Cannot take this anymore!!!

[tiredandfedup3333]

My 22 month old cries and cries when put down for a nap in her cot and when put in her cot at bedtime. She will cry for anything from 5 mins to half an hour when I leave the room. Clearly even the cry it out method has no affect on her as if I leave her for 30 mins she will do it again a day or two later and then again and again! Mentally I’m really struggling to hear her crying and crying every single time she’s put down to sleep. But equally I desperately need a bit of down time. I feel like a shit mum. Where am I going wrong?!

Her routine is something like this:

8am - wake
1pm - nap (cries then falls asleep at 1.30-1.45pm)
3pm - wake
8pm - bed (cries and actually falls asleep around 8.45pm).

Help!

My DD needed a nap at that age, but just wouldn’t nap, so we stopped nap time. I reduced it to every couple of days, then to no nap but an earlier bedtime which worked nicely.

FWIW, she also likes to cry herself to sleep. She has done ever since she was a baby, and still does it now she’s 4. Not every day, just when she’s exceptionally tired. Nothing I do will soothe her.

I really do not think you’re a shit mother, you sound like you’re being incredibly hard on yourself. I have twins, it’s literally been impossible to not leave one of them crying multiple times, it’s not done them any harm (that I can tell yet!). Your seeing anxiety in your DD when you have anxiety yourself, just made me think are you looking for something in her that may be like you? Only reason I ask that is with my DS he lined things up repeatedly and I was terrified he’d somehow ‘inherited’ or ‘caught’ my ocd even though I’m better, but it turned out to be a schema thing for him, he was just playing.

Personally, I think some crying is ok. Crying it out in the case of my DD is ok too, it’s what she needs on occasion and I recognise this now. Leaving a tiny baby to cry because you can’t be arsed to deal with it, that’s not ok!

This will pass, and it will get better 🌸

You're not a shit mum. You obviously care. A shit mum wouldn't care and would just let them cry and cry with no guilt. That's not you.

Your daughter is crying because you sometimes go to her. She is confused because your behaviour is inconsistent. Sometimes her cries get her a cuddle, sometimes not, so she will always try in hope that its one of those times.

So just start being consistent and either actually let her cry and never go to her, in which case she will eventually lose hope and stop crying, which as you've read isn't ideal mentally, OR consistently cuddle her to sleep, maybe onto a bed now, not a cage. It's not to late.

@tiredandfedup3333

if it's such a struggle to get her to sleep why are you putting yourselves both through it? Have you tried quiet time or laying with you on the sofa and explaining it's relax time whilst you cuddle her.

Because I know she needs the nap. She wouldn’t fall asleep at all if she didn’t? If I tried explaining its relax/quiet time she wouldn’t have a clue what I meant. I don’t think most 22 month olds would! She’d just get up and walk off.

I think anyone would fall asleep after 45 minutes of crying out of pure boredom and exhaustion?

@sadpapercourtesan

Cry it out is awful. I think it's emotionally harmful, personally. There's no benefit to a small child from learning to shut up because nobody's coming.

I sympathise (one of mine didn't sleep more than an hour at a time before he was 4) and I know how exhausting and mentally shredding it is. I don't think you have a humane option other than cuddling to sleep/walks in the pushchair, though, for the time being. There isn't some magical way to stop them from crying. Is there anyone who could have her for an afternoon every now and again to give you a break?

I too think ''Cry it out'' is awful. A neighbour did it, {Terraced houses} and it was hell for us. Neighbour left her DC to scream blue murder for an hour or more sometimes two hours..the distress in that poor kid's cry was so hard to listen to. Occasionally you's hear a ''Shut up!'' and the door slamming.

~Mother worked as a social worker, which made me think ''Do as I say, not as I do''

Mercifully they moved.
The neighbour the other side thought it was verging on cruel, too.

Kids don't like to be in a room on their own until older.

We play a game with her soft toys before I leave the room and she seems very happy. But as soon as I leave she starts crying!

Surely that’s obvious? Imagine you’re doing something you enjoy with a loved one and they just get up and leave. She’s happy playing, play time is over and mums not there any more. Is this at bedtime? Because getting her excited about playtime at bedtime won’t help.

Do you talk to her? Use picture cards if she’s not great verbally?

FIRST we read a story (show First - picture of a book) THEN we go to sleep (show Then - a picture of a bed)

Look at picture exchange communication system.

