Will you commiserate with me if you have a sleep resistor?

[beru]

My 33 month old daughter is a master at resisting sleep. Once she is asleep she usually stays asleep so I am fortunate for that. However, she can keep herself awake until 1am when put to bed at 8pm. She screams and cries even if I sit with her. She wants to sleep with us. I actually wouldn’t mind cosleeping but there are two problems.

1. She will not fall asleep without one of us with her and we would both like to stay up about 2 hours longer than her. (I also don’t have time to let her sleep late in the morning so we don’t want to keep her up with us.)
2. My 5 year old son get’s jealous and wants to sleep with us too. He has never wanted to sleep with us until recently. But now he can make quite a fuss.

I am also having trouble because I have no one to vent to. Anyone around me will say “make her cry-it-out” or “she shouldn’t be sleeping in your bed”. I don’t want to hear either of those things. She is one of those kids who, even if I did want to CIO, it would not work for her. She is an irresistible force.

My ideal would be that she goes to sleep on her own at 8:30 and then we would take her into bed with us at 10:30pm. If I somehow could make this happen enough maybe she would learn to trust that she will always get to wake up with us…

[Okapi]

*hand goes up*

Yep, that's us here! Not quite as extreme (I don't think she's lasted much past 11), though. With DD (2.5 now), from about 9 mo to a year, we had a routine that I would do, and she would be out in 20 min. Then it slowly started creeping longer & longer. When I realized that some days I was spending 4 or 5 hours just sitting with her & wishing the Vulcan neck pinch was real, I knew something had to change! I really couldn't imagine dealing with it until 1 AM, I would have totally lost it (I know, b/c I was already on the verge). DD isn't a screamer/crier, but she will roll around, wiggle, shake her legs, talk to herself, anything to keep herself from falling asleep. For some reason, the fighting to stay awake when she is obviously tired is a major trigger & completely infuriates me (and I'm sure it doesn't help her relax and fall asleep when I'm sitting next to the bed stewing).

Have you tried the book "No Cry Sleep Solution" (there is one specifically for toddlers & preschoolers)? I checked that out from the library a couple of weeks ago, and there has definitely been improvement. Still a lot more room for it, but *so* much better then it was. The two main things we've done that I think have helped are: 1) getting her up at the same time everyday, & 2) starting the bedtime routine the minute we realize she is tired, even if it seems ridiculously early. Well, mostly. One day she skipped a nap & was exhausted by 4, so I stuck her in the stroller and we walked around for 45 min or so, then took a bath to get her to 5:30. I was always afraid to do that because I figured if she went to sleep so early she'd be up at like 3 (well, and also because I worried I was just setting myself up for an extra hour+ of trying to get her to sleep!), but it turns out she will sleep 'til regular time (unless she has to go potty within an hour or so of when she'd be waking up, but that's a whole other issue, lol).

So vent away! Hope you can find something to help.

P.S. - totally with you on the "irresistible force" - I have often thought the same about my DD & that it's a good thing we are against CIO, because it would never "work" on her!

[Jen-o]

I feel your pain! kinda sounds like my 22 month old. Tonight I was in there for over an hour as she fiddled around, talked, sang, knocked on the walls, rolled around etc etc etc. She needs to have her arms around my neck and pick at a mole on it, which drives me BATTY. I hate being picked at. DH finally came in, carried/rocked her for 20 minutes to knock her out, and it was 10:15. I was also paranoid that she'd wake up her 6 week old brother in the next room.
Often we give up, let her come in our room and watch the Backyardigans from 10-1020, then try to get her asleep again.
Her bedtimes are definitely not grandparent approved.
I might have to re-read the "no cry sleep solution". It has been gathering dust on our bookshelf for over a year.