18 month old won't go to sleep for me, but fine with his dad.

[Summerdays2014]

Hi,

My 18 month old son will not go to sleep for me. At all. When his dad puts him down he's fine. No crying and happily goes off to sleep in the cot on his own. I've tried again tonight and once again he's screaming and screaming. I've sent my husband back in. My husband has been doing bedtime for months now as he just won't settle for me. I try periodically but he just cries. It's proper, standing up, the world is ending sobbing. I've tried sitting next to him and waiting for him to go to sleep but this doesn't work. He just plays and laughs and then cries when he realises he has to go to sleep and I leave. For naps he just sleeps on me as the same thing happens when I try and put him in the cot, so I gave up.

Do I just need to accept that he is going to cry until he gets used to me putting him down and stick with it for a few days?

It would be so much easier for my husband to put him down every night forever, but he'd like a break and I'd like to be able to have a lovely bedtime routine with my son.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Just accept it. It won't be forever. Not unusual for baby to settle better with one parent who most consistantly does bedtime.

If it's a big problem to you right now, I'd suggest you either start doing it together, but with DH taking the lead. Or you take on aspects of bedtime but not final settling. For example you could do bath time and into night clothes, DH doing story and settling.

Give it 6 or 12 months, once into the toddler years this will all be very different and if you want to make up for lost time, you can always take over bedtimes for the 10 years or so you'll be doing them from next year onwards.

Thanks for your reply fate. I do the bath every night so I guess I'm involved in bedtime that way. Like everything else baby related I'm sure, as you said, it will all be different in a few months!