What I used to do is still on a chair in the room, while my son was in the cot, I would not speak or engage.
I then after a few nights moved the chair until after a few weeks I got to the door, when he fell asleep I'd leave the chair there, so he might think in the dark I was still there.
Then I started to sit there just for five minutes then say I was going to the toilet I'd be back in a minute, I go back five minutes later and keep doing this until he was asleep.
It did take about a month but eventually I'd only have to sit there for five minutes by the time I went back again he'd be asleep.
It was well worth it and saved a lot of crying and stress and I was glad I put the effort in a month of sitting there for a bit eventually saved so much time.
I still left the chair there in the dark. X

I don't think it's hugely common to be able just to walk out with a child that age awake and for them to go to sleep, so maybe you just need to adjust expectations a little too. At least the toddlers in our antenatal group all, bar one, have required someone in the room with them while they go to sleep that age, and most still do at 3. I think it's quite a big thing just leaving and expecting them to sleep at that age. I know DD would find that transition much too jarring.

Also she's sleeping till 8am, that's great! I'd love DD to sleep till then but she's an early riser and up around 6 usually.

Op you are not a terrible mum at all. Please don’t feel guilty. In your shoes I would seek professional help if that is an option for you. Someone to give you some support in coming up with a workable routine that suits everyone.

There is nothing wrong with wanting time to your self during the day and in the evening.

In the meantime I’d get lots of books about bedtime and change your evening routine so that you read 2 bedtime books (don’t read them at any other time). Do that last thing, pop her into bed, kiss and good night.

She cries and cries alone in her room for 2 lots of 45 minutes every single day. How have we got to the point in the western world where this is ok. No other cultures do stuff like this.

Please don't be so hard on yourself. Both my kids gave up napping fairly early on (my eldest first memory was not napping at nursery when everyone else was) and although cry it out wasn't for me I don't belive it causes any long lasting damage.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200310193305.htm

What happens if you just hang out on the sofa with you reading a book with a few toys there for her? Both my kids took most of their naps on the sofa. Good luck - this is a hard stage? Could you maybe pay for some childcare to give yourself a break?

Okay. First of all, please stop beating yourself up. You're not a shit mum. You obviously care a lot but are worn down, which makes everything harder. When you have a sensitive or temperamental child, it usually takes a lot of refinement to find a good routine, and even then many things can send it out the window.

You also sound anxious (obviously) and perfectionistic, as well as highly sensitive yourself. I don't say that as a criticism but simply something you need to be able to acknowledge and accommodate for yourself. I don't think there is any known way to make a sensitive person less sensitive. I'm going to take a guess that at work you're highly capable and well-thought-of and don't feel stressed and/or bored by work the same way you do parenting a toddler, and this makes you feel bad about yourself?

Society often seems to prescribe that in order to be considered 'good', mothers need to want to be around their children 24/7, never lose their patience, never feel overwhelmed, never want to have time for themselves. While some women might feel this way, this is an unrealistic expectation for a lot of women.

Toddlerhood can be an exhausting time as you often don't get a real break during the day once they drop their nap, although it can also be freeing in that you no longer have to accommodate the nap drama on a daily basis. Swings and roundabouts.

But the challenges/freedom of no-nap time is partly why people start sending their kids to preschool for a session or two a week! You seem to be getting decent sleeps and a bit of time to yourself in the evening... if you find you can't make it through a full day of parenting without starting to feel frazzled and annoyed at your child, maybe you need to look at a morning at preschool a couple of times a week, or getting a student/nanny to come in for a couple of hours in the afternoon a couple of times a week so you can go out for a walk, or read a book or go for a swim or even get a part-time or volunteer job – whatever is going to make you feel more 'you' again and capable of handling the tougher days with more grace.

On a practical front, you seem to be having a few quite decent days among the bad ones and I actually think your sleep routine is pretty solid on the whole. My second was a terrible sleeper – I would have considered 5m of crying before going off to sleep by herself followed by a 1.5hr nap a near-miracle. Fortunately as my first was a better sleeper, I knew that it wasn't me 'handling things wrong' but just a different child.

I would try cutting or dropping your daughter's nap. I know she's still young but mine was starting to drop her nap by then. She had her last daytime nap the day before her second birthday and her night sleep actually improved a lot after that.

In all honesty, 45m of crying does seem like too long to leave a young child. I think once she goes past about 5-10m, you either have to accept that it's going to be a shush-to-sleep day, or just pick her up, skip the nap and try putting her down an hour earlier for bedtime. If you desperately need some down time, I don't think there would be anything wrong with putting on the TV for an hour or so and just chilling out with her.

Something I found helpful to repeat to myself when I was feeling frustrated and worn out by managing my daughter's sleep was "She's not giving me a hard time, she's having a hard time." It reminded me we were on the same team.

Good luck. Toddlerhood is just often hard and sometimes all you need to know is that you're not alone and many perfectly capable mothers struggle with it. I personally found the baby and toddler years really hard and parenting became far more rewarding once they got to school age. Now they are 7 and 8 and I find them absolutely delightful.

Haven’t read the full thread so apologies if you’ve tried it but my daughter is like yours and would scream if I tried to put her into her cot awake however she is ok if I lie on the floor next to her, don’t need to do anything or interact just lie there. I usually stick my ear phones in and listen to a podcast or audiobook and within about 30 minutes she will be fast asleep and I can sneak out.

