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Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.
This week’s question is from Nat. She writes:
“Our son is 18 months old and has never slept through the night. We have tried everything. We took her soother away, we have unplugged the night light, we have removed all distractions; we have let him cry it out. I do not think it is a comfort thing, because even if we come into the room, he continues to cry.
He usually cries for a bottle once in the night, but that does not account for the two or three other times he is up. We usually have to sit with him until he falls asleep and then put him back into the crib. Is there anything else we can do? We are desperate.”
Thanks Leanne. I can imagine after 18 months of not sleeping well, you are definitely desperate. Let us break it down into little pieces here. First of all, we are going to start with bedtime and I know, I sort of sound like a broken record about the bedtime thing but it is ultimately the very best place to start. You cannot do one thing at bedtime and then expect your child to do something completely different for night waking.
Teaching a child to sleep well means that every time they go into their crib or bed, whether it is bedtime, middle of the night, naps, they do the same thing. They need to be 100% confident with what their skills are so they can start doing it every time.
So bedtime, he should have a routine, a good routine as having a bath, getting into jammies, maybe having a drink of something while looking at stories, brushing teeth and going into the crib. Okay, he should be definitely going into the crib awake.
I get the feeling that because there seems to be some rocking going on in the night, my guess is that at bedtime, you probably rock him to sleep. Okay, after the routine, into the crib awake and then I suggest you do the stay in the room method with him. I know you have tried sort of letting him cry it out approach in the past which makes me think you probably were either leaving or checking or just staying out of the room altogether. I know that it might not feel like you are actually doing anything when you are staying there. He might be upset regardless, but I do find that it eases the transition a little bit and even if the first night or two is bad, it usually starts getting better by night three or four.
So you would sit right by the crib. If he stands up, you try to lay him down a few times. If that is not working, then you can just try coaxing him down by rubbing the mattress and saying it is nightie night, lay down and hang in there until he falls asleep in that crib.
Now, I know in your note, you mentioned that you let him cry it out and he threw up and I have actually seen that a few times today just going through the questions and it is unfortunate. I do not like to hear when it happens. I think it is probably upsetting for everybody involved. I can imagine that it is but you want to be careful how you handle it. Again, a child, I mean the life of a child is all about, what are the things that get me what I want. What kind of behavior do I do to get a reaction from people?
If a child starts figuring out that throwing up is a sure ticket into your bed or out of the crib or for this to all stop, they will start doing it more and more often. I had a client once with a two-year old who could throw up almost on cue, the minute she went in the crib, she would stick her finger down her throat and throw up and that got her into her mother’s bed, which was where she wanted to be.
Just be really cautious and careful. At 18 months, that is an age where they will start to put these pieces together and figure these things out. So often, by staying in the room, sitting right beside the crib, saying a common key phrase, doing a little bit of careful touch can keep the situation calm enough that the child would not throw up. If it happens, again, like I said, it is a pleasant experience but if it does happened and take your child out, clean them up, change sheets if you need to, have a little cuddle, sit together for five minutes or so and just be soothing and reassuring that everything is fine. But then, you need to keep going, you have to put him back in the crib and start again. So that is what I want you to do until he is asleep.
Then for night wakings, a couple of things in your note, it is said that he wakes for a bottle once a night. He should not be having a bottle at all in the night anymore. He is 18 months old, there is really no physical reason why he needs to have a bottle in the night and think about it from his perspective, it is kind of confusing if once in the night, you know you get a bottle. I mean, to an 18-month-old, he is not going to know when.
Maybe there is a special time that you are sticking to but he knows that he gets the bottle once in the night, so that could be why he is waking at other times wondering sometimes, I get a bottle and sometimes I do not. On the times that he does not, you rock him, so there are a lot of different confusing messages going on here. He uses the bottle as a prop, he is using you as a prop, so you need to eliminate all of those props.
So taking away the bottle, taking away the rocking and respond to every wake up exactly the same so that he knows what to expect for every wake up. Give him five minutes or so to see if he will work it out on his own. If not, then one of you will go in, sit beside the crib, do all the things you are doing at bedtime until he goes back to sleep, no bottle until morning. I usually do not suggest people consider morning anything before 6:00 a.m.
Then it is 6:00 a.m., nice to see him, good morning, get him up, start your day and then he would have either breakfast or his morning feed. Okay, so just clearing up some of the inconsistencies that he has starting at bedtime, continue on through the night and it is in a week’s time, you are going to be seeing huge improvements in his sleep.
I know you are feeling desperate but the situation is not desperate. You can definitely fix this. Okay, so I encourage you to get started. Thanks for you question and sleep well!
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To ask a question about your child’s sleep, just leave it in the ‘Comments’ section below! I’ll choose one and create a new video answer each week!
My daughter has had a rough start to life. She was super sick for the first 2 years. Now she is almost 2.5 and doing better health wise. Unfortunately, bad habits were formed in the sleep department. We rock her to sleep every night and nap. It usually takes around an hour. She wont fall asleep on her own. She also sleeps with us in our bed. What should we do now? We can’t live like this forever!
Hello, I have a 20 month old started climbing out of his crib so we put him into a toddler bed, made a big deal about it, all our company that comes over has to go and make a big deal about it so my son is proud of it. We have a nighttime routine that has always been the same Pj’s, milk, brush the teeth then read books in his bed. (Let me just say when he was in his crib he would sleep 12 hrs straight at nights)now in his toddler bed, he goes to bed at 8:30 and usually between 12-2 he wakes up, screaming, yelling for his dad saying “ all done”. If the door is open he sleeps in the hallway all night and if the door is closed he sleeps right behind the door.
When we leave his door open and I hear him I don’t say anything and put him back into his bed and as soon as he hears me start to leave he starts crying and gets out of bed. We have tried everything. A night light in his room, a night light in the hallway, a snack before bed, putting a bigger bed railing up so he feels secure like his crib and nothing is working. So we have taken away his naps which he wasn’t much of a napper. I am due in Feburary with our second baby and my husband and I are exhausted and stressed out. Any advice
My 13 month old who is in a cot in with us, used to be put down at 7 awake and sleep pretty much through the night, if he did wake he would settle himself. Overnight he now wont go to sleep without screaming, only way I can settle him is to cuddle. ( Which I do not want him to get into the habit off). He is then waking through the night and crying again. He can see me in the bed beside the cot, but still he dont seem to be reassured. I am out every 2 mins or so, to lay him back down , seems every sound or movement disturbs him.
I want to be able to put him in the same room as my 2 year old as we r expecting again in july next year. I have been doing the controlled crying technique, where he eventually goes to sleep after I go to him every ten mins to settle after about a hour and half. Which I can handle, but I just cant handle being awake through the night, as unless I cuddle him he wont settle himself. I am living on 2-3 hours sleep a night. Its been about a week now. With no sign of him improving. I am just exhausted.
my daughter is 11 months old I dont have a problem with getting her to take a nap durring the day its bedtime that Im having trouble with for the past week she fights to stay awake! her bedtime is right around when I put the other kids to bed 8pm and Ill usually give her a bath ( evey other night) bottle then she’ll sit on my lap tell she falls asleep and I put her in bed that was good for her and now I do the same thing and she’ll fall asleep and then when I put her in bed she wakes up and is up until 1am!! I just put her in bed with the light on and her night light and all she does is scream! and I dont want her to be screaming and wake up her other siblings so now with her going to sleep at 1am Im tired she ends up sleeping tell 10 or 1030am and then takes a nap from 1pm tell 3 or so I usually have to wake her and the other day I thought I wouldnt even give her a nap at all durring the day and I thought maybe a 1/2 hour nap would be ok sense she hadnt had a nap and she was still up until 1am!! so what am I doing wrong? she is teething and I do give her tylonol to help her ( only when she is really grouchy I give to her which isnt very often) to help her with the pain and that doesnt even seem to help so I tried giving her Ibprofen childrens of course and it hasnt helped her at all either so is there something else going on Im tired of staying up tell 1am and then have to get up @ 7am to get my son off to school and then there are times where my other son wakes in the night because of a bad dream and then Im u with him so its almost 3 or 4 sometimes 5 before I go to bed and I really getting exahusted!! any help would be apreciated:)
My son is 20 months old and is still not sleeping through the night. We have always had a well established bedtime routine; bathtime, milk, brush teeth, bed where daddy reads him a story and then lights out. He falls asleep great and sleeps until about 4:00 am. He then wakes up and cries off and on until about 6:00. We refuse to get him out of bed until then. However, he is getting worse instead of better about sleeping. We don’t get up with him, haven’t since he was 6 months old. Haven’t ever used a pacifier or rocked him to sleep either. We have tried using a nightlight and soothing music. Nothing works. It is a continuous routine for him to cry off and on until 6:00. Any suggestions would be great.
why does my 10 month old always stick his fingers down his throat till he throws up? how do i get him to stop? i am trying mittin now but am concernd why this is happening
Hi,
Re: 6month old waking for feeds every 2 hours in the night!
