Staying with grandparents

[glasgowcat]

I have posted a few times about my 2 year old dd who is a tricky sleeper. She was waking herself up rolling around in the cot, so moved her to a bed.

Since we did that, I have to lie with her until she falls asleep. She still wakes at night, I go into her an she rarely settles within an hour.

Lately there has been quite a lot of what can only be described as whimpering, even when I am there. She eventually settles and we go back to sleep, sometimes her dad goes in as well, but he can't get back to sleep in her bed.

Needless to say, everyone is tired, grumpy, and i find it hard to enjoy spending time with her maybe 30% of the time.

So that's the background!

I have asked my mum and dad to have her overnight, and they are concerned she might be inconsolable when she wakes and I am not there. I really really need one night where I get to sit down before 830, am not woken during the night, and pawed and rolled upon for an hour. at least not by her!

I feel guilty about even asking because I know it might be hard, and they will worry about her. I feel like I should be less selfish and be able to deal with this, but it is so relentless. I have anxiety and I feel like I am just keeping a lid on it.

I adore her, and I wish we could do it without help, but I am fucked.

So what do you think? Am I over thinking it? Should I just suck it up, and keep going, or deal with the guilt when I leave her.

I was in a similar position with my DD when she was the same age and we moved house.

I found a mixture of talking to her, rewards (stickers and gold stars), using my cross voice and then leaving her for longer periods did the job.

I would go absolutely mad if my husband went in when you were doing sleep training. The whole point is once you commit to doing it you have to see it through, otherwise you are causing more distress as the child sees that if they cry and fuss they get what they want which is the parents to go in and lie there for hours on end. It is up to you if you want to do this, or co-sleep as options, but if you have decided you can't live like this, and want to do rapid return, then being firm but consistent is the only way. Now, tonight, sad to say, she will cry at least three times thinking the parent will come in- and you will have to go through more.

I would do sleep training though, from what you've said, she's pretty distressed at night anyway so you can look at it this way- a few nights of screaming vs a year or more of whimpering/fussing/distress in the day when mum and dad lose their temper or aren't that nice through lack of sleep. You aren't increasing overall distress by doing sleep training, you are bunching it up into a few days and setting up good sleep habits for the future (as I say, though, if you want to go a different way and co-sleep that might be an option, what isn't probably an option is continuing like this).

I'm cross at your husband, by the way, not you. I just think being soft or needing to work, none of these are good reasons for not helping your dd learn how to sleep better. Good luck with it all, and if you can't get it sorted yourself, lots of people have had good results with sleep trainers for a few hundred pounds if you have the money. It is totally worth getting this sorted for your quality of life.