[quietserena]

DD1 is a sleep fighter. She's 2.5 now and I need some new ideas. She sleeps in the family bed, next to the sidecarred crib and sometimes rolls into the crib. I have the option of putting a toddler bed there instead of the crib but I'm not sure it would help.

Right now, I put DD2 to sleep anytime between 6 and 8 (she.. is a completely different story! she *wants* to go to sleep. ) and then go get DD1. She nurses for a bit and then I have to cut her off (for my own sanity I've had to do this, she used be on the boob for an hour and a half!). This is where the trouble starts. My rule is, you gotta stay on the bed and go to sleep. I usually read a book and let her roam and do whatever until she's ready for me to put my arm around her and so she can go to sleep. But this period of roaming has been horrible lately. She wants to get up a million times. She cries for her daddy. Pulling, pinching, whatever it takes to get my attention while I'm trying to ignore her and read. It's like she can't go to sleep until I've lost it and yelled at her and physically restrained her movement with a big and tight hug. This seems so screwed up to me! Somehow I've taught her that the way to go to sleep includes being yelled at? It's not like this every night but it's often enough that I'm concerned. Of co urse by this time in the day, I'm touched out, worn out, I don't want to play or wrestle or whatever. I started the reading and ignoring her because this gives me something to focus on so I don't think about the fact that she's *still* not asleep.

So what sorts of things can I do? We've tried a 'bedtime routine' kinda thing but us the parents have a hard time sticking to a routine so we didn't keep it up for very long. I've cut out the 'ice cream in the evening' thing DH and I used to do when she was little because now she wants ice cream too and I think the sugar was making it all worse. We eat dinner about 6:30 or so and she's offered a snack if she's eaten poorly. She brings te KK to bed.

She doesn't nap anymore because I couldn't get her to nap at a time when it would work. (4pm nap meant she would stay up to 11pm) She gets super snoozy aobut 5pm to about 7 and then this crazy punchy second wind hits. Putting her to sleep that early has occurred to me but though I've tried a few times, it just doesn't work, she doesn't actually go to sleep. She just rests with me, nurses for an hour

: and is then ready to boogy until 9. And really, a 6pm bedtime wouldn't work for us as a family since DH comes home about 5:30 and she looooves her daddy.

Ok if you've made it through my venting essay on dysfunctional sleep, what sorts of things can I try? Right now, I try to get her into the bedroom about 9 and she goes to sleep by ohh 10:30, depending on the day and whether she snatched a nap in the car at one point during the day. I'm afraid she's not sleeping enough and that this is causing some behavioral issues because she's over tired! She gets up about 7 to 8 but is known to get up about 6 too.

My ultimate ideal when she was a baby was to have her go to sleep about 8:30 and now that seems like such a fairy tale...

 

[Karamom]

I have a similar situation with my 2.5 yr old. Hoping you get some good advice.

 

[mojobot2000]

I don't have a toddler, so my advice is totally baseless, but...have you tried having daddy put her to sleep?

 

[feministmom]

I totally feel your pain!!!! My DD turned 2 in December and we've always struggled with sleep. A little background before I tell you what worked for us....I went back to FT WOTH when DD was 15 months. When DD was 21 months, she started at an in-home daycare with an AWESOME caregiver who has the kids (only 4 of them) on a pretty solid routine. They eat lunch at 11:30 and settle down for nap between 12 and 12:30. She always napped fine at daycare laying down and having her back rubbed.I have the same problems as you with naps on the weekends! Also, since I went back to work, I decided not to pump, and my supply at night went down, so DD would nurse and then ask for a bottle, although she never had a bottle at the new daycare.....

We had very similar problems as you at night, the second-wind, the hyper-activity...it seemed like nothing (including nursing, singing, rocking, back-rubbing, etc) would help DD calm down or go to sleep. It took hours some nights! It always took a long time, but there was a point (when DD was around 18 months?) that nursing to sleep stopped working all together. And I got pretty darn frustrated! So, what worked for us--first, I set limits on the nursing. I just could not take DD nursing/wiggling for longer than 10 or so minutes without feeling like I was going to go insane. I was getting so fed up that it didn't feel like a nice, bonding nursing relationship anyway, so I felt okay setting the limits. I talked to DD a lot about how we were going to nurse for a "little bit." I started giving her 1 minute warnings and being pretty firm about when we were all done. Since she was okay with a bottle, she adjusted to that pretty quickly. From there, I decided that me in the room wasn't really helping. She would never really settle down (or it would take an hour or more) and like I said no other interventions were effective. So one night, when DD was 23 months, I just kissed her and told it was time for sleep and that I would see her in the morning. I truly thought that it would result in SCREAMING PROTEST, but much to my surprise, it worked!!! Having DH there to intervene and sooth her on the occasion that she got upset was key. I did not ever let her CIO, but setting the limits on nursing and mommy time at night seemed to be key to getting her to settle down. Often when DH went to rub her back, she would get really calm, whereas if I did it, she'd be flopping all. over. the. bed.

I blogged about it here (probably more coherently).

We got rid of the bottle when she was 27 months. More info on that here.

In the last couple of weeks, we've had a resurgence of her not being able to settle down, asking us to come upstairs, coming in and out of the bedroom, etc. I know it sounds completely counter-intuitive, but I have come to the conclusion that my DD needs to be alone to settle down. We would go up and try to settle her, but nothing really worked. So 3 nights ago DH had a talk with her about all the things she can do by herself and how she is such a big girl and how we're so proud of her, etc, etc, and that night she went to sleep by herself with no other fussing or getting up and has been back to going to sleep with no problems since then.

Sorry that was so long-winded. I hope it helps. I really feel for you...I can't imagine going through all this plus having a newborn to take care of.

Good luck!

P.S. As soon as we did the initial phase of getting her to go to sleep on her own, her nightwakings reduced dramatically! Since she stopped having her bottle, it's gotten even better!

 

[juliebird]

this is really helpful, thanks for posting. My 2.5 year old is really in need of a change in bedtime routine- ok, his mom is in need of a change! Like the OP, the time I spend putting him down and nursing, rocking, singing him to sleep is like a marathon every night.