We have a gorgeous six month old girl who has developed a routine at night of waking every two hours to nurse. She goes to bed between 7pm-8pm and sleeps for around 4 hours. She wakes for her first night feed after an initial four hours, but then regularly it is two hours after that she wakes for more!
I have tried cutting the feeds short and she will go back to sleep but then she wakes another 20-30 minutes later!
Crying it out is not an option in our house as we have other children that need their sleep and a husband that works two jobs, so everyone else needs sleep at night too – if she was crying for hours on end through the night it would wake everyone up.
I know she isn’t hungry and she is using being fed as a sleep prop – but I can’t seem to wean her off nursing through the night.
Regards
Hey my name is yvonne and my son is 16 months he has been sick since october and i have being bring him into my bed! He will not sleep all night, unless there is a bottle in his cot he will not go back asleep! i have tried sitting beside him in his room and he will cry and cry ! i don’t talk to him once he is in his crib thats not working either! i have tried to leave him crying but that could and has gone on for nearly 2 hours and then i take him back out and he will go straight asleep in my arms! I am just so tired now and have so much happenin i need sleep! I have tired to take the bottle away and he will scream the house down the people next door must think i am killin him the way he screams! Please please help
Hi,
my five-month old has problems settling himself and won’t fall asleep without a dummy. At the moment I am trying to get him off the dummy by the cry-out method. It’s heat-wrenching to hear him cry so is there another method? He also wakes frequently during the night and he can’t settle himself. I feed him a bottle at around 11 pm and the breast at ~ 3 am. I have the feeling that he doesn’t really need the feed at 3 am anymore as he only drinks a little bit and then falls asleep. Is there a way to make him sleep better at night without letting him cry it out?
Good Morning(I Think),
My son is 17 months old, he really has never slept in his crib. I breast fed him and then brought him to bed with me. I was fearful of crib death and wanted to hear him breathing. I am a working mom with a high stress job, ( Assistant Principal Middle School), need I say more. I desperately need to sleep, I can’t with his foot in my spine every night. I need help. I try to put him down at night in his crib and as soon as I do, he screams for an hour straight. My husband says let him cry, I can’t. What can I do, Is it too late to crib train? HELP!
Hi there, my daughter, who is 17 months old will not sleep in her crib even though it is in our bedroom. She keeps crying until we give in and put her in bed with us. There is the odd time my husband will keep lying her down whenever she gets up and say in a loud tone “go to sleep.”She now uses the tactic of throwing her doll and/or pacifer on the floor and then crying for it. I hope you have a solution for us. Thanks.
Hi My son is 6months old, he has never slept a full night since he was born. He only takes 20minute napes 3 times a day then he is changed for bed and sand to about 8pm. he will wake at 12 crying so he will get a bottle, then he will maybe wake at 2 and 4 and 6. I am getting very worried as i have to go back to work soon and i will never manage with no sleep. Please can you help.
my 2 1/2 yr old daughter refuses to take a nap,and she wont stay alseep at night sometimes she wakes up screaming is there anything i can do?
I have a five and a half month old son. He has been sleeping terribly for the past 3 months. He used to be able to put himself to sleep but wont do that now. He has a very stable bedtime routine but will wake every 3 hours or less. I have tried letting him cry but he gets to the stage where he cant breathe! I have tried sitting by the cot, placing my hand on his chest, talking calmly, singing lullabye toy, rocking and when all that fails nursing to sleep. I need some sleep!
Our daughter is 11 months old. She is very close to walking. As she is gaining more independence, we are finding that she is protesting naps and going to bed at night. We have had the same routine for night bedtime since she was at least 6 weeks old. We have not changed anything. We do put her in her crib awake and in the past she has gone to sleep. (She goes to bed b/n 7:45-8:00 and wakes b/n 6:30-7:00 am) However, recently, she has learned to pull to sitting and then pull up to standing. And, that is what she is now doing as soon as we place her in her crib. She pitches a huge fit, throws her pacifier, etc. I have spoken to her daycare as well, and she is doing the same thing for naps. (which I suspected, because that is what she is doing on the weekends and my day off) I spoke to them about coming up with a routine that we both do. I am not sure what else to do. This is a recent event. I suspect this may be a new developmental event. Do you have any suggestions? I think it comes down to sticking with the routine. And, for naps- maybe coming up with a routine that we can also do at home? Any suggestions about a nap routine?
I have a daughter who is nearly 9 weeks, and from about 2 weeks ago she started to wake up every 3 hours during the night and taking a long time to settle after her feed. She seems to sleep quite well during the day and sometimes even has a huge sleep in in the morning (from about 5am onwards). She also seems to be ‘snacking’ quite a lot instead of taking in bigger drinks. I want to learn how to get her into a routine of knowing when it is night and when it is time for her to sleep (and to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time)… Please help.
I have a son who is almost 2 and a half years old but he won’t sleep on his own. When he goes to bed I have to lay next to him until he falls asleep. This is the same with night wakes except he likes to go and sleep in the spare room with me sleeping next to him. I don’t know how to break him out of this habit. It’s high time he learns to sleep by himself but I don’t know how to make him do it. My husband keeps saying to me that i’m married to him so should sleep next to him and not my son. Please can you help. I’m getting desperate.
Hi Dana,
I need sleep. I’ve never needed sleep more in my life. I have a 15 month old son, who has never slept more than 4 hours straight! The effects of my continually inturrupted sleep affects me in almost every aspect of my awake life. It is seriously becoming unbearable. Right now he is in a playpen in our room (the playpen has a flap so he cannot see out of when he is laying down) it sits about 6 feet away from our bed. We have a Humidifier on for white noise and a salt lamp as a night light. He uses a pacifier but we really only allow it in the crib or the car. I am still nursing and he wakes up like clockwork crying and the easiest way to get him back to sleep is to give him a quick nurse and pop the paci back in. I am toooooooo EXHAUSTED to try anything ath the moment so that has been my solution because letting him cry would disturb my husband’s sleep and he always says “just nurse him real quick” when Andersen is crying. I need to transition him out of our room so my question is I am planning on moving him into his own room and into an actual crib but wanted to know if I should do everything all at the same time…new room, take away the paci, the nursing, only sleep in the new crib, and try the sleep sense program? Keep his familiar blankets and the night light and humidifier of course. But cold turkey on it all or just take it one step at a time? I plan to nurse until he is 2 but don’t want to be waking up at 10pm, midnight, 4am and 6 am, it really get’s rediculous. I’ve tried giving him more calories during the day but that doesn’t change it. He does nurse until I let-down and has a full feed each time. He’s not chubby, or underweight he’s actually healthy for his normal height and weight. I purchased your program awhile back but have been tooooo tired to sit at the computer to read it and haven’t wanted to use the ink and paper to print out all the pages (sorry). What is your advice? are there some sections I could just go to.
Our evening routine consists of dinner around 6 I like to get him started for bed between 6:45 and in bed 7pm. I don’t have alot of time to linger on an elaborate bedtime routine. He bathes every other day but not at a consistant time. Evenings are dinner then play a little, Jammies & fresh diaper on, put toys away with a singsong, brush & floss teeth, then into the bedroom, turn on fan, turn on night light, turn off big light, get paci, sit on our bed and nurse. I put the paci in his hand so he can put it in his mouth when he decides he’s finished nursing. then I pace for a moment singing and kiss him and lay him down. he’s usually drowsy but not asleep when I put him down. and he’ll lay right over and fall asleep. During nap time we do the same routine, but I usually have to lay on my bed after I put him in his crib, because he’ll pop up and see if I’m in the room and if I’m laying down pretending to sleep he usually will lay back down and eventually (10-15 min) he’ll fall asleep too. (I usually end up dozing a little for a much needed nap) then I just leave the room. Well there it is…feel free to edit it all down if you choose to use my question… I’m sure this is a common situation for many mothers. Please help me find the MISSING LINK!!
Hi Diana
Amanda is going through a spate of not sleeping through the night. she is waking up every night 3 or 4-00 am and either crying as though she has had a nightmare, or mainly coming into our bedroom and geting into our bed and then going back to sleep almost immediately. My other half is going a bit nutty as he has to get up at 5-30 to got to work and he is one of the ones that do not go abck to sleep when he has been woken up. we ahve tried putting her back to bede and she screams and crys and gets out again. i had tried reading to her and after about two hours and two books she has told me I can go back to bed now, she cried a little bit and then fell aslseep.
