Bedtime Challenges... Daddy vs. Mama

[MayasMama88]

DD is almost two years old, and up until recently (as in the past few months) I have always been the one to put her to bed because it was so easy to just nurse her to sleep. The older she got, however, the more exhausting it became. I say this because DD nurses almost as though she were a newborn. She wants to nurse as frequently as every 30 minutes to an hour or two during the day, and she usually wakes up between 3 - 5 times a night to nurse. I can't do it anymore!

So I started asking my husband to put her to bed (and down for naps) alternately. As much as I'd like to think that this is a relief, it's not exactly. DD screams and cries and reaches for me when she knows daddy is going to put her to bed. She scampers over to me and clings like something awful is going to happen to her if she doesn't. I want her to be okay with daddy putting her to bed, and admittedly it seems like it is getting a little bit easier - tonight she cried and clung to me when I told her daddy was putting her to bed, but once they were in the bedroom and I heard him start to read to her she was fine. However, as soon as he is done reading and she knows it's time to sleep, the heartbreaking crying starts again! The other reason I get exhausted trying to put her to sleep is that it has been taking us 45 minutes + just for her to finally fall asleep. I know she is tired, but because I'm lying next to her, she just rolls around and pulls the blankets on and off and makes noise, etc etc. When daddy lays down with her, she's out in 15 minutes or less!

It breaks my heart to hear her get so upset when she knows I'm not going to be the one putting her to bed, but I just can't do it every night anymore. Has anyone else had this experience? Is there anything we could be doing to make it an even easier transition? Thanks for any and all suggestions (or just for listening)!

Edited by MayasMama88 - 9/2/11 at 6:01pm

[MayasMama88]

Nobody? :/

[FrugalGranolaMom]

I totally understand what you are going through. Bedtime has always been a challenge for us with DS who just turned two. It was often 50/50 whether or not he would be ok with DH putting him to bed or if he would start crying and come looking for me. I will say it did get a little easier for DH to put him to bed once he was nightweaned (he is fully weaned now). I'm not sure if nightweaning is an option you are looking at. Also, is you bedtime routine pretty regular or does it vary from night to night? From my experience, things got easier once our bedtime routine was more solid. Would it be possible for you to maybe go for a walk around the block while daddy puts her to bed? DS is more relaxed with DH at bedtime if he doesn't feel like I am right around the corner for him to go running to. I wish I could offer more advice to you.

[jrose_lee]

at about 18 months or so it always seems to get to be too much for me and it's time for Daddy to take over night-time stuff.  They always immediately sleep better when it's Dad.  There might be some tears shed, but it's still Daddy, you know?  Is he up for doing night-time every night by any chance?  It might be better if it just becomes the routine.  Daddy does the putting to bed and that is how it is.  I doubt it would take more than a week or two of straight Dad before that became just how life is.  Good luck!

[lifeguard]

Is it possible for you to make the switch to daddy doing bedtime every night so it becomes a known for her. It might take the element of surprise out of it for her.

I found it was much easier for dh to help with bedtime once we stopped nursing to sleep (we had nightweaned a year before that). But during that time when one of us was lying with ds to fall asleep we had to really strict about not moving around. I would tell ds that if he wanted me to stay with him in bed he needed to lie still & quiet. I'd hold him, pat him, shush him but if he was rocking & rolling I would simply get up & leave. For 2 minutes - literally. Then I'd come back in & remind him he needed to lie still. Seriously, I probably left a total of 4-5 times in months of doing this but he understood I was serious & so a reminder would have him settle. By ensuring he lay still it meant he fell asleep much faster 'cause all the moving around was just keeping him awake.

[belltree]

Oh, I hear you. My ds is 22 months old as well; he only nurses once during the day, but at night, oh dear, some nights, he seems to want to nurse every hr (on a bad night, a good night, he's still up at least 5times), and it's driving me nuts. He refuses daddy at night time, and often he will toss and turn.

I found he falls asleep easier, when we go for a walk in the evening and he runs outside and plays and powers himself out. A quiet evening with music and books just results in him taking forever to fall asleep. At those evenings it seems to help to tell him to lay back down, to stroke and pad his back, to really darken the room. Every couple days he will fall asleep without staying attached.

