Getting child to sleep

[Scandi]

Hi, our daughter is now 1,5 year old and we have a good bedtime routine with warm milk, story and music but she wont go to sleep on her own. If I dance with her she usually falls asleep on my shoulder within 3-5 songs and if I put her in bed holding her hand it will take 15 min to an hour.

If we put her in bed awake and leave the room she will cry hysterically and keep doing so until she gets exhausted which is usually 10 min to an hour! We do check on her every 10 min and put her back lying down but she will not stay there.

Any advice appreciated as we have very different views at home on how to get her to fall asleep calmly on her own.
Thank you for any thoughts!

Hi Scandi

Sorry you've not had any replies! I'm afraid I can't help but I am watching with interest as I have similar issue with my DS (1,9yrs)
He has to be held to sleep every night and then put gently into his cot. Sometimes this doesn't go smoothly; last night we had an almighty 3 and a half hour battle I don't know what to do to overcome this.

Hi Nezzi, yes its strange with no replies as I thought this was a common issue but maybe its only you and me:-). (plus at least one friend of mine who I know is also cuddling her baby until she fall asleep)

Thanx for your reply though. As I am pregnant again and my girl is getting heavy I have no choice but to put her down in bed, as holding her sitting does not work (she want movement). I hold her hand which keep her calm (on tummy works best as then she cant really see me) and have kind of made it a routine that if she stands up (and does not lay back down when I ask her) I leave the room for her to learn that I want her lying down for sleep. She will cry but if I am lucky it stops after 5-10 minutes otherwise I just start all over again.

She sleeps 12 hour nights and 1-2 hours during the day but it is much easier to get her to sleep at 7.30 if she does not sleep after 1.30pm so you might want to try that. Before I had my baby i would assume keeping them up late would do the trick but mine gets overtired by 8pm and then it is impossible to get her to sleep so timing need to be right. I also give her warm milk before bedtime which calms her down and fills the tummy. She usually falls asleep very fast when she has had a bath...

Anyway, lets see if anyone has any fabulous suggestions for us!

All the best!

Hi, just seen this. I can't say I've totally cracked the problem as tonight was a pretty tricky bedtime but I made a concerted effort mid April to sort out DD's sleeping. DD is 2 in September. She was waking up to 4 times a night and would only go to sleep if cuddled.

I started by the normal routine of bath, milk, teeth but then instead of cuddling her to sleep I put her in her cot and kept saying calmly that it was time to go to sleep. The first night it took an hour til she finally gave in. I tried really hard not to pick her up but did if she was distressed then waited til she was calm and put her back in her cot. The next night it took 40 minutes and some nights only 5. It varied according to how much sleep she had during the day. I found if she had more than 1.5hrs sleep and slept at all after 2.30 that bedtime was a long process.

DD2 is due next month so I had to get her out of her cot and into a junior bed. I was worried it would make it worse but if anything bedtime has improved. A few weeks ago DD went through a phase of messing about for nearly an hour and I got really frustrated so I changed tac - again! Now, I do bath, milk, teeth then into bed. I wait til she is calm then tell her I'm going to do some tidying up etc and will be back to check on her in a minute. Sometimes it takes going in 2 or 3 times before she is asleep. I try to leave it for slightly longer in between going and checking on her. Most nights it works. Tonight not so much but I think we're into canine teeth territory so she was messing about and only calmed down with a cuddle (broke my own rule) and a dose of calpol.

I'm not saying this will work for you but I basically took bits from all of the sleeping theories that are out there and did something that worked for us. I knew I couldn't do the control crying thing so I had to find an alternative. Plus, with only 7 weeks til DD2 arrives I couldn't keep getting up so many time in the night. Over the past 2 weeks there has been a massive improvement in her sleeping through the night. It used to be that she slept through once every 2 weeks but now she is sleeping through (well, 7.30-5.30/6am) 4 or 5 nights a week. It's not perfect but definitely better than it was and I'm pretty certain that it's because she has learned to go to sleep on her own at night which means when she wakes in the night she can settle herself back more times than not.

Good luck and sorry for the long reply.