I have told her that if she sleeps through the night, I will give her a pressie but even that is not working. I ahve asked her is her bed is okay, ie warm, cold, comfortable, does she like it and every answer has been a good answer. I just don’t know what else to do, please can you suggest something
I have watched the video about the 18 month old and I feel babies should be rocked if the mom of this 18 month old tried everything. I have a 3 month old and she is still not sleeping thru the night every night. But, my concern is…my mother is giving me a hard time about my baby not sleeping thru the night and suggest i try putting her on her stomach to sleep at 3 months cause that is what my sister in law has done with her baby when her’s was 3 months old. I am from Wa. but, i live in Al. and you don’t put babies under 1yrs of age on thier stomach because of the risk of SIDS. How do I help her to understand about this?
I wrote earlier about my 20 month old who still takes a bottle at night and therefore wakes up 1 or more times a night. She is also taking her diaper off, falling asleep and peeing in her crib which wakes her up. She is aware she pees, and wants the diaper off… What do I do? Should I put her in a big girl bed so at least she can get up and use her potty (we’ve introduced her to it, but she has yet to use it)?
Hello Dana, my 7 1/2 month old daughter only goes to sleep when she HOLDS my HAND. She finds touching our hand and fingers as a comforter. She ALSO needs a DUMMY to go off to sleep. Whilst asleep she is constantly fissing through the night either for her dummy (when she loses it) and for our hand. We have a routine every night…she has a bath then a bottle and she goes to sleep in our arms. I have tried putting her in her crib still awake but she needs to touch my hand and as soon as I let go and walk out of the room she wants my hand again. She is still in our room because of her constant fussing. She isn’t having a bottle through the night which is good, but the constant fussing is not doing us or the baby any good, I feel as though she is not getting a proper nights sleep. Can you help us please!!!
Our 12 month old has recently stopped sleeping. We are religious about her sleep time routine but she goes to bed at 8pm. Recently, due to separation anxiety she has taken up to 1.5 hours to go to sleep. We stand in the doorway, not engaging with her. She seems to be asleep but lifts her head constantly to make sure we’re there. We don’t make eye contact. We just place her back down when she sits up. She also started waking 2/3 times in the night and then wakes for her day at 05.30! We’ve reduced her night time wakings by going down to her room. Settling her by placing her gently back down, then reassuring her that we’re there. We have a bed in her room and one of us will sleep there. If she wakes again, we say “sh, sh, mommy/daddy’s here”. But we sleep in her room. At 05.30, nothing will persuade her to go back to sleep. If we leave her, even if we’re in the room, she sometimes gets so upset, she poohs. We change her nappy and try to get her back to sleep. She only sleeps about 45 minutes during the day. She looks exhausted. She likes to nap after her 10.30 bottle but we try to stop her so that she’s tired for her nap in the afternoon. Unfortunately, she only sleeps 45 mins in afternoon. yesterday we let her sleep in the morning for one hour and then she slept again at 14.00 for one hour. She then went to sleep by 19.30 and didn’t wake during the night. We’re moving over to your way of doing things but really don’t know what to do about the 05.30 start. I tried to buy your basic programme on line but it won’t take my UK phone number. Thanks and hope you can help. Caoimhe
I have a four month old daughter who has never fallen asleep without being nursed. she
wakes up every two hours or so through the night and she has stopped sleeping during the daytime unless she goes in the car. please help i am so tired and she is very miserable.
Hi.
I have a 21 months old boy who slept through the night since 14 weeks. (7pm – 8pm). When he was teething he would wake up a couple of times a night but as soon as that was over he would sleep through the night again. At about 3 months ago he got ill with high temperatures and since then he has been waking up 2-3-4 times a night. I have tried everything but he just screams and screams standing up in his cot until we go in and just lay him back down and he goes straight back to sleep. This would be repeated again in 2 hours time. I don’t know what can I do to make him sleep through the night again. He has a muslin (blanket) that he has when he goes to sleep. Sometimes he screams at night because he lost it on the floor (I’m not sure if he throws it on the floor on purpose so I can go in to his room). I don’t know what has changed? He sleeps between 1-2 hours a day. I keep thinking it might be his teeth but now I just think it’s a bad habit. Do I leave him to cry? We are tired and we need our sleep back. Please help us!
Reuben (17 weeks) is now consistently sleeping from 7pm-7am every night & settling himself to sleep without crying at the start of all his day naps after using your programme for just a few days yay thank you!
My problem is he will sleep one x 1.5 hour stretch a day but never at the same time each day and the rest of the naps are only ever 45min. The random 1.5 hour nap means he messes up his feeding times and is therefore also not following the WAKE UP-FEED-PLAY-SLEEP rule either.
How do I get him to sleep longer than 45min so I can get him into a structured routine of being up for 2 hours and then having 1 x 1.5 in the morning, 1 x 2.25 nap at midday and 45min in the afternoon (or maybe 3 x 1.5 hour naps instead)? I have a 19month old too so I need structure!!
I believe that by having random nap times I am encouraging him to stay random but I can’t have set bedtimes because of his current behaviour.
Please help us!!
Help with my Twins. I have 2 boys that are 10 months old that have never slept through the night and demand 3 naps a day that are no longer than 45 minutes each. They were premature and I have had to do things different from my plan- after a 40 day stay in the NICU and surgery- we came home with all kinds of meds, monitors, and a bad case of reflux- all that said- we were instructed by our dear Dr. that we could not lay them down after a bottle until they had been upright for 30 min. All that said….they are rocked babies. They wake up anywhere from 3-5 times a night-EACH! I haven’t slept in a very long time! I need to know what is the best arrangement for twins- because we have tried a lot of strategies- but things that work for singletons- just dont seem to work for them- they wake each other up and cant seem to self sooth- but they seek each other- even though they are in different cribs (in the same room)= we have been through sooooo much and feel blessed that our little guys have made it- but we feel like sleep is the missing part of our family puzzle- please help with any advice geared toward twins.
We have a 5 month old who we successfully put to bed at 7pm (awake), feed at around 11pm. He wakes usually at 2 am but is learning to fall asleep then on his own. Unfortunately, he also habitually wakes at 4 am every morning and has a bowel movement which wakes him up completely. I used to nurse him at this time, but we’re trying to eliminate this feed and have only done it a handful of times in the last month. He is quite cheerful for an hour cooing and making noises even though we do not feed him or interact with him at this time (other than diaper change in the semi-dark). If we do interact the ‘playtime’ turns into crying. We’ve tried the ‘check’ approach we’ve learned from your book we’ve bought but it’s been quite a few nights now and he just carries on crying now until 6 am when we then just turn the lights on and begin the day. Please can you give us some helpful tips? Thank you Dana.
Good afternoon Dana and other moms & dads,
My son is 3 years old and he is an awful sleeper. He does not nap during the day and it is usually 9 pm before we get him down and he wakes around 6:30-7:00 am every morning. During the evening hours he wakes up anywhere from once-three times and generally ends up in bed with my husband and myself or one of us gets in bed with him. We have done the whole bed time routine and it still does not work – is there any way the reason he is waking “night terrors”?
can u tell me a few questions about fever blisters near the mouth on toddlers??
I have two sons, one who will be 13 months old Sunday and a 5 year old son. My 5 year old will sleep in his bed by himself most of the time, but my 13 month old will not. I was rocking him to sleep and then laying him down in his bed, but he wakes up after a short time and will not go back to sleep in his bed. I try soothing him while he is in his bed, but he will stand up and cry. So I pick him up get him back to sleep and lay him down again and he wakes up again doing the same thing. After 2 or 3 times, I put him in the bed with me, so I can get some sleep. I don’t know what to do.My husband usually sleeps on the couch or with our 5 year old son when he can’t sleep. Please help!
Hi Dana,
My son is almost 8 months old now. Right up until October he used to sleep the night through from 7 to 7 and if I, for some reason, couldn’t get him to his cot by bed time he would fall asleep where ever he was lying.
We moved from Australia to Fiji in October and since the first night we arrived he’s woken every 2 hours – sometimes even more. I now find the only way we can get him to sleep is to lay him down and pat his back. This also involves sometimes having to hold him down because he tries to crawl away no matter how tired he is. He will usually then stay asleep for 40 minutes to 2 hours then start crying without opening his eyes. I then have to either pick him up and rock him back to sleep or nurse him back to sleep.
I used to swaddle him which he still likes but it is far too hot over here. I know I’ve started a terrible habit by patting and nursing him to sleep but I don’t know what else to do. We’ve tried letting him cry it out but he worked himself into such a fit that he was gasping with each breath and we felt absolutely awful.
We will be settling in our new home in February and our son’s cot will also be arriving – I would really like to get his sleeping routine back to normal!
Any help would be much appreciated!!
