He went to bed at 4am - Page 2

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by thyra

The first night we did it, there was some screaming. But my ds didn't get "frantic" b/c I was there with him - it was more that he was mad b/c I wouldn't let him do what he wanted. I associate the word "frantic" with scared and panicked - so no, he didn't do that. Just got mad. The next night it was better, and the night after that even better. We still have the odd night where he doesn't go down easily, but its MUCH better than it used to be.

Dd gets scared and panicked when I try holding her in bed at night. Or if she's standing next to the bed, with the light on in the bedroom, and I'm not getting up with her, but am instead saying "it's bedtime, I'm right here in bed, nursing? come to bed and get nursing, do you need help climbing up?" (fyi, no, she doesn't need help getting onto our bed).

The one thing that works is dh getting up and walking her around while ignoring the screams for "mommy!" "nursing!" until she calms and is willing to look at other things (about 5 minutes) and then he plays with her until she starts asking for me again. The second round of asking for me and she's willing to get into bed and nurse.

[DevaMajka]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan

How should the OP do this? When I was complaining about DD's sleep patterns earlier people told me "don't let her get up" but didn't actually tell me how to do that.

I've done this twice- both times he was asleep and woke up thinking it was play time. The first was a lot like trying to cage a wild animal. He'd go to the end of the bed, and when I went to grab him he'd go totally limp. Once I had a hold of him, he arched his back and stiffened up to make it hard to hold him. He tried to dive over me to dp's side. He banged his head on the bed, but was apparently diappointed that it didn't hurt. Right after that, he laid on my chest (I thought he was trying to go to sleep), then inched up and tried to bang his head on my face. He indicated he wanted to nurse once, and just blew raspberries on my nipple
After about 30min he went to sleep. He didn't cry at all.

The 2nd time, he was fine staying in bed, and only tried once to get up, and actually tried to go back to sleep a few times. That one took an hour, but he wasn't fighting it at all.

I don't think I would keep him in bed if he was crying much, though. The stress just wouldn't be worth it to me. I guess I'd figure I'd try again at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by pumpkin

We have the same problem. I tried waking her up early every morning. It was a disaster. Her sleep got worse.

The only thing that has helped us is to respect her natural rhythm and go with a late bedtime. It's not perfect, but it's the best we can do.
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Interesting. Our one day of early waking was sort of a flop, and it just hasn't worked out that we've done it again yet.