[GwenV]

Hi All,

I have a DS who is about 22 months old and we are expecting a new darling munchkin next month. My DS sleeps has slept in his own bed (most of the time, tee hee! we're not opposed to the occasional co-sleep) since he was about 14 months old. For him, it was great, he slept through the night more and seemed really content. Then only thing is that my DH or I have to lie down with him for him to go to sleep. Recently, he's become more Mommy attached and freaks if DH trys to put him down (this really hurts my DH's feelings). I'm really concerned that this is going to be a problem with the new one.

His bed is a low lying futon with a bedrail and with my current girth, it's harder for me to get in and out of it. There are certainly nights when he is screaming his head off that I have to wonder about letting him cry it out a bit now that he is older, but it just does'nt seem right.

We have a pretty consistent bed time routine but he is such an active boy it's hard for him to settle.

Ideally it would be nice if we could read him a few stories, kiss him good night and walk away, but honestly, if there was suggestions on how to make him more comfortable with Daddy putting him down that would be great.

I guess the general question is, how do parents with a couple of kids under two deal with bed time issues?

thanks!
G.

 

[mightymoo]

I don't know if I can give great advice, but I'll tell you the stops we had along the way from laying down to get DD to sleep to read a few stories and walk out of the room. We just took baby steps. I would determine which is more important to start with - getting used to daddy putting him to sleep or moving away from laying down, probably can't focus on both at once. I personally would choose daddy becasue the baby is going to be more focused on you. For us the idea was make a small change and let the child get used it it. If they really protest (like if he won't calm down even though daddy is right there) then you come in and go back to the old way. But the next night, daddy is back, after a while they really do adjust if you don't try to take the easy route and backtrack.

So for us, it was about moving from laying down with her to sitting next to her, then to saying goodbye and walking out, but coming right back if she wanted us, but not staying. Eventually she adjusted. We've backtracked several times due to big moves. We followed the same sort of steps. Another method that has worked at various points is just reading them to sleep. This gets them used to the idea that you aren't going to lay down with them, then as they take longer to read to sleep you can start limiting the number of books and leaving the room. I also do the 'I'll check on you in 5 minutes trick' - when you come back to check they are often asleep, but if not you can give another hug and kiss and maybe a book and come back in another 5.

Right now we are trying to adjust DS from being rocked to sleep to going to sleep laying down with us. I've just taken a similar approach and after about a week he seems to be adjusting to it pretty well. However, at the beginning it was all me continually laying him back down and letting him know it was time to sleep not play.