I found, that everytime I tried handing things over to daddy, I just couldn't take it, it broke my heart, my child did not sleep well, I was so stressed from the crying and whaling. I try if I am strong enough to hold him in my arms and rock him to sleep, he won't be hold by dad. DS would scream when daddy comes near him at night. sigh.

So far I've found it easier on my nerves and heart to gently coax my child to be more independent gradually, instead of doing the hard core transition. I know a lot of parents find it easy; maybe their child does not cry as long and hard as mine, maybe their child is already more independent, who knows. I try to find a middleground between what my child needs and what I can give him without breaking down myself.

[colsxjack]

I will pop in from the fathers perspective.

I put our 2 yr old DD to bed a few nights a week when my wife works the night shift. So far I have never put her to bed when my wife was home.

We stick to the same bedtime routine. Give warning that it is bedtime soon, brush teeth, wash up, jammies, 2-3 books then upstairs to bed. When my wife puts her to bed they nurse. When I put her to bed we lay down together with the lights out and I try to interact as little as possible. I allow her to toss and turn and roll around and whisper to a certain extent. She usually does it for 10 minutes or so and then calms down. I try not to get her to just lay still because that seems to get her worked up and extends the whole process. I dont know many people that just lay down, lay still and fall asleep.

Maybe if the father puts her to bed more regularily? Maybe if you leave the home for a walk or something before hand? I know that on days when my wife has to work and I will be doing the night-time routine my wife reminds our DD several times throughout the day that it is Daddy's night. She does this at times when things are calm. When it is time for her to leave for work there is no surprise.

I know another thing that my wife had done to keep her sanity with extended nursing was to put somewhat of a schedule and boundaries on the nursing. She has decided that there are certain times throughout the day that our DD can nurse. When our DD asks to nurse she says no by reminding her that she can nurse soon when it is time for nap (or whatever schedule seems sane for you). Obviously if our DD isn't feeling well or gets hurt or something than the schedule goes to the wayside.

Our DD also use to want to switch sides over and over throughout a nursing session. My wife decided that she could only handle so much of that. So they have worked towards once on each side for a longer time. When DD starts to nurse they say "two sides" and then when DD asks to switch sides my wife reminds her two sides and asks her if she is really done with that side.

Maybe not your issue, but just examples of ways that my wife has set boundaries to continue having nursing be a pleasure and not drive her crazy because the constant nursing was starting to become a chore and she really wanted to continue nursing beyond 2. It seems to be working for everyone involved.

We are going to start working towards me putting DD to bed even on nights that mummy is home. Hopefully it will go well.

[McGucks]

My DH, who is a really wonderful dad, has only been able to put our LO down a few times (he is 17 months).  Our son only nurses to sleep or, if we are in a car, falls asleep then.  It can get really, really frustrating being the only one who can get him to sleep.  He has never taken a pacifier (and believe me, I tried).  During the day, he is going through another separation anxiety phase where he can happily ignore me when daddy is in the room, but if I try to leave the room (you know, for little indulgences like peeing or taking out the trash), he screams and cries like mad.  It makes all three of us miserable sometimes.

In the night, he still wakes to briefly nurse many, many times a night.  Sometimes he's up for just a few minutes, sometimes it's an hour or two.  If DH tries to get anywhere near him at night, he gets totally hysterical.

I think the sleep thing is, by far, the hardest thing about this parenting business (well, I have a 16 year old, too, but that's a different kind of hard).

Sometimes I would like DH to take him for a drive to get him to sleep so it didn't always have to be me, but gas is expensive.

The couple times DH has been able to get him to sleep, it was when our LO was super tired and DH rocked him and read very softly to him for a long time.  Very softly.  Very long time.

[MayasMama88]

Thank you all for sharing your suggestions and stories! It's actually very helpful to even just know that other parents are experiencing the same thing. Admittedly, we don't have much of a schedule or routine. We just do things as they happen, and while sometimes I feel like having a routine would make a world of difference, I can't seem to get one started.

