need help to get 3yr old to fall asleep alone

[saoirse2007]

NEED TIPS!!!!
we want to continue sharing our family bed, but we would like our son to go to bed at 7 so we can stay up and have some us time as well as take care of household stuff.

we also have a 5 mos old that sleeps with us...all in a king size bed

we are not sure how to go about it...how can we reasure him that we are not leaving him "alone"

we will try to put the baby down in the spare room until we come to bed...for the obvious safety reasons...

spam me with ideas, anecdotes and resources please!!!!
thank you guys

[Jenine]

Well, I keep checking hoping that you've had some responses to your question. I'm having a similar dilemma with DS also born 1/07 and DD 4mo. old. Sorry, no help here just bumping...

[saoirse2007]

thanks

maybe no one else has been able to do it either...lol

[moobiegirl]

in the same boat here...hope someone offers some suggestions soon.

[BaBaBa]

yep.... someone else here with a 3 year old that can not fall asleep on her own.

?

[gigismom]

wish i could help.... my ds is 27 months and i am starting to feel like i too would like some more time in the evening. however my other 2 kids (now 10y and 5y) did not start falling asleep on their own (without my presence) until after they turned 5y. i am no help at all . i never felt it an issue until recently though. probably just a phase i am going through. i expect ds to go about things roughly the same as his sisters did and need me to hang around with him until he is asleep for some time yet. hope somebody else has some ideas for you....

jen

[SollysMom]

Can you stay with your 3-year-old until he falls asleep, and then slip out? That is what I do with my 2.5-year-old, and have been doing since he was a few months old. Sometimes it takes me a while before I can slip out once he is asleep - usually about 30 minutes on a good/average night since I nurse him to sleep and then wait 5 min before attempting to unlatch and slip out. And there have been many nights when it's taken much longer before I can slip out. But I'm like you in that I need grown-up time at night to get stuff done or just relax, and this has worked fairly well for me.

Also, is your LO going to bed at 7:00 now? Or are you attempting to change his bedtime?

[possum]

Starting around 18 months or so, I could leave my son to sleep in our bed alone for a couple of hours before we went to bed. Our bed is a Japanese style futon - a cotton mattress on the ground so very safe to leave him alone. He often woke every ~45min-1hour until we came to bed, so I frequently had to nurse him back down a couple of times before I was ready for bed myself. It was a gradual process. Sometimes I was so tired I went to bed with him, and sometimes he just wouldn't stay settled without me.
Starting at 2.5, he would not nurse to sleep at night. The nursing would go on and on for 1, 1.5 hours and he'd still be away, so we started nursing then daddy and I would walk him until he was asleep.
We slowly transitioned him to laying down sooner and sooner in the process so that he grew accustomed to going to sleep in the bed. Then we moved nursing to earlier in the bed time routine.
Almost four months into the process, he can lay down with one or both of us and go to sleep. It can take anywhere from 5 min - 1 hour for him to go to sleep, and sometimes we don't get up after he falls asleep. If he goes to sleep early and quickly, we get up and do other stuff before we go to bed for real. He still wakes more easily if we are not in bed with him, and 2-3 times a week I go and shhhhhhh him back to sleep before I go to bed.
He will be three in a couple of months, and he is NOWHERE near going to sleep on his own yet, and for us that's okay. It's actually a relief that my husband can put him to bed and that I am not required for every single sleep-going that my son does.
I would encourage you to take some baby steps toward where you want to be.
What is your current bed time arrangement?
Melinda

[MelW]

At that age my daughter had stopped nursing/rocking to sleep, and would fall asleep while we read to her (we switched to novels, because less pictures were less stimulating). That's still what we usually do, leaving once she's asleep. But if I the baby isn't ready to nurse down, or my husband or I can't stay with her reading until she's asleep, books on tape have been great for us!

We put on a story with the lights out, and tell her to call out if she's still awake when it's over. They're an hour long, and she's usually asleep by the end.

[saoirse2007]

thanks every one!
i will try the books on tape....
when we are alone i just cant seem to get ds to fall asleep with out staying with him the whole time...
if i am on my own i try to nurse the baby while i read him stories...doesn't always work...dd (5mos) has her own ideas..lol

he usually falls asleep fast listening to the ipod (loves irish music...lol)

he has been going to bed at 730...now 7

if dh is home he puts him to bed...i usually fall asleep with him if i put him down too...lol

now if i could only keep him from waking up his little sister in the morning...oh the joys of the family bed

just moved from double to king....what took us so long?????

nice to know i am not the only one taking up to an hour to get their lo to fall asleep...

dh does not want to give up the family bed but i still would like to have ds settle on his own....or the baby settle on her own


tough when you are on your own with 2...any more tips will be read with greatful eyes.....

btw...ds is doing great with his 7 pm bed time....going to be tough come summer time!


eta: going to try chapter books...library open topmorrow, thanks