My one year old won’t sleep in her own bed

[Chibbsie]

I have a one year old that has never really slept great. She falls asleep with me in my bed and then is transferred into her cot for the night. She does sometimes sleep through in her own cot about 7/8pm to 6/7pm. Those nights are good. Most nights she wakes up crying after a few hours. Sometimes you can go in, give her a dummy, shhh her back to sleep etc with no issue but she often stands in her cot crying until someone gets her. I got into a bad habit of co sleeping when she wakes during the night if I’m to tired to go back and forth during the night which turned into the norm and now she never seems to sleep without me or her dad. We sleep in different rooms and usually one of us is to tired to go fun things the next day, it’s getting really lonely and I’m just missing my partner too. I have another baby on the way in 8 months too and I really want to fix this sleeping issue before then. I want to put her in her cot awake but she’ll just instantly cry. I feel like this is my fault and all I want to do it fix it, any ideas/advice??

The good news is you've got 8 months to sort the problem!

MN can be contradictory when it comes to sleep problems with DCs - training is often deemed cruel and co sleeping equally considered wrong. Basically, it's up to you to parent how you want to.

The bad news is, you've got into bad habits by co sleeping when you actually didn't plan on it. So your options will be some kind of sleep training if your end goal is her sleeping in her cot. It will be a difficult few weeks but compare that to another 8 months at least of difficulties for you and even more problems with DC2 arrives.

One of the problems with rocking a baby to sleep and then putting them in their cot is that when they wake the wonder where the heck they are. She will need to learn to self soothe and be happy to go into the cot when she is awake knowing it is sleep time. It sounds like you and your partner are really struggling so I would recommend you try. Just google sleep training methods - there are many and hopefully one of them will suit your parenting style. Don't expect it to work overnight but just remember the whole two weeks of difficulties now will be worth the effort in the long run.

Good luck!