Hi Dana,
Thank you so much for offering such a wonderful resource for parents. My son, Dylan just turned 3 months old. We have a great nighttime routine and Dylan is able to fall asleep on his own in his crib and is sleeping through the night (he wakes briefly, but does not need us to go into his room to help him back to sleep anymore). The problem I am running into is regarding his naps. He wakes up after 45 minutes or so and is clearly still tired, but has an awful time getting back to sleep. As with bedtime, he is able to fall asleep on his own, but he seems to wake up from his naps too early and then is cranky and ends up taking another short nap in about a half-hour or so. I can’t find anything that addresses this problem. I find all sorts of info about sleeping through the night or falling asleep, but nothing about how to help a child take a longer nap (without impacting the good sleep habits he has learned for overnight sleeping – getting back to sleep by himself, etc.). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Nicole (first time, at-home parent)
Hi Dana,
My daughter is 10 months old and has occassionally slept through the night, although I am not able to get her on a consistant schedule. She naps well during the day and puts herself to sleep, although she does use a pacifier most of the time. She is usually tired around 7 or 8 pm, but will either nap for an hour, or wake up hungry at 12 or 1. sometimes we can get her back to sleep by putting her binky back in, or if she is too awake, she will protest until I give her a bottle and hold her until she falls asleep, and will then wake up again around 4 am. Probably the closest thing to a routine is when she goes to bed at 10 or 11 pm, she will sleep until 4 am on the button, wake up for a bottle and will then go back to sleep until 8 or 9 am. I am afraid that is too late for her to go to bed, but I usually am in for a battle if I try to get her to sleep before 10 pm. And I guess that wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t waking at 4 every night. As for the night feeding at 4 am, I hesitate to eliminate it because she was a preemie, and is still small for her age, and downs a whole bottle, so I really think she is hungry. I did try to reduce the amount I fed her, and even with half a bottle (2 oz.) she slept until her usual wake up time, but it took an hour to get her back to sleep. So, I’m not really sure if she NEEDS the night feed? Again, I don’t have any trouble getting her to nap during the day, she usually has 2 naps totalling about 3 hours, but the night-time is killing me. I don’t understand why she resists sleeping so much at night. Any suggestions?
My 15 week old son is having trouble napping for longer than 30 minutes at a time. We are luckily back to putting him down in his crib for naps. (Dad had been holding him for almost ALL of his naps over the holidays. He was sleeping in Dad’s arms for 1-2 hours at a time.) Now, we can only get him to sleep for 30 – 60 minutes at a time during the day. Usually 30 minutes. Is this okay since he is still only 3 1/2 months.
He goes to sleep around 6:30pm every night. He wakes once or twice during the night and wakes for the day between 6-7am. We are happy with his nightime habits for now.
I know that if he slept longer during the day, he may even sleep BETTER at night.
Please let me know about the duration of his naps and if there is anything we can do to get him to sleep longer/
Thanks!
Hello Dana.
My son is 6 months old. He is a very good boy. He does not fuss about anything, but when he is hungry or sleepy he cries so much!. We have our routine: bath about 6:30 pm/ 7p.m. milk, and then prayer time. I just lay him down in his crib and as long as he has his pacifier he falls asleep. The challenge is when he wakes up about 12:00am, when he is hungry and wants his pacifier. After that he wakes up almost every hour wanting his pacifier because it fell out of his mouth. I have tried the method of taking the pacifier from him, but all he does is cry. so i put it back. I desperately need your help cause i need sleep! Thank you so much, Dana
Good on you Nancy from Norwood Early Learning Centre, (NELC2@verizon.net), for taking a real interest in 2yr old Jack’s sleeping woes. Please offer her some help because this child must really be suffering. I have thought about this all day and think she deserves credit and help for what she has done.
My son Jaxon is 6mths old and he slept through the night until he was 4 mths 9pm til 7am, he had a bad cold and woke up at least 4 times at night due to the guitar he had and couldnt breath properly, he was craddled back to sleep and put into the crib. The cold has gone now and hes back to normal but still wakes at least 2-3 times during the night , the first time he wakes he takes the dummy, from then on he will just have a cuddle and fall straight back to sleep in my arms but as soon as i lay him in the crib he cries!!!!, what can i try? hope to get this under control a.s.a.p as i really want him in the cotbed in his own room but not sure whether to get the sleeping problem out the way before i move him or do t all in the one go. Im open to all suggestions thanks again Natalie
Hi Dana,
My daughter is 7 1/2 mos old and still wakes once a night. We put her to bed at 7:30 without a soother and without a fuss but she wakes at about 3:30 or so. We’ve weaned her off night feeds and are trying to get her to sleep through the night and we let her cry it out. I’ve tried checking on her to soothe her but it seems to just get her more worked up. It takes any where from 20 minutes to 2 hours for her to soothe herself back to sleep. We’ve been doing this for about a week now. Is this something that will eventually sort itself out?? Am I doing something wrong?? We’re also working on extending her naps. She slept longer when she used a soother about 1 1/2 – 2 hours but with the suggestions of getting rid of the crutch it seems to have back fired and she sleeps about 40 mins and is ready to play…the odd time she’ll sleep just over an hour. I do try to soothe her back to sleep at nap so she has more than an hour and that works most times. Is it just a matter of time for her naps to extend themselves again too??
Would love to get your input, Christine
We have a three year old daughter who gets up between one and four times a night, most of the time for nothing in particular.
She usually comes into our room,up to our bed and says “can you put me back to bed!”
What we cant understand is if she doesn’t need anything and doesn’t make a fuss going back to bed then why on earth does she keep waking and getting up?.
Please help, we are so exhausted as this has been going on for months and months.
hi i have a 9 mth old boy who wakes up in the night sevral times,well he did sleep untill he went on to solids and then thats when it all went wrong,now he wont go in the cot awake,i have asked the mid wife and doctor for help and addvice and they say to put him in the cot and leave him,which i have tried for a week,he is in my room as i have 3 other kids how are at school,my husband has a very dangerous job and we are both rowing over this as the baby wakes him up too,i am at wits end please help me as nuthing is helping what do u sergested, tanya
My 5 month old daughter takes naps about 3 a day every 2-2/ 1/2 of being awake. This is good, but the problem is she will not take them in her crib. Used to be only the swing, now its only the car seat or stroller in motion. Once she’s asleep we don’t rock her of course, but we cannot get her to sleep in her crib for naps. Even after she’s fallen asleep if we transfer she wakes up and won’t go back. She does sleep in her crib at night, however we have to rock her to sleep first. (she is still not sleeping through the night yet). Can you help, we are out of ideas!
I have 2 1/2 years old son, i cann’t make him have a nap. because he doesn’t have a nap, he gets sleepy and tierd around 5pm,so if i let him sleep on that time, he will sleep about 3-4hrs and wakes up and doesn’t go back to sleep till we go to sleep. so what i do i don’t let him sleep at that time any more by keeping him busy or playing with him. and then when i give him the battle at 7:30-8pm he fall a sleep on the cauch because he refuse to sleep in his crib. realy i cann’t put him in his crib cause he will start crying and wakes up his 10 month old brother and i will have problem with his brother to put him back to sleep.
But it works he sleeps all night till 6am till he start to cry to sleep on our bed then he sleeps 1-2 hrs between us. when it’s time for me to wake up cause my baby is awake.
How should we respond to calls during the night of “I need to do pees” or “I’m thirsty” from our two year old. It is hard to ignore but most of the time I am sure it is just for attention. I don’t want to encourage it, but if she does need to go to the potty, how can I do so without it becoming a habit? Also, after these times, she doesn’t settle down to sleep for up to an hour, sometimes more. I do try to leave her go, but it does disturb everyone else’s sleep. She has never been a good sleeper, waking seven or more times a night until probably six months ago, but things had improved a lot and now this!
hy its still me diandra shazneys mummy.shaz is now 15 months old.we still have the same problem.she sleeps after 9pm then after 2 or 3 hours she wakes up screaming she sleep again,for 2 hours again,she dont sleep more than 2 or 3 hours at night.we dont know what to do else.pls help….at night i dont give her milk,just some gripewater or water.thankx
My son is almost 11 months. He used to sleep fairly well until he was 6 months old and i went back to work. Now he seems almost afraid of going to sleep, he also seems to get bad dreams, as sometimes he cries while he is asleep, which is scary to me. He has just started refusing to go into his cot, everytime we put him in it he cries like he’s terrified, so he sleeps with me everynight. But even in with me he wakes up scared and crying if he doesn’t have contact. I’m not really sure what to do. I would like him to stay in his own cot, but i’m more worried because he seems so scared of going to sleep.
Please help.
