2.5 year old wont sleep on own

[emmywoo]

Hi All, my lo is 2.5yo, wrongly my husband and i have always got into bed with her and read her stories until she has falled asleep, this could take 10 mins but of late up to an hour or so. i have come to the end of my teather with this as sometimes not getting downstaires until gone 9pm. does anyone recommend cc in 2.5 year old, she is in a bed rather than cot and when i have tried this in the past she gets out of bed and i can still be placing her in bed for up to an hour later and she gets so upset that she is sometimes sick. Please help as need some advice and support on what to do. xx

Bump

have come online tonight looking for advice on exactly the same issue. could have written the OP about our daughter 2.7. Haven't tried cc but am desperate to be able to leave her to go to sleep by herself. Anyone got any helpful tips

Me too my DS is 2.7. I'm fed up of having no evening myself I quite often end up asleep with him. I've been watching this from the side lines and will now bump it up and say anyone please?

You need a new strategy and a new attitude about bedtimes. Do not do controlled crying, please! So distressing for all of you.

Look at this from an evolutionary point of view - children need to feel safe to go to sleep and they can only truly do that if their parents are there so it's not abnormal for children to need their parents by them to fall asleep.

Personally, I'd work on ways to get her to fall asleep quicker so you can still have your evenings, and see the process as just another part of your day together. Start bedtime earlier. If baths are calming, then bath her (but not if they are like in our house and result in lots of splashing and shrieking and then running around naked and shrieking afterwards ). Maybe a nice massage with some sleepy essential oils. Read lots and lots and lots of stories together. Then snuggle up in bed together - maybe put a story cd on. Or tell her stories very quietly in a monotone voice. Or I used to count for my oldest when she was that age.

Annoyingly, and rather expensively, our current method for DD3 (2.5) is to take her out for a 10min drive in the car, then carry her up to bed asleep. Very unintrusive of our evenings, except that one of us then has to lie down with the older two . We each have our strategies for coping with that time (which is shorter the more books I've read to them while DD3 is out in the car!) - DH listens to his MP3 player - music or podcasts - I insist on having the door open a bit so I can lie near the door and read .

I know it won't be forever - the older two are perfectly capable of getting themselves to sleep alone (4 and nearly 6), but they don't want to, and that's fine by me and DH. We are usually back downstairs together to watch something on iplayer by 8.30 or by 9 at the latest, and he's managed to have some really lovely cuddle time with his children that he misses out on while he's at work in the day.

We had a phase with our 22 month old and the only thing that we found to help him sleep the entire night was to tire him out outside, regardless of the weather.(he has bags of energy and runs everywhere). He gets a big feed at tea time then cereal later and now sleeps through from 9pm ish until about 1/2 8.
I put my pillow in his cot too for reassurance.

He had been wakening and furious that he was in his cot but settled the minute he was in beside us. This happened many times through the night plus he demanded milk. It was exhausting.

I don't know if this will help you but it is worth trying anything to get a good night of sleep.

THanks for the tips (altho am not OP). I think the problem is that we also have a 5 mo ds who is smack bang in the middle of sleep regression hell.

Previously I'd put dd in bed at 7 and read to her til asleep (about 20 mins) then put ds down and he'd sleep for 12 hrs with 1 wakening. I'd then happily sit downstairs with dh until 10ish (feeling smug that we had such a brilliant sleeping ds).

Now dd is taking about 40 mins to settle and i then go straight to feed and settle ds which takes til 8.30 and then I have to go to bed as he is waking about 5 times a night including 1 waking which lasts an hour.

I am just so tired that I want to scream and I feel that I never have a break

oh - and dd always comes into our bed in the middle of the night. With ds constant waking I often bring him into bed to try to feed him back to sleep. Dh often sleeps in the spare room to escape the dc (and so he can lie in bed watching his crappy american sci-fi series on the pc) and so I wake up sandwiched between the 2 dc.

nulgirl - can you turn your thinking round to the good things about co-sleeping? About how lovely their little warm bodies are? And remind yourself how quickly this period of their lives will go.

Re. time to yourselves in the evenings - can't your DH get your DD to sleep and you deal with your DS?

And why not get a mattress on the floor of your room so your DH doesn't have to sleep elsewhere - you could wait until your DD is settled then put her on the mattress. And tell your DH to join the family - they're his children too!

nulgirl I really sympathise with you I went through this with my ds when he was that age. I tried cc and found it just left us both in tears. In desperation I through all advice out of the window and did what felt right for me and ds. I gave him plenty of warning it was so bedtime, got him into PJ's and gave warm milk. I would let him cuddle up with me on sofa until he was in a 'sleepy' zone (i.e. not bouncing up and down). I then took him upstairs to read him a story, have a cuddle and leave him listening to cbeebies music.
It took us the same amount of time as cc and it feels so much better and loving.
I just had to let go of the stress worrying about it.
What naps does your dd have? I try to time DS naps to finish before 2pm because any later than that he is still swinging from celling at 9pm.

I have to do this as well. I have tried moving dd's bedtime forward on numerous occasions, but her body clock is clearly set between 8.30 and 9pm. I also have to lie with her whilst she falls asleep, but I have to say, as a WOHM, I love it (in the main). We have lovely cuddles, read stories, and she has her milk. I would obviously prefer it if it were happening earlier, but I keep telling myself that soon she will drop her daytime nap completely, and that will bring her bedtime forward naturally.

Tbh, thefearlessfreak, I have spent nearly two years stressing over dd and her sleep, and I have just accepted it and settled into it now. If you searched the archives, you would find hundreds of threads by me on this particular issue.

I would stress though, that I don't have any other dc to deal with.

And I actually know the op, we have had MANY MANY discussions about this in the past, so she will know what I mean.

Nulgirl- pinkjenny has said it honestly to me... it was the key. Stop stressing about it and you will settle into a routine that works for you and your DC. Sometimes DS falls asleep in my lap, I used to stress about how it was not part of the routine etc but now i just accept we both like it on occassion. Good Luck

how about keeping everything the same BUT not physicallly getting into bed with her ? sit right next to her bed and read her stories etc until she falls asleep for a few nights. then, move a bit further down the bed for a few nights. gradually work your way towards the door so it's more of a gentle transition for her.

I know it sounds time consuming - it's what worked for me however with my 9 mth old when he used to bounce around his cot or insist on co sleeping. (FWIW we still co sleep when he needs it)