Toddler sleep training

susancs

flamingo747 wrote: »

I am struggling. But part of me has massive reservations about these sort of techniques. I've always been a gentle/attachment parenting type. Ds was a reasonable sleeper til 6 months but has been awful since then. He's now 22 months. In the last 16 months he's slept all night in his own bed less than ten times.

He will only fall asleep at the breast. Without that, he would just keep going, regardless of the time of night. Once I manage to sneak out, he'll wake every 20m-1hr til I go in and pick him up. If he comes in with us he'll sleep through 50% of the nights, the other half he'll wake for a minute or two every few hours. If I try to let him cry and self settle he wakes fully and it will take several hours and cuddles to settle him again.

It's exhausting. But I feel so cruel and as if I'm abandoning him and making him feel unloved if I leave him.

I know how you feel as it is hard to listen to your child crying or upset, but sometimes to quote an old saying "you have to be cruel to be kind". Your son needs to get a good undisturbed sleep at night to aid his overall development and it is hard on both of you that the only way to do this is to set firm boundaries that he will find upsetting at first. It doesn't get any easier as you have so many times that you have to hold back the tears and you feel like you are abandoning them for example like their first day at school, but you have to do it.

kafkathecat

Flamingo, that is how my ds was. We put his bed in our room and when he woke up he would climb in and go back to sleep without any fuss. As he got bigger I would then get into his bed and go back to sleep. He woke later and later in the night until he slept through then he went into his own room. There was no bother or upset and he, at 16, sleeps very well. For various reasons not everyone can do this but it most certainly does not harm your child or their development.

mrcow

flamingo747 wrote: »

It's exhausting. But I feel so cruel and as if I'm abandoning him and making him feel unloved if I leave him.

Look at it another way.

You are continuing to stress him each and every bedtime. You owe it to your child to teach him how to settle and have a relaxing and reassuring bedtime routine.

You think that's cruel?

sacha28

Flamingo I was very worried that my son would hate me for suddenly becoming 'hard faced' and ignoring him. Actually, the opposite has happened. The first morning he was so incredibly affectionate that it put my mind at ease.

I feel our relationship has blossomed since we did this training, he is much much happier for going to bed relaxed and and I no longer dread the evenings which he has clearly picked up on.

Doing these techniques don't make you a bad parent but it brings back the control that you have lost. I admit that my boy was running rings around me and, because I have a fear of turning into my mother, I was allowing him to do it. For about 2/3 months not a day went by when I didn't sob my heart out, a couple of times in front of him which made me feel awful when he held my hand and said 'mummy, no cry'.

I didn't believe, for a single second, that this technique would work and you could've knocked me down the 4th night when he just went to bed without so much as a murmur.

Your child is controlling you and you need to gain that control back. Doing as he demands is only making things worse, how can he trust you when you have no boundaries? There is no harm in showing him that YOU are the adult and run the show. He will thank you in the long run.

Adrenalina

Flamingo, consider that there is a small chance his waking is due to a totally unconnected reason. Dd was always a bad sleeper, but became intolerable at around 9mths to about 15months. I thought I was going to die of exhaustion as she was waking every hr and I was trying to settle back into work. We tried so many things at that stage until the nursery suggested changing her milk, and hey presto: she slept right through. Turns out she is lactose intolerant! I see you're breastfeeding so it's not that for you, but keep asking around, every little piece of info and experience can help you build up a picture.
Hope you find something that works for you soon, being sleep deprived has a knockon effect on every other aspect if your life.

We've had a (hopefully) minor setback in the shape of a tummy bug. We're back with the program and not yet having a decent night sleep but are keeping positive and consistent

flamingo747

Thank you, I really appreciate all your comments. I think some of my worries about his feelings are projections from my own feelings as a child.
I think returning him to bed is probably gentler than the controlled crying I imagine in my head. Surely at nearly two, he will realise we are still here, even if he can't see us, rather than with a newborn who just assumes you're gone forever?

Dh and I were both rubbish sleepers as children too, I think there's a potential genetic element there. As for health issues, I've never found any. He's a healthy and active boy