Couple of things here that are glaringly obvious. 1.your counselling that you so easily dismiss, how much are you engaging? Are you doing the excersizes you've undoubtedly been given when you feel overwhelmed? 2. Your partner must do more. Don't give us this 'he works hard' crap, so do you. When you work outside the house you get a commute, breaks and toilet trips all on your own, something you never get at home. If he gets home and 'clocks off' that's completely unacceptable. He should be settling her whilst you cook or make the dinner/sort the house whilst you're with her. I imagine some of the desire to have more time to yourself is partly about having more time for yourself. That is, once she has settled you don't feel like you have a mountain of chores to do. I'm hoping that I'm being assumptive and that he's pretty on it in the evenings but sadly this is too common a pattern.

Could you take the side off her cot and lay with her? That way there's no need to transfer where she will wake up when you put her down. My daughter has always needed me to help get her to sleep peacefully but all of a sudden since taking the side off she is happily going to sleep with no contact from me whilst I sit by the side!! It's crazy the change. The first couple of nights I had to keep laying her back down and patting her bum but now nothing. Could you try that? You say you feel guilty, we all make mistakes, the important thing is making changes once you realise.

Don’t have time to respond to the replies right now but do people think leaving to cry for 5-10 mins is okay? Or should it be none at all?

@tiredandfedup3333 there is no such thing as "is it ok", you need to make that decision whether it's ok for you.

Having read most responses, most of us don't want to leave our children to cry when in a dark room on their own, they want mummy and need us and whilst they are little, I'll be there. It's a choice I made. My expectation is not for me to put them in their cot and leave and they should just fall asleep and never has been although my second baby is 9 months and does exactly that but given he shares with his bro, I'm in the room anyway.

If this is your expectation and you want to leave her to cry, that's ok. You just need to make a decision and be happy with it rather than make the decision and then worry about the decision you've made and ask Mumsnet if it's ok. If you're unhappy with your decision, change it. Ask for help.

Are you enjoying motherhood or do you find all of it hard? Have you got help? Do you work and get a break from the every day?

@tiredandfedup3333

Don’t have time to respond to the replies right now but do people think leaving to cry for 5-10 mins is okay? Or should it be none at all?

It depends on why she is crying. We can usually tell when our child is distressed. However 5-10 minutes is really not long.

Going back to something you said earlier, ie that she would not settle down sitting or laying next to you on the sofa but would get off and start moving around: would that matter? I used to keep mine with me downstairs, he was always with me and my husband; if we were sitting down talking or watching TV after dinner our little one would play on the floor with toys or sit with us, chattering away, we didn't expect him to be still. It was nice, I have happy memories of that time (he's forty two now).

Please understand I am not giving advice, would never do that, just sharing.

I reiterate that you are not harming your daughter. You are trying to do what is right but children are individuals, there is no one way of doing things.

@tiredandfedup3333

Don’t have time to respond to the replies right now but do people think leaving to cry for 5-10 mins is okay? Or should it be none at all?

What's ok depends on the individual/family, but for me, leaving my baby crying for any length of time is not ok.

I wouldn't leave my DH or my friend crying alone in a room in the dark.

Your duty as a mother is to comfort your child. It's not a popular opinion and it will probably sound judgmental, but it's your responsibility to respond to your baby (who is communicating in the only way they know how).

Of course you need time for yourself, but your baby's comfort comes first.

I think you want everyone to repeatedly tell you that what you are doing is fine and not to worry that she is crying or to give you a magic wand to make her stop. Unfortunately, most people don't like the idea of a baby crying herself to sleep every night because you don't want to comfort her.

My ds is an awful sleeper, takes forever to settle, but his need for comfort trumps my need to have me time for now. I won't leave him sobbing his heart out just so I can sit on my arse for a bit, that just isn't right.

Nap times he is rocked to sleep indoors in his buggy as it is the quickest way for him to happily fall asleep. At night he is cuddled to sleep by me or dh, and it usually takes about 40 minutes, but he goes to sleep relaxed, happy and feeling loved and secure. Surely that is worth 40 minutes of our time? Our dd was the same, cuddled to sleep when she was a toddler, and grew out of needing it when she was older.

