16 month old with soft touch mummy

[josephine27]

i have a beautiful 16 month old daughter, who (because i had no guidance or anyone to give me advice at thestart) now go's off to sleep on a night on spare bed, is put into own cotbed after bottle, sleeps till 11pm, have to put back onto spare bed(as she'll cry and throw her dummy out all night) till she sleeps again, then put her back in own. this can happen several times and then she is still awake at anytime between 2 and 3am normally. by this time i give up and put her in spare bed and fall asleep with her! have not had a significant break (day or night) since she was 2 months old and am taking anti depressants for postnatal depression, which i think heavilly relates to lack of sllep or rest. has anyone gone through similar problems? i'd love some advice but dont want the age old"made a rod for your own back".x

Have you tried controlled crying? It worked for my ds at 8 months. Yes, you have made it harder for yourself, but that is not to say that you can't change the situation. Your dd needs to know who is boss, before you work yourself into an early grave! Lack of sleep is a real killer isn't it! Good luck.

i have a 15 month old son who still sleeps with us, he goes in his own bed once he has fallen asleep downstairs he sleeps till around 4 then comes into our bed and sleeps till around seven oclock, i think he will sleep through when hes ready then i plan to move him into his own room, some ppl say ill regret it, but if it works for us, we all getting good sleep and are happy i see no problem, i think do what u think is best for u and ur dd, my ds hasnt had a bottle since he was 7 months,

CC is really hard but it can work. I did it when my DD was 20 months old this New Year. By the third night she was settling herself and sleeping through. I hadn't expected it to work at all but was feeling a bit desperate after her sleep deteriated completely. But it did work and actually wasn't quite as bad as I had thought. Lstening to the crying the first night was horrid, but it only lasted 20 minutes (using the 2 minute delay, 5 minute, and so on).

Would she stay more settled if you left her in the big bed? If one side was against the wall and you got a safety rail for the other she'd be OK - DS2 was in bunkbeds at 18 mths because of space issues.

Chinchilla is right. Controlled crying is the way forward. Its hard, but well worth it in the end.

Also I think you'll be presently surprised how quickly it begins to work.

If you want more details just ask mumnet!

hulababy, do u think her sleeping deteriated as she was ready for her own bed and room?

I mean pleasantly

josephine27, how does she sleep in the daytime? And how much does she sleep then in total during the night?

Have you thought about just giving up on the cot for a while and co-sleeping? Just so that you get a proper rest. The other alternative is to get really tough and do cc which almost always works if you follow it to the letter. Whichever you choose you must choose something as you can't go on forever getting no sleep.

And don't beat yourself up for a minute about choices you've made, it's not like you've done something that will physically harm her. I did nutty things with dd (now 23 months) which I've managed to mostly smooth out as time's gone by.

It's never too late!

hi prefernot- i know controlled crying would probably be the way forward, but we are both so wound up, the couple of nights/weeks crying would kill us or we'd kill each other(hyperthetically!)im too soft and i try to keep dd and boyf happy which ends up me not being?!
i got to a point recently, were i couldnt settle in my own bed as i ws in the spare room that much with dd, so obviously our relationship is under strain as we cant even have a cuddle before she wakes!and when i sleep with dd, she kicks, crys and wriggles that much i dont get sleep there either!i am first time mum with no family so am basically winging it!

hi prefernot- i know controlled crying would probably be the way forward, but we are both so wound up, the couple of nights/weeks crying would kill us or we'd kill each other(hyperthetically!)im too soft and i try to keep dd and boyf happy which ends up me not being?!
i got to a point recently, were i couldnt settle in my own bed as i ws in the spare room that much with dd, so obviously our relationship is under strain as we cant even have a cuddle before she wakes!and when i sleep with dd, she kicks, crys and wriggles that much i dont get sleep there either!i am first time mum with no family so am basically winging it!
she sleeps quite well between 7.30pm and 11pm(3 1/2-4hrs) then erratically after that after watching little angels last night, makes me think she could be over tired but shouldnt that mean that once she does drop off, she'll stay there till morning?

lydialemon-have recently been thinking of making her cotbed into a bed with safety bar and putting babygate on door, but worried she'll jump out and break some bones as she loves climbing and jumping off things!

josephine27, she may be over-tired. I find when dd is over-tired she always wakes earlier in the morning rather than later. I think it's because when they are v. tired they sleep incredibly deeply early in the night and then do a lot of light sleeping in the early hours.

I know what you mean about co-sleeping. I've tried to do it every time dd's had a sleep problem but she's a real wriggler too and I'm a very light sleeper so neither of us sleeps properly that way.

I know that cc might seem to be too much to attempt right now but to be honest if you don't do something you'll find yourself with 2 kids waking you up at all hours of the night. The way I saw it with dd was that the nights were miserable as it was so having a few being more miserable with the thought that nights could become wonderful was worth the risk. It worked for us. 2 nights were awful and we nearly gave in. The next 3 were much better and after the first week things were nearly perfect.

If you can keep your eyes open long enough to read a few pages I do recommend you look at Richard Ferber's 'How to solve your child's sleep problems', just the chapter called 'What your child associates with falling asleep'. Even if you don't ever do cc this explains things very well and will perhaps help you to see how disorganised your dd's associations with sleep are and how this needs to be resolved one way or another.

Good luck xxx

hi prefernot
thanks for your advice! i have spoke to the psychiatric nurse(postnatal depression problems) and on her next visit, she's going to give us all the info on controlled crying and once we feel comfortable doing it, is going to help us(including dp gain the confidence to carry it out and will visit or call each day so we dont feel alone if it gets too hard. she's such a good baby, she's so sweet but although i know she just wants a cuddle off me during the night its making me so tired, i think i could handle things a little better if i got a decent sleep! fingers crossed!