Crying it out - ALTERNATIVES

[MrsRose2018]

Hi

My son is 19m old and has never been a "good" sleeper!

He's always woken in the night, sometimes multiple times, and needs to be cuddled back to sleep and transferred with the delicacy of an active grenade dipped in asbestos!

SOMETIMES he tricks us and will self sooth and sleep through the night for a night or so (so I KNOW he has it in him) but then goes right back to square 1 and cries all night!

When he was 6m old we did CRYING IT OUT/SLEEP TRAINING and it worked well but then I got pregnant again and suffered a MC and suddenly I didn't have it in me anymore when he needed a refresher and we never did it again!

At the moment his sleep is the worst it's EVER been! He needs maybe 3 resettles before midnight alone and then wakes about 3am and we can't successfully make the transfer back to his cot so he comes in with us or we sleep on the reclining chair in his nursery!

Hes not BF anymore, uses a dummy and we do put him down 95% asleep! We give him maybe 5mins before we go into him to see if he settles but that's all I can manage!

Can anyone please PLEASE recommend some no crying approaches to try and help? Nothing like extinction of gradual extinction please because "pop ins" or anything where he knows we are there but aren't picking him up makes him distraught!

Thanks

X

Just to add:

• he is on 1 nap a day - 1.5-2 hours
• has a lovely bedtime routine which he's had since he was born
• sleeps like a DREAM at nursery! They genuinely say he is "one of their best sleepers" WTF?!?!

I think there is a sleep regression around 18 months. I know my daughter went though a terrible couple of months around then (she's now 21 montha) where it would take hours to settle her at night but she has been getting a lot better in the past 6-8 weeks. We've never done cry it out or anything like that. she was mostly breastfed to sleep until 18 months then we rocked her, then held her while sitting on a chair before transferring her asleep. When she's ill it throws everything off and still still wakes once or twice in the night but most nights she sleeps through now which has been a big relief. We introduced a comforter and teddies around 18 months which she has grown to love. she cuddles one in each arm all night and I think that has been a big help.
I know everyone says it, but I think you'll see an improvement over the next couple of weeks. I dont know about you but I was fed up of people telling me to sleep train and just leave them crying.

The Lucy Wolfe book has a good technique in and she has a page on Instagram. X

@IsItAllOverYetPlease thank you so much for your response!

He has a comforter/lovey which he adores going to sleep but he just throws it about angrily when he wakes up/till we get him! He also pulls his dummy out his mouth deliberately!!

Yes I've ready about the 18m regression! It does sound like what this is! Like I said we've always had one night waking which takes about an hour of cuddles to get him back down but I've never minded that because he's still young and I don't think it's fair to expect something so young to sleep through the night! I certainly don't! I wake up at least twice in the night!

Same!! Me and my husband just had a fight about this exact thing because he said it's time to revisit CIO despite me saying repeatedly that I can't do it cos it hurts me too much!!!

I am the same as you in terms of I physically can't do cry it out, it make me feel sick to hear him really cry and I just can't do it. What I have found helpful is i leave him if he is moaning but as soon as his pitch changes I am in there. But now unless he needs changing I do not get him out of his cot. I have a rocking chair next to his cot and I sit in that and cuddle him while he stands up, I lay him down stroke his head if he will lay down sing to him tell him a story etc, and repeat until he is settled. It took a lot of perseverance as the first few times he took a long time to understand I wasn't getting him out of his cot and it's hard but I stuck to it and it has worked he knows now that he will get a cuddle but he's not getting out and he usually lays down himself now as he knows what's going to happen. Obviously if he's unwell etc then this changes although it is hard afterward to get back in to it. Hope that makes sense and good luck xx

with the delicacy of an active grenade dipped in asbestos

Co-sleep and just roll with it, would be my alternative!

@sarahc336 oh this looks good!!!

She has an 18-24m course.....

@rollercoasterofemotions that's pretty much what we are doing at the moment.. he ends up asleep with/on us at some point otherwise no one would sleep!

I love sleepy cuddles I really do but I don't want that for any of us! Both me and my husband were infamously bad sleepers! Our parents still talk about how letting us into bed with them was the worst decision they ever made because we never left 😂

Also we are trying for another baby and if/when that arrives co-sleeping won't be possible

We are hoping this is just a regression/phase but are worried we have just shown him how good he can get it if he puts up a fight

Maybe speaking to a sleep consultant? I know it's a cost but if it solved the problem then it's worth every penny