Is controlled crying the only option for toddler?

[TheAbominableWoman]

My DD will be 2 next month.

Shes a good sleeper and always has been for which I am very grateful.

She goes to bed at about 7pm and either DH or I (usually me) sits with her until she falls asleep. This usually takes 20-30 minutes during which we sit quietly in the room with her with minimal interaction. We just put her in the cot, say sleepy time, night night and wait for her to drop off. Sometimes she will try to attract our attention by standing up/chatting etc but usually just lying her down again and repeating sleepy time works (sometimes it takes several repetitions but we get there in the end). On a good night, shell just turn over and be asleep within minutes with no fuss at all. Unfortunately those are becoming fewer and further between.

Lately she seems to be finding delaying tactics (like asking for a drink which she doesnt really want, demanding toys from her shelf (that shes not interested in and will just toss out of the cot) and its taking more like 45 mins to an hour to get her off to sleep. Id love to get her to the stage where I could tuck her in and leave the room. Is controlled crying the only way? Id never leave her to cry it out and, to be honest, Im not even sure how I feel about controlled crying but I cant think of another way to get her to that stage. Shes generally a content wee thing and shes happy to go to bed and Im afraid of creating negative associations with bedtime. Am I creating a problem where there isnt one? Should just continue as we are? Or is there a gentler method than CC that I can try?

gradual withdrawal? - where you move closer and closer to the door until you are outside it.

What happens if you do leave the room? How did you end up staying in the room in the first place?

We did gradual withdrawal with ds. I eventually got out the room by saying I needed a wee and I'd come straight back. I left it longer and longer between leaving and coming back and he'd be asleep.

Around this age I realised DD no longer wanted to be closed in. She had previously chatted to her teddy for a few minutes when I left the room then slept. I turned her cot into a toddler bed and she started going to sleep easily again!

You'd have to google but there's something I recall about gradual retreat (may be wrong name), whereby you get further away each night to the point where you don't have to stay with the child.

That's getting to the age you can negotiate. "I'll stay with you if you stay in bed and try to go to sleep." "I'm just going to tidy up, I'll come back and check on you in 2/5/10 minutes."

Think I'd just say no to delaying requests if that's definitely what they are. The only one I tend to say yes is a pee request, just in case!

Or maybe she's just needing a bit less sleep now she's older and she'd go to bed fine at 7.30. We tried all sorts of things with DS as a toddler until we realised that whatever darn thing we did he actually fell asleep at 9pm. Put him to bed at ten to 9 - bingo, easy bedtime.

Thanks for your replies.

Ilove if we leave the room, she cries. I don't believe in leaving babies to cry so we stayed with her. Went from her being rocked to sleep, to her falling asleep with us sitting next to the cot, to moving across the room (room is tiny box room so 'across the room' is really only a few feet from the cot). I suppose that's a kind of verrry slow gradual retreat :) I'll try moving the chair closer to the door tonight and take it from there.

I suppose being in the room with her for half an hour or so has never bothered me because it's quite a nice quiet time usually. But now it's less quiet because she's worked out that she can use delaying tactics and can talk and ask for demand things. Some of which I feel obliged to respond to (like drinks). I feel like I'm now not helping her by staying close and it would be actually more beneficial for her to settle to sleep alone.

Sounds similar to our ds1 at that age. We moved him out of the cot into a toddler bed. Now we read story, he gets into bed, lights out, asleep. We wished we had moved him sooner.

Otherwise, ignore all distractions she creates, consistency & she'll give up. Gradual withdrawal only works if you do actually withdraw gradually. We haven't yet made it out of the door whilst he's awake but happily he'll be asleep within 10 mins max.

Mind you, he had dropped his nap by then - when he still napped it'd take longer to settle him at night.

I'm with her now. I've moved the chair 6 inches closer to the door. The room is so small that if I move it a couple of inches every night, I'll be out the door by the weekend

No problems tonight. She had a bit of a tantrum because I put her in bed when she wanted to bounce on the bed in the spare room. That was 10 minutes ago and she's asleep already with no more fuss. I'll try consistency at ignoring the distraction behaviour coupled with gradual retreat and see how we go.

I feel better just for having a plan that isn't the dreaded CC. I'm sure it works for some but I feel in my gut that it's not for me or DD.

Have been thinking about taking the side off her cot but I'm going to leave that for a bit longer. We're off on holiday in a few months and I want her to sleep in the travel cot in the apartment we stay at so I'll revisit that idea afterwards.

Braced for being put right, but I thing The Thinking is moving away from CC in favour of a more supported set of approaches. I certainly could bear it, it felt like teaching DS to endure abandonment. Here are the things we did that worked:

Cast iron bedtime routine with totally predictable stop play and snuggle down point, no bargaining or distractions

Heavy sales pitch pre-switch to big boy bed, which he then campaigned to get into

Songs: I sing him the same 5 songs after lights out. 4 times out of 5 he's asleep before I get to the end.

Linked to songs: conditions. Mummy can only sing the songs if he's lying down going to sleep. If he sits up, messes about, chats etc, she has to leave. Cue sobs and a very focused snuggling down until he forgets the consequences, which normally lasts for weeks/months.

Good luck!

Singing to her seems like unnecessary punishment for the poor child

No cry sleep solution might work for her?

Controlled crying doesn't work on every child. I tried it once (when I was about to pass out from exhaustion) and woke three hours later, to find DS sitting in an angry heap in his cot, still crying. (He's 12. I still feel guilty about it.)

Mine listens to music when she's falling asleep. You needn't sing your own songs!

Music! Of course! My daughter's eardrums thank you, loblolly!

I BET your DD loves you singing! Ask her! I think it's the law until they're old enough to know better!

I knew I'd read some actual facts about this somewhere.

Margot Sunderland's child development book What Every Parent Needs to Know says, to paraphrase:

To sleep, a child needs to feel safe and relaxed
To a young child, safe and relaxed = protected by nearby mummy/daddy/anyone who'll stop the wolves getting them
If you're going/have gone away, they have no protection
No protection = start getting scared
Scared = adrenaline
Adrenaline = fight or flight reflex triggered
Who can sleep while fighting or fleeing? Not me