Colsxjack, I'm glad that we got to hear experience from a dad's perspective. When my DH goes in to put Maya to bed, he just lays there and pretends to be asleep. Every once in awhile if she's really upset he'll try to stroke her hair or her hands or something, but other than that he doesn't really interact. It used to bother me a TON because I'm always so "hands-on" with trying to comfort her, or caressing her, or whatever. I felt like he was being "disconnected" to her by not interacting, but I've come to see that he simply has a different parenting style when it comes to bedtime, and it actually works for them.

And switching on and off both sides while nursing still happens a LOT and I'm about done with that. So I may borrow your DWs way of handling that to see if it helps.

Recently, DH went up to Maine to take a load of our things up to our new home (he's still there, actually) so I've had time alone with Maya to work on partially weaning, and getting a handle on easing up on nursing in general. It's been going surprisingly well! During the day, I try to make her wait until specific times to nurse, such as after lunch/at naptime, or after our shower. I pretty much say, "We can nurse after we do such-and-such." This has been working most of the time, and I find that by having her wait she is beginning to learn some patience. She is also learning that she doesn't need to nurse every 45 minutes to an hour!!

Tonight, I managed to get her to sleep without nursing! We had just nursed about 30 minutes before bedtime, so when she asked to do so when we layed down, I said "No Maya, we've already nursed. Now it's time to sleep. Just lie down and I'll stroke your hands." And she did, and there were no tears, not even fussing. It's fantastic! I hope this works out to where we can still share the nursing experience, but without the negative emotions attached to it.

[1stTimeMama4-4-10]

Wow, it's amazing how common this must be! Our routine in this house is DH takes DD up to bed and I get 30 minutes downstairs alone to wind down, check email, etc. Then when DD either starts to cry for me, or I finish what I am doing, I go upstairs and nurse DD to sleep.  DH gets her changed and into jammies and ready for sleep and then it takes me between 10 and 45 minutes to get DD to sleep nursing, depending on how tired she is. DD is now in a phase where she switches sides over and over and over and over.  She also fiddles and bounces her legs to keep herself awake.  Some nights it is fine, but others, it drives me crazy and I desperately want her to just stop and go to sleep.  Unfortunately, she will no longer let DH walk her to sleep - she used to, but for whatever reason, now if he tries, she screams bloody murder and tries to squirm out of his arms. It's hard to be the only person who can put DD to bed, but nightweaning isn't an option yet because DD is only 16 months, and I work outside of my home all day, so she doesn't get to nurse much during the day - she totally catches up at night.  I know the time will come when I can't do it anymore, but for now, it's still mostly tolerable.  By 22 months, I don't know how I will feel. 

[kayleesmom]

Sending hugs

[MayasMama88]

So I just thought I'd drop in and give everyone an update of how things have been progressing:

Over the past month or so, things have definitely improved. My husband has been putting Maya down for naps and bedtime fairly consistently with little-to-no trouble at all. He asks if she wants to go upstairs and read, which she almost always does, and so they go up and lie in bed and read a few books. Then the lights go out, and they'll lie there for a bit talking or giggling, and then my husband pretends to get reaaaallly sleepy (yawning' heavy eyelids, etc.) until hejust keeps his eyes closed and slows his breathing. This helps Maya relax and feel sleepy as well. The past few days have been a little rougher, only because Maya seems to be teething or experiencing a growth spurt (or both), so she does cry a little bit when she knows it's time for bed. She is also trying to nurse more than she was, but is still fairly good about holding off if I insist on it.

Overall, I feel a lot less stressed now that I know she won't freak out everytime DH goes to put her down to sleep. Obviously we still have our moments, and DH ends up getting stressed when it takes 20 - 45 minutes to put her down (now he knows how I've felt all this time, lol!), but it is so much better than before.

So I guess my advice (now that I can actually give some), is to be persistent, but if your LO seems overly-stressed, then it's not a bad idea to "give in" and nurse them to sleep. Hang in there mamas and daddies! I'm grateful for your helpful suggestions, personal stories, and support, and now I'm grateful that I can offer the same! <3