My 2 years old Yvan goes to bed at 8.30 pm (after our usual routine: bath, reading books). However, he will not sleep till 9.30pm or even 10pm. During this time he wants me or my husband to stay with him, hold his hands or sing. He will be awake at 6 am (if we are lucky) or earlier. During the day he would have a 2 hours nap. After 2 hours we wake him up, otherwise next morning he will be awake before 5 am… We also have a 3 months old baby Leo. My worry is that if I let Yvan cry he would wake up Leo. At the same time, I believe, a 2 years old child should sleep more than 10hours per day.
hi dana firstly thank you so much we bought your sleep sense program when our son fynn was 41/2 months i dont know how much longer i would have been able to hang in there as he was feeding every 2 hours and i was nursing we are now going to bed at 7pm and waking at 7am im a new mum.
the current problem is day time naps are very short no problems going down i read his signs well but hes only lasting 30 to 45 mins i leave him in his crib for a full hour hes not upset or cranky just wont sleep any longer his routine has not changed he goes down at 10 am for first nap around 2.30 3.00 for the second hes now 7 months this has been happening for the past 6 weeks.have read your section on napping and am at a loss as to what to do as im following your recommendations.
thanks liz
I have a 5 month old boy, who won’t sleep during the day. The plus side is that he does sleep through the night, but the evenings are sometimes fraught and very upset as he’s overtired and frustrated. He does get tired in the day and goes in his nursery, but never settles into a nap. any ideas?
We have our Step daughter and grandson living with us for a while, they have to share a room. Braden does not sleep thru the night, he goes to sleep and wakes up 4,5 times a night, sometimes in a tantrum and screaming, it is hard for him to be back to sleep, sometime he goes back to sleep with a little crying and whyning but often it is much crying, we think he may have night terrors.
help.
Sabrina/
My son Harrison is 2.5 years old. Recently we have changed him to a new bedroom with a “big boy bed”. We are expecting our second in about 6 weeks. Harrison has slept on vacation or at his grandparents homes in big beds without difficulty in the past. He slowly saw the renovations to his new room being done and we had a little party with balloons to celebrate his “big boy” move. This transition went well and he seems thrilled to call himself the big boy. He is now unfortunately waking several times a night crying. He wants his pacifier, wants me to cuddle or is just crying and confused. He also is very hard to put to sleep now. We do our routine as usual (bath, jammies, teeth and stories) but it’s not enough. He wants more stories, endless cuddling etc. A tantrum ensues and we usually leave him to cry sometimes with a short visit to make sure he’s safe in bed and remind him it’s night time, time for sleep. Usually lights are out around 8 and he only falls asleep around 9PM. It used to be so simple to put him to sleep and he’d sleep well the night. What do I do? I’m exhausted already and the new baby is on the way.
I have a 12 week old daughter who simply will not nap. We finally got the bedtime thing down at night, so at least she sleeps then. She usually falls asleep around 6:30-7:00, will wake up between midnight and 2 am to eat, and then will sleep again until 6 or 7, eat again, and then get up around 9ish, roughly. I admit, I or my husband rock her to sleep each night, which I know we shouldn’t do, but she is never in that “drowsy but awake” state that you are supposed to put them in their cribs in. If we put her in there, she’ll be quiet for a bit but then she will scream and I don’t want to do the cry it out thing. Naps during the day are almost impossible. I watch her like a hawk for her drowsy cues to try and get her down promptly, but she seems to go from awake to rubbing her eyes and yawning and then to fussy crying because she’s tired in a matter of minutes! Again, the only way I can get her to sleep is rocking her or walking her around up on my shoulder. For awhile she would take a pacifier, but now is rejecting that. She seems to like to suck on her hands, but doesn’t have good enough control of them yet to keep them in her mouth long enough to sooth her. When she does fall asleep, she’ll only nap for 30 – 45 min. She’s just tired all day long it seems, yet she won’t sleep! Help! What can I do?
My son is 17 months old. Up until the last few weeks he was going to bed peacefully on his own and sleeping through the night with an occassional wake up. He would go back asleep after a drink of water or diaper change. Now he resists going to bed and wakes up 2-3 times a night. The drink of water or diaper change do not soothe him and letting him work it out on his own has not worked. He cries very hard for 15 minutes or more and his cry only gets stronger. When held he stops crying. We have a bedtime routine that we stick to it’s the middle of the night routine I’m hoping to improve so that we can all sleep better.
My daughter is 7 months old and is waking up 3 times during the night to nurse. She usually wakes up about 4 hours after falling asleep, 3 1/2 hours after that, and again 3 1/2 hours after that. Is this still reasonable to expect her to eat 3 times during the night at this age? When will night feedings end?
Hi,
We are trying to teach our 8 month old to go to bed without the use of props. We have seemed to use the 2 ends of the spectrum, the cry it out, which sometimes is 15 min of light crying or all the way up to 1 1/2 hours of crying / screaming. Then we have gone the other way, Kate is in the crib, I am not picking up but will sit beside and sssh, or rub her back, this can seem to take up to 2 hours and then it’s like she is relying on my because if I try to leave we are back to square one or if she wakes and doesn’t see me we are back to square one. I have tried just going in and checking every 5 -10 min but that seems to make things worse as she calms when I walk in but then gets horribly upset when I leave again.
The cry it out seems the best so far as she usually has her head down and seems like she is trying to fall asleep but I hate it when she is screaming,
Is there a happy medium?
Dear Dana,
My son Anthony has had a bedtime routine involving bath/change/bottle with music then bed since he was about 6 weeks old and settles to bed really well at 7pm. He then sleeps to anywhere between 2am and 5am when he wakes for a feed after which he settles again for a sleep until around 7am. The time he wakes in the night does not seem to be related to the amount he has eaten the previous day or the amount of his last feed (so for example last night he had 8oz at 7pm and woke at 2am whereas the previous night he had 4oz but didn’t wake until 5am!). I don’t think he needs the night feed because when he wakes in the morning (around 7am) he isn’t hungry and only has 1 or 2 oz of his bottle then seems really hungry by about 9am. During the day I am trying to get him to nap twice in the morning and once (for a longer stretch) just after lunch – getting him to settle is proving to be a real struggle – I have tried 10 mins quiet time pre nap and then into crib but this morning as an example I ended up doing this at 8.15am (he normally gets tired after being awake for around 1hour 15/30 in the morning) tried to leave him to cry then going back in etc. By 9am I ended up feeding him as he was hungry by then tried to put him down again and again kept going back in as he cried. By 10am he still wasn’t asleep and I was totally stressed out so I put him in his buggy and walked him round and he dropped off almost straight away. So I suppose I would love help with (i) how to eliminate the night feed and get Anthony feeding properly again at 7am and (ii) how to get Anthony to nap better during the day – I suspect the 2 problems may be linked but I am going out of my mind trying to find a solution!!
Thanks for any help you are able to give in advance.
Kind Regards
Jenny
Jack is a 2 year old toddler and has a huge problem getting to sleep at night. He will rest with dad but stays awake until 11:00pm-12:00am. Once he gets to sleep he will sleep all night long. Dad has to wake him up in the morning but Jack will be very sleepy all day at school and most of the time he will sleep all morning at school on the pillows on the floor even with all the other children in the room playing and making so much noise. He is awake for about 2 hours then has lunch and back down again after lunch and will sleep for another 2 hours and will have to be woken up again with lots of noise from the other children. Jack will sometimes fall asleep where ever he is. It could be on a toy shelf, under the sensory table, in a corner, drop his head at the lunch table, he will even put his head in a toy box and fall asleep. He does not listen to you when you talk with him and most of the time he will space out just staring into space. His behavior is getting worse with out sleep. The teacher will call his name 4-5 times and he will not show that he even hears her. If we try to do anything with him he pulls away and will fight you to get away. He does what ever he wants to when ever he wants and has no expression to show he’s listening or even that he is interested in what the teacher or children are doing. He has no expression to show how he is feeling or even excited about anything. the teachers are worried because he is not looking well. He’s very pale in color and around his eyes they are all red. Jack is out of controll at school with no listening skills at all. If you have any advise for me to pass on to Jack’s dad please let me know. Jack needs help!
From Nancy at Norwood Early Learning Center.
NELC2@verizon.net
Hi Dana
I am writing because I don’t know what to do about my little boy who will not sleep through the night. This is now having a impact on my marriage. My son is nearly 15 month s old he has never been a good sleeper and even as a baby did not need a lot of sleep.
Since he was 6 weeks old he has had the same bedtime routine bath, milk, story and bed. He goes to bed awake and falls to sleep on this own. The problem is when he wakes up he screams the house down, and the longer he is left the more of a state he gets himself in. (he more often than not wakes up crying during the day!)
When he was younger and woke during the night this could be ever hour or so i would give him his dummy and he would go back to sleep. This does not work now, and since I have gone back to work, when he wakes up during the night if its before i go to bed i will stay with him still he goes off but after I have gone to bed and he wakes up I end up bringing him in our bed so we can all get some sleep. This is a habbit he has got into now and I do not know how to break it?
