15 Month Waking Up

Cptralls

Hi All, 

Our 15 month old has went from sleeping the night through to now waking up and sleeping in the spare room with either mum or dad. 

I'm contemplating letting her cry it out but my wife keeps making excuses against this. The little one can seem quite disturbed when she wakes up and often jolts violently in our arms and possibly the cot too. 

What do people recommend? Mummy and daddy really need some sleep. 

Savvy_Sue

Toddler Taming, Christopher Green. 

Crying it out is hard, but sometimes you can settle them without lifting them out of the cot, minimal interaction but just knowing you are there. 

Could be worth checking with the health visitor. 

ZaSa1418

I agree with your wife, if she is crying she needs one of her parents to reassure her that someone will come when she is crying. 
How is the bedtime routine? 

sheramber

Is she having nightmares?

Cptralls

sheramber said:

Is she having nightmares?

I dont know. She goes to bed around 9pm and can be awake from 11:30 onwards. 

Ms_Chocaholic

I see you've made several posts about the same issue - I wondered if you had followed the advice on this post from February when it appeared that your baby was falling asleep in your/your partner's arms - I'm not saying that that is not what you should do but it may contribute to the problem you are having in terms of your baby's ability to self soothe and get himself/herself back to sleep.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6243549/baby-sleeping-problems#latest

Cptralls

Ms_Chocaholic said:

I see you've made several posts about the same issue - I wondered if you had followed the advice on this post from February when it appeared that your baby was falling asleep in your/your partner's arms - I'm not saying that that is not what you should do but it may contribute to the problem you are having in terms of your baby's ability to self soothe and get himself/herself back to sleep.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6243549/baby-sleeping-problems#latest

Still goes to sleep in Mummy's arms before we bring her to the cot. 

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue said:

Toddler Taming, Christopher Green. 

Crying it out is hard, but sometimes you can settle them without lifting them out of the cot, minimal interaction but just knowing you are there. 

Could be worth checking with the health visitor. 

I'll say it again: Toddler Taming. For sleep, eating, behaviour problems - best book I ever read. Very sane, very aware that any answer to a problem has to be one you can live with. 

What I sense though is that you and your partner are not on the same page with this. And you're both tired and cranky, which makes it even more of an issue. 

The thing is, there is no one 'right' way to help a baby learn to self-soothe and sleep through, so experimentation may be needed, and you may need to take the lead. If Mummy usually leaps out of bed and picks baby up at the first whimper, maybe you wait for the second or third whimper, and see if baby settles. If not, rather than picking baby up, you just stroke and soothe, then you can see if baby settles. But you have to agree what you're doing. 

DS1 NEVER fell asleep off the breast until he was a year old, and even when not actually feeding still needed to be sucking, wouldn't take a dummy or a bottle, so that first year most nights were spent with my finger in his mouth. 

DS2 NEVER fell asleep on the breast. We used a music box with him: if he woke in the night, soothe and settle, then start the music box. It played for 10 minutes. If he was still fussing after 2 minutes, we'd go back to him, then leave a slightly longer time, finally a whole 10 minutes. I'd be lying there convinced I was going to have to get up, making myself wait, and magic - before the music box stopped, he'd stop. 

And DS3 was different again. 

Note that you also need to learn what the different cries sound like - hungry, bored, scared, wet, pooped ...

Username03725

Another shout for Toddler Taming. Our son was a terrible sleeper and used to wake often and loudly. Controlled Crying was tough love, but lasted all of less than a week before he got the idea and just went back to sleep without our intervention.

If you teach your daughter that crying will result in a snuggle and a lot of fuss from her mother any time of the day or night, it's no surprise that that's what she'll do. 

Cptralls said:

Still goes to sleep in Mummy's arms before we bring her to the cot. 

This won't help either. She really needs to learn to go to sleep of her own volition, when she's put down in the cot for the night.