel abandoned.

Yes I do think once they're about 2-3 and they have a bit better understanding you have more hope of acclimatising them - most nights DS2 falls asleep within 5 minutes so it's really easy and no bother, but on nights he wants to sit and play and sing to himself it would be nice if he could do that alone. I have started telling him I need to go and do a wee and intend to increase the time I'm gone for - that's what I did with DS1, he was just quite old when I did it! He was a nightmare to get to sleep, we now know he has ADHD and I thought at the time he just didn't know how to relax, it didn't make sense to me then but it does now.

They are all different.

@cosycatsocks

God I could never sleep train, these are babies, they need their mum. They wouldn't have survived long in the savannah going to sleep left on their own. You can't undo evolution, poor babies must feel abandoned.

Pull your judgypants out of your arse dear, it must be so uncomfortable.

Letting your child learn how to sleep by themselves isn't abandoment, and i for one am not raising my baby in the Savannah.

Never did it, put DS in his cot, said 'good night' and left the room, from the day we came home from hospital, never occurred to me that you were meant to stay with your baby until they went to sleep, it was probably just pure luck, but he slept 7pm to 7am with just one very quick night feed.

We've had friends to stay who would be up and down all evening with their toddler, used to ask us 'how does your baby sleep so well' I longed to tell them to toughen up but was too polite to do so, the DH still taking breakfast in bed to his 16 year old Princess DD. .

Your 1 day old slept in their own room from 7-7 with one quick feed?

Different ages with different DC. Always co slept when they were babies anyway. Ds2 could be put down awake from very young so I never really had to stay until he slept. Ds3 I still stay with and he is 5! But it really isn't a problem for me, which is what matters.

Seven days old when we came from hospital and he was in our room but I didn't stand over him whilst he fell to sleep - judge away, he's now a happy, healthy 19 year old. .