They are little for such a short time really. I just think it's not much to ask to give them the comfort they need for this brief time in their lives

Ok first of all I really understand how hard anxiety is.
It's all so consuming when you are in the thick of it .
The thing is you can't change the past now so dwelling on it will do nothing other than to keep this feeling of it damaging her going.
You haven't harmed her:) at all. She is well loved and cared for. A bit of on and off crying in her cot is ok.
MN is a funny place with sleep and crying and thinking you have to meet and solve any upset.
Second of all at this age I had to stop my DD napping in the day if I wanted a evening.
Unfortunately many don't read the books about sleep and often they need less sleep than suggested
It's a tricky transition
She might need the nap yes but then she probably doesn't need the early bed time as well
Unfortunately some of this is adjusting expectations.
She's going to need less sleep as she gets older and that's a adjustment for you. It's annoying when you don't get the down time in the day I understand
Both of mine have not needed much day sleep and it's tiring but it passes and things do get easier :)

Fwiw my first would cry before every sleep time but I saw it as sleep is a need for her and tbh if I kept going in she'd actually cry for longer than if I left her to it
At six we are well attached and she tells me about all her upset and calls for me in the night if needed
It does not teach them no one is coming imo

First of I want to start by saying don't beat yourself up.
We're fed this information about babies/young children having to "learn" to settle themselves but if we really stopped to think about it most of us (if not all of us) in adulthood still need something, TV, Music, a book, a partner to cuddle etc. To help us sleep. I'm sure in yourself you've taken longer than 10 minutes to fall asleep at times.

Second of all, when my boy was 15ish months I cracked under the pressure because it was at the point of him squealing when he went anywhere near the cot and/or we left him. So we did end up as a last resort leaving him for 5 minutes to cry, then 10 minutes. Thankfully it never went beyond that and only took the 2 nights but it seems to not work for your little.

Have you got Instagram? There's loads of gentle sleep consultant accounts that may be of help to you on there. 22 months is still so so young, you will not have caused any lasting damage, it's just going to be a matter of working out what works and sticking to it. Every baby/toddler/child is different. What works for some won't work for another.

Try making her room for naps and bedtime as dark as possible. Lie on her bedroom floor beside her with your hand on her back/belly until she calms down/falls asleep, it might take a few nights of this but eventually she'll learn that you're not "leaving".

You could also try (if you haven't) Before you leave if she's still awake say you're off to get a drink of water and you'll be back in a second. Go get the water and come back, then after a bit of time, "oh mummy needs the toilet, I'll be back" and just keep doing that. After a couple of nights time between her going in the cot and you leaving should get shorter and shorter and you'll be able to leave as soon as she's in the cot. It may just be separation anxiety which happens to most if not all babies at some point/s.

Hope this helps / makes sense.
Try looking up "second star to the right sleep" on Instagram you may get some gentle ideas to help with sleep that don't involve crying.

@Jillybean13

First of I want to start by saying don't beat yourself up. We're fed this information about babies/young children having to "learn" to settle themselves but if we really stopped to think about it most of us (if not all of us) in adulthood still need something, TV, Music, a book, a partner to cuddle etc. To help us sleep. I'm sure in yourself you've taken longer than 10 minutes to fall asleep at times.

Second of all, when my boy was 15ish months I cracked under the pressure because it was at the point of him squealing when he went anywhere near the cot and/or we left him. So we did end up as a last resort leaving him for 5 minutes to cry, then 10 minutes. Thankfully it never went beyond that and only took the 2 nights but it seems to not work for your little.

Have you got Instagram? There's loads of gentle sleep consultant accounts that may be of help to you on there. 22 months is still so so young, you will not have caused any lasting damage, it's just going to be a matter of working out what works and sticking to it. Every baby/toddler/child is different. What works for some won't work for another.

Try making her room for naps and bedtime as dark as possible. Lie on her bedroom floor beside her with your hand on her back/belly until she calms down/falls asleep, it might take a few nights of this but eventually she'll learn that you're not "leaving".

You could also try (if you haven't) Before you leave if she's still awake say you're off to get a drink of water and you'll be back in a second. Go get the water and come back, then after a bit of time, "oh mummy needs the toilet, I'll be back" and just keep doing that. After a couple of nights time between her going in the cot and you leaving should get shorter and shorter and you'll be able to leave as soon as she's in the cot. It may just be separation anxiety which happens to most if not all babies at some point/s.

Hope this helps / makes sense.
Try looking up "second star to the right sleep" on Instagram you may get some gentle ideas to help with sleep that don't involve crying.

Also we only did the leave to cry thing as a last resort because it was at the point he was barely sleeping for longer than 45 minutes at a time and we were both completely broken from lack of sleep and nothing else seemed to work. I still get up with him now when he needs me but waking every 45-60 minutes was completely unsustainable for any of us.

I think you want everyone to repeatedly tell you that what you are doing is fine and not to worry that she is crying or to give you a magic wand to make her stop. Unfortunately, most people don't like the idea of a baby crying herself to sleep every night because you don't want to comfort her.

Yeah, this. I wouldn’t leave mine to cry either, but I don’t think that’s what you want to hear.
If you’re doing your best and 5-10 mins crying is fine with you, then keep doing it. She’s your kid. The guilt seems to be eating you alive though, so I think you need to decide whether you want to live with a little less time for you, or the guilt of continuing to leave her to cry.