Please help
Dear Dana,
I wrote to you before but I am getting pretty desperate now. My son Zane is going to be 2 in February and still not sleeping throught the night and never has. He dose have a routine everynight and it is always the same. Bath time, PJ’s on, milk and story.
I did try for a month your suggestion for Zane to fall asleep by himself in his cot which it did work however to a point he was still getting a bottle around 1.30am as my husband the big softie told me to gradualy do this. I on the other hand thought that it was better to stop night feed and for Zane to fall asleep himself and when he wakes up during the night ignore him .One night my son vomited for attention (which he has done this on other occasions) and that was it my husband was back with him in the room. Now Zane wakes up really upset and crying and wanting his dad. It takes Zane sometimes up to 30 min to 45 min to fall asleep. Also he gets up any where from 5 or 5.30. He is not getting enough sleep is really grumpy as he also attends daycare 4 day a week and has long days.
I am really tired as well but Zane’s sleep won’t improve unless my husband is on my side. I have tried talking to him telling him that it is in Zane’s best intrest but all he says that it is hard for him to listen to Zane crying as he loves him so much.
Can you please help? I don’t know what to do.
Thank you
10 month old Sadie has only slept through the night as a newborn (6 weeks until 3 mos.) Since 3 mos, she now wakes up every 2-3 hours. She’s breastfed & eats solids during the day. She is only in the 15th percentile for weight, which makes me reluctant to let her “starve” during the night, though I am aware of the facts about good uninterrupted sleep & eating habits. After reading your online book (numerous times now!) my husband & I are commited to this program, but after 2 weeks are still not seeing an improvement except that naps are great now, and she also goes to sleep ON HER OWN, AWAKE at 7:30-8pm instead of at midnight with us. She’s in a crib in our room. We have a solid, consistent routine & have eliminated all sleep props except her binky, which she doesn’t need to go to sleep but she’ll sometimes find in the night & put in her mouth. After letting her cry it out for 1/2 hr to an hour, I try everything I can not to pick her up, but the only thing that gets her to stop crying is to nurse. Do you really think she could be hungry during the night? This is the 2nd sleep system we’ve tried & cannot seem to get the crying down at all – sometimes it’s for 1+ hour sometimes it’s only 1/2 hr. At those hours of the night, it wakes the entire household up! This is REALLY wearing us down ~ help!
My son is just over 2 years and moved into a big bed before xmas. All was going well. He gave his dummy to santa, there were a free rough nights getting him to go back to sleep without it but after 4 nights was sleeping through. He has just decided he doesn’t want to stay in his bed or room for that matter when I put him down for a sleep during the day & night. I have put him back in the cot so he cant get out. Any advice to get him to stay in his bed as its taking over an hour every night & thats after the bed routine of books, clean teeth, songs, prayers & reading.
continued, sorry.
What can I do to make him want to stay in his bed at night as I don’t want him to stay in the cot for ever. HELP
I havea problemalso, I havea 10month old who throughvarious medical issues e.g. asthma, has needed help to go to sleep. Then at 7months, a miracle, occurred, he used to go into the cot drowsy, turn over and go to sleep by himself. Then from 8months, he was teething, learnign to crawl and stand up and then couldnt’ get back to square one.. I was back at work at that stage, so shot myself int he foot by then going to rocking him to sleep so I could get some sleep, now he cannot go to sleep by himself.
We have a routine, food bath bed and then some others but he is so active, it is difficutl
please help my sanity is at stake
melisa
My son is 8 months and refuses to sleep at night til around 3 am. then sleeps til the afternoon and only wakes up to eat only 2 times. How can I get him back on schedule? sleeping thru the night and up during the morning and afternoon. I’m a stay at home mom at the moment and I feel it’ll interfere big time when I decide to go back to work. Also, I breastfeed and after i feed him at night and he falls asleep I try and put him in his crib and he crys right away and if i put him back in bed with me he knocks right out quick. What should i do??? Thank you!
For the last 4 months our 10 month old boy has been going to slepp (naps and night sleeps) without any rocking, dummy, rubbing of back etc. My husband and I are however generally always sitting in the room saying the odd ‘ssshhh it’s time for sleep’ until he’s fast asleep. During this time we have moved the chair from beside the cot to the doorway – we really want to be able to leave the room altogether. With us staying in the room, he takes 30 to 60 minutes to fall asleep (sometimes perfectly happy, other times very unhappy). We have tried leaving the room (tried this 7 consecutive nights, twice) but if we do this he cries for 1.5 to 2 hours. He wants us to be there with him. And now he is totally mobile he really resists lying down and we’re having to hold him down with the sheets …. meaning we also have to leave the chair by the door to facilitate this. And we’re also not sure if holding him down with the sheets is too full on?!
He will often wake up once during the night. If we go to him immediately, he’ll settle within a couple of minutes … a little careful touching for these night wakings. If we don’t go to him and leave him to cry, he’ll cry for 1.5 to 2 hours, so as you can imagine we’ve been taking the easy ‘quick settle’ option. What should we do?
Thanks so much
Hi Dana,
I am the grandmother of a beautiful, energetic, intelligent 18 month old. We had her bedtime like clock work. She was sleeping all night. During the holiday, she started going to sleep at her normal bedtime, but it began to be like a nap. Go to bed at 8:00, sleep until 12:00, wake up at 1:00, up until 3:00 or 4:00am in the morning, then sleeping until 2:00. I take care of her while her mother is at work, and it is very hard on her mother because she is not getting enough sleep. She is very attached to me as I am to her, but these anytime of night wakings is getting the best of us. I have tried waking her up before 2:00, but most of the time I am zonked out myself. (smile). She just sits straight up in the bed like it is a brand new day, and she is refreshed because she had a nap, when everyone else is ready to sleep. I sing to her, I read to her, we bathe her in lavendar, massage her in lavendar lotion and she still wakes up. She is a very loving, sweet baby, we just need her to stop waking up in the middle of the night and staying up 2 or 3 hours. HELP!!!!!!
My son is 15-months old and he has been sleeping well through the night since I stopped breastfeeding at 11-months. He weaned himself which was great. He sleeps 10-12 hours a night in his crib and he naps 1-2 1/2 hours a day. If he wakes up in the night, he finds his soother and puts himself back to sleep. We have the same routien every night and he goes to sleep between 7:30 pm-9:30 pm. My problem is he needs a bottle before his nap and bedtime to go to sleep (doesn’t always drink it all) and I know I should be putting him to sleep awake. I just love having him fall asleep in my arms. If he is sleeping so well, why would I want to rock the boat just because everyone tells you he needs to learn to fall asleep on his own? I understand I won’t be giving him a bottle before bed forever, so I guess I need to address this sooner than later. I have tried the cry it out method and he cries for hours! I end up getting him out of his crib and we play quitely and read books until he is really tired again. By this time it is really late. Is there anything else I should be trying? Thanks!
Hello Dana,
I am anxious to purchase the info on how to get my daughter to sleep however I am reluctant because with other materials I have read they all seem to talk about starting a routine from newborn on. Well, my daughter is 24 weeks old and has yet to sleep through the night. So for me, starting a routine during the newborn stage is not going to help. I feel like it is too late to start a routine now. My daughter wakes up a few times every night. I usually rock her or give her a bottle to go back to sleep. But as soon as I lay her in her crib she is up crying immediately. I have tried letting her “cry it out” but it has lasted almost 2 hours with no end in sight, so I give in. I am at the point now where she sleeps in her car seat because it keeps her propped up and she sleeps longer in it. I also have a 4.5 year old daughter so our daytime routine does not exist since we are usually running around for school and activities.
I need help with sasha is 4yrs she was a good sleeper as a baby, but once she turn 2yrs, she dosent sleep the whole nite in her bed she gets up and stays awake for 2hours or wakes at 6am, but if she is in the same room as us she sleeps the whole nite.
Now she is hard to get down at nite usually from 9pm to 10pm at nite. if she sleeps in same room as us she wakes at 8.30am.
Was wondering there was something I could do. We brout bunk beds for as she promise to sleep in them, but that didnt work either. Is it just a habit i need to break as don’t like sleepless nites, the other kids are great sleepers. We have the light on at nite as thats what she wants.
I have a 16 month old boy who has always been very good at settling himself to sleep and slept through the night from 12 weeks old. Two weeks ago it became a nightmare to try and settle him to sleep. He stands up and cries in his cot and cries to the point of vomitting. He still sleeps through the night it’s just getting him off to sleep. I don’t know why he suddenly can’t settle himself. We now sit in the room to stop the vomitting but it can take us up to an hour to get him to sleep. We don’t touch him or look at him, we just sit in the room with him until he goes to sleep. If he stands up we say it’s bed time go to sleep. I just don’t know what else to do? He has always had the same bedtime routine.
hi! i need help for naps. My daugher reagan is almost 14 months old and is a great night sleeper. She has been for a while. Naptimes for her don’t seem quite long enough, she wakes up still tired. For her morning nap or naps she seems to be okay with only an hour, but i can’t seem to get her to sleep longer in the afternoon.
She goes down fine, maybe a little crying and then out, but she wakes up crying and still tired after about 45 min to an hour. I would say that I am ok with that because she sleeps so well at night, but then she is ready to be in bed super early, by 5:30pm She just still seems unhappy and i feel if she got one longer nap in the afternoon it would do her wonders. I have done everything, cry it out, check on her to make sure she isn’t dirty or in need of a burp, but nothing works!!!! Help!!!!
thank you so much! we are big fan of yours! we love your articles! you have helped us alot!!! thank you so much!!!!!!!!!! bruna and James gabriel!
my daughter is 17 months she was sleeping through the night for about a month after seeing a doctor about her sleep. i got told to do the same routine every night then put her in the cot after her bottle and stay till she falls asleep, don’t pick her up and don’t night feed her, just try and comfort her which i do by rubbing her back. But now she is waking a couple of times or more every night. what else could i try.
hi there, i have a new baby, 10 wks old, michael. he is great through the night, but during the day everytime i put him down for a sleep he screams and takes me about an hour to get him to sleep (sometimes 2 or 3). ive tried everything i can think of.
I started the very bad habit of letting my daughter sleep with us when she was younger. Now that she has turned 5 I know it is time for that to stop. It’s the stopping that is wearing us both down. We have tried almost everything I have read on the internet, and heard from other parents. We have the routine of bath, reading, water by her bedside, and goodnight kisses and hugs. Once the lights go off the screaming starts. She screams, won’t stay in her bed, and gets herself so worked up I know it can’t be good. Today her pedatrician told us to try one of two things. Let her have the TV on to sleep with, or give her a blanket and pillow, put her in bed, and LOCK our door. That second one just seems to traumatizing to me and to her. I constantly put her back in her bed once she gets up to come to ours, but by the wee hours of the morning I just give up. So now I’m at a loss as to what to do next.
I have taken bits and peices from all your videos and all the advise I get from other parents and Brayden is now sleeping all night long- and going to sleep on his own. The other night he actually was crying to go to sleep!!! The first night was the hardest- I put him in his bed awake- he cried for 1.5 hours then fell asleep- he woke in the middle of the night but I didnt get him out of bed- I changed him if need and told him it was ok and left the room- he cried again for 30 minutes. the next night was much easier– less crying and woke up closer to time to wake up.. and every night has been easier until he was going to bed without crying at all. I actually “trained” him to walk to me his room- got his pacifier and puppy and held his arms up as if he wanted to picked up to be put in bed. He is now sleeping all through the night. The first week or so was hard but both of us are sleeping so much better now and happier. The other night he was so sleepy that he cried through bath and getting dressed and would not let me pick up his room because he was crying to be put in bed– I think that proves I succeeded!!! Thanks for all your help
I have a three year old and a 16 month old that sleep on different schedules. Both go through the same night-time schedule at between 6:30 and 7:30pm of a bath, small snack and stories, and then bed.
My 16 month old will sleep through the night right away or after 10-15 minutes of talking in bed and she will sleep until 4:00am. Then I can go in, lay her down and say “it’s sleep time” and she will go back to sleep and wake up for the day at 6:00am. But this all depends on whether or not she is woken by her sister, as she is a light sleeper. If she is woken, she will then wake up to three times before 4:00am and then continue on with her pattern.
My three year old, on the other hand, goes to sleep with a couple of songs and will sleep until around 9:30pm, then cry for me to go to her. I give her a hug, cover her back up and turn on her music. She then wakes up again around 12:00am and sometimes again around 2:00am. After that, she will sleep until 7:30 or 8:00am.
Between the two of them, I am the one not getting the good sleep. They both have afternoon naps (1 hour for the three year old and 2 hours for the 16 month old) and are happy throughout the day. What can I do to break this habit of nightwaking for both of them?
My 9 week old boy has started rolling from his front to his back in bed, while he is asleep and waking himself up. He doesn’t like to sleep on his back and so it wakes him up and he gets agitated and cries and won’t sleep on his back, and is hard to get back to sleep. How do I teach him to get used to sleeping on his back?
my daughter is 7 weeks old and is sill not able to go to sleep on her own. We put her to sleep in her crib drowsy and she cries after we leave the room. I will go back in and give her a pacifier, which she continually spits out, and once her eyes are closed I leave the room. But this can go on at least 5 times for afternoon nap and bedtime and can last up to an hour and a half. If we try to let her cry it out she can go for 20 mins with no sign of calming down. Once she is asleep she will sleep usually pretty well with only waking up once in the middle of the night to eat. I would like to be able to just lay her in her crib and she will put herself to sleep. I am gettin ready to go back to work and she will be going to daycare so she needs to be able to soothe herself. Any ideas on her to teach her to put herself to sleep???
my 14 mth old boy is still not sleeping through the night, i have written to you before about this and have tried many things. he is in a good routine for bedtime. has a bath, puts pjs on, reads books with me, have supper, maybe read some more then has a bottle, which he usually falls asleep on. when he wakes at night i have to take him out of his cot and out of the room as he has to share a bedroom with his sister who is 8yrs old. this is very difficult, as id like to keep him in his cot, but unfortunatly have to think about my 8yr old getting her sleep for school. i now feel kieron has become used to this amd see it as a chance to come out of the room and play. however, i do not allow him to play, and have tried many stratergies to get him back to sleep. giving a bottle, just sitting him on my knee rocking him, but not talking to him. putting him in bed with me. none of these seem to work very good. i dont know what else to do. it would be great to have a seperate room for him but this is not about to happen anytime soon. that in mind what advice would you give me to get kieron sleeping.
Hello, my son is 18 months and has slept through the night a handful of times since he turned 1. So we know he can do it! However , most nights he is up and we have created a bad habit of bringing him into our bed. We have a bedtime routine and he falls asleep on his own for naps and at bedtime, it is during the night that he expects to come into our bed. I just watched the online video and tonight I am going to try sitting beside the crib and singing softlyinstead of bringing him in. I know he will cry and scream but I am hoping that if we are consistent for a few days/ weeks? he will eventually figure this out. We want to have another baby (he is the my second) and I think I am putting it off because of his sleeping. Thank-you.
Hi again, Nicole back with the one year old twins. I forgot to mention a very important piece of our puzzle. Our son will settle on his own during the day. If he stands, he will lay down again. If he doesn’t want to nap, he will just play. But in the evening for bed is a different story.
My son is 13.5 months old and has never slept through the night. We have a consistent bedtime routine with bath, jammies, milk and books. He is not rocked or nursed to sleep. He goes to sleep in his crib on his own with a lovey. At times there is some crying when I first set him in his bed, but only for a few minutes then he settles and gets himself to sleep.
Lately, he has consistently woken up every night at 11:45. My usual response is to go in and nurse him, but recently started leaving him in his crib without even going in his room. If I go in and do not nurse him, he gets even more upset. At 11:45, he wakes up and I do not go in his room at all. He cries for about 20 mins, settles down, then starts the crying cycle again. This continues for an hour. After an hour, my son falls back asleep and usually does not wake again until 7 am. I do not like him crying for an hour. We have tried this four nights a row now, and the crying time has not decreased. My husband are up the entire hour waiting for him to fall asleep.
I am just not sure how to handle this waking up at midnight. I thought he would figure it out that I wasn’t coming in within a few days and just sleep!! I don’t know how much longer I can listen to him cry for an hour! What do you suggest I do when he wakes that one time at night?
Thank you.
My daughter Maddy is also 18mos, and she has always been a cosleeper. We just recently moved and put the toddler bed up thinking we could transition her with a new bedroom and a big girl bed. This did not work at all she wants to sleep with momma and dadda, and most of the night she wants to feed herself back to sleep, and if she does not feed then she whines and moves around a lot until she finally falls back to sleep. This has caused my husband to move to the couch or sometimes the floor! Ouch! Lately we have been going through the same routine at night, bath, jammies, a story or 2, then we put her in her swing (awake). She will normally stay in her swing for about 4 hours then wake and want to lay with us (mainly to feed). Then she will fall asleep and we will place her back into the swing and she will sleep til morning sometimes waking up early to feed once again. I would like to transition her to her bed, is it bad that we put up the toddler bed? SHe never slept in the crib, she only slept in a bassinet next to us for maybe the first month of her life. What can we do to get her to lay down in her bed? She is getting way too big for her swing and I need help weaning her from those night feedings, so I can get some much needed sleep! Please help!
Hi, my daughter is 10 months old and she sleeps with us in our bed, she wakes up 4 or 5 times through the night. I am breast-feeding her and when I feed her she falls asleep again, at night I give her a bath then I put the pajamas on, but she never sleeps by herself, she cries and cries until I breast-feed her, she doesn’t want to be in the crib, and during the day she only sleeps like 20 minutes in the day, and then like 25 in the afternoon, thats it!! I don’t know want to do, I am desperate, exhausted and my husband too!! please help me.
My daughter Ella, who is nine months, hasn’t been sleeping through the night. She is very inconsistant with her sleep. I work till 11:00 so my husband is responsable for putting all four kids to bed. Ella goes to bed at 7:00 everynight. She falls asleep on the bottle and then she gets her binky. She wakes up at midnight and she gets her binky, sometimes thats ok but sometimes its not. So I am forced to rock her. Then she will wake up between 2-4. Usually the binky doesn’t work nor rocking her so I give her a bottle in her bed and she usually falls asleep and wakes up for good between 6 and 7. Out of all four kids she has been the hardest!!. I know I need to get rid of the binky and bottle. I guess my question is are we putting her down to early?? During the day she takes one nap maybe two and it is usually 2 hours all together. By 7:00 she is so grumpy and tired. How much sleep does she need?? Should we put her down maybe around 8:00 instead? Please help us! My husband and I are fighting more and we are sooo annoyed with Ella.
My 17 month old has been sick with one ailment or another since November and needed me to be a bit more attentive to her needs during the night. Now that she’s starting to finally feel better she’s developed really bad sleeping habits. She will go in the crib at night but will wake up crying for me within a few minutes. She’s been waking up 3-4 times a night asking for a bottle or just needing me. What do I do with a child who has been so sick for so long? How do I break her bad habits of needing mommy? help!
My daughter is going to be a yeat in about 3 weeks, and at night , she still needs a pacifier to fall alseep. Its the only time i ever gave it to her, was at night. I am wondering the best way to discourage the use of it , without being too “traumatizing ” for her.
I just read your weekly response to Leanne about the 18 month old that has never slept through the night. My child is also 18 months old and has not slept through the night. She goes to sleep in her crib at bedtime just fine. She is awake when we put her down and she puts herself to sleep. The problem is that she wakes up every 2-3 hours all night long and sometimes she will be awake, trying to sleep (we have a video monitor and we see her trying her own soothing methods) for 2 hours. She will plop down, try to sleep for 10 minutes and get up and cry for us. Then down for 10 minutes, then up. Over and over. Our response now is to wait 5 minutes then go in and tell her it is ok, everyone is sleeping and to go back to sleep. She grabs her nuk (pacifier) and blankie and plops down. She even says “bye”. We don’t pick her up. We leave and the cycle starts again. She tries for 10ish minutes and then starts to cry. We have tried to do the 5, 10, 15 minute intervals before responding to her cries. We have tried to just let her cry. We have tried responding instantly to her cries. We have tried each of these methods for a minimum of 2 weeks to give each a chance. Nothing has worked. I am puzzled as to what we are doing wrong. We have a consistent bedtime routine (bath, jammies, books, then naming everyone in the family saying “Mommy is going to sleep, Daddy is going to sleep, Grandma is sleeping” etc. then a kiss and one lullibye and into the crib she goes.) done every night ending with her in bed by 7:15ish. She takes one afternoon nap around 12:30 for 2 hours. What are we missing?
My 15 month old daughter has struggled to sleep well since birth. I can really relate to this posting and video. We have recently developed a clear bedtime pattern and are sticking to our guns. The trouble we are having is that our daughter is often sick. I do not have the heart to allow her to cry it out every night when going to bed and the multiple times she wakes up when she is not feeling well. We find that once we get a routine going, she gets ill, we break the routine, and end up starting all over again. After many months of no sleep and my daughter always crying for her mom, mom is beyond tired. Any suggestions?
My 5 1/2 month old still wakes up for one nighttime feeding. She goes to bed at 7 (usually falls asleep on own) and wakes between 6 and 7. She wakes up anywhere between 1 and 4:30 AM to feed. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation with when she wakes up and how much she ate at bed time.
We tried weaning her nighttime feeding by an oz, which resulted in 1-1.5 hrs of crying for 2 nights. Should we continue to feed her at night? I don’t want to be a parent still feeding their 1 year old, but I don’t know what age is appropriate to expect her to not eat at all during the night time.
Hello, I know my one year old twins are in a transition from two naps to one, but one twin can settle well and sleep well, while the other continues to have difficultly. Both babies got sick in November. Ever since then, I have tried very hard to get them back on routine. With a transition in place I am finding it harder and harder to put them down for naps and bed.
Our son, used to be able to go to sleep on his own and I could just leave the room. But now, he seems to need one of us to stay with him until he falls asleep. We have always had a solid bedtime routine and bedtime is usually 7:30. I don’t breastfeed him at night anymore (since 10 months), but I do nurse them before bed. I was under the impression this would pass, but it hasn’t. He always wants to stand in his crib. So, I just continue to put him down and pat his back and tell him to go to sleep. There is not much I do, but be there to remind him it is bedtime and to put him back down. If he is not asleep when I leave the room, the crying really escalates. I don’t let him cry it out.
Once he falls asleep, he does sleep a long stretch, but lately he will wake up at 4:30-5:00am, and can’t go back. This is also new. I used to go to him and do the same procedure, put him down and tell him it is bedtime and he would go back to 7:00am.
So, my main question is: What am I doing wrong? How long can I continue to put my son to bed with him standing up all the time and get up like this? All the books say it will pass. I have been doing it for two months now and I don’t see the situation improving only getting worse. Since he is up so early, he will take a nap only to catch up on the sleep he has missed at night. If he sleeps in the afternoon, I can’t get him to go to sleep by bedtime.
I would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks, Nicole
My son, Ethan, just turned 6 months old and has slept through the night (7pm-7am) only one time which I’m sure was a fluke. From the time he was 2 to 4 months old, he slept from 7:30pm-3am, at which time I nursed him and put him back in the crib while awake and he slept until 8am, this worked great! He has no problem going to sleep at night, generally babbles for 5 minutes then falls asleep after our regular routine. His nighttime sleep has been very inconsistent for the past 2 months. He wakes several times a night, I nurse him once around 4am. If he wakes before then, it is usually for more than an hour of mild to moderate fussing. I’ve tried letting him cry/fuss it out but he will more than likely not fall back asleep. If he does, it’s for 30 minutes or so then he starts all over. By the time 4am rolls around I’ll feed him and he goes back to sleep after babbling for 5 mintues or so. I no longer give him his pacifier but I do swaddle him. I’ve started keeping one arm out and am working slowly to no swaddle at all. I’ve also tried dreamfeeding at 10pm, but he will wake up just as many times. He takes 2 naps a day with no problems, each lasting 1-2 hours. Occassionally, if he’s had a bad night, he’ll take a 3rd nap that day to catch up. Should I pull his early morning feeding all together? Should I still do the dreamfeed? He was born 3 weeks early and was (and still is) a little guy, weighing 5lbs 6oz. He now weighs 15lbs.
I am desperate for sleep and I know waking up several times a night isn’t good for him either.
Thank you for any help you can give!
Sherry and Ethan
My daughter is 5 1/2 months and she can put herself to sleep on her own at night. However she is still waking at night at all different times. She woke up at 9:30 last night (we put her to bed usually between 6:30 and 7) We let her cry it out last night for the first time and she cried for 1 hour and 15 minutes then fell asleep. She woke up at 4:30 and jabbered for about 20 minutes then started to cry so I fed her 7 ounces then put her back to sleep awake and she fell back asleep for another 2 hours. Am I on the right track or should I be doing anything different. What are some suggestions. Bye the way I fed her because it was so close to morning and letting her cry didn’t seem appropriate at that time…
Our 4 yr old daughter just gave up the bottle a month ago. Since then, her sleeping habits have changed drastically. She will no longer take a nap. She says she is not tired and she does not take naps anymore. Her bedtime has also changed from 8:30 to 10 or later because we can’t seem to get her to sleep before then. She cries and says that she is not sleepy and not ready to go to bed. Even following the normal routine is hard. She does not want to get her pj’s on, or read stories, etc. I know she is very tired. She just doesn’t want to go to sleep for some reason. I’m sure this is because she does not have the bottle anymore although she does not mention it at all. She is just determined to fight sleep. What can we do to help her sleep and to get to bed at a normal hour? It’s very tiring for us and I’m worried she’s not getting enough rest. Please help!
I have a 13 1/2 month old who sleeps in his crib for about 3-4 hours (from 8-10:30) then he crys out to come into our bed. When we pick him up from his crib he stops crying immediately and he is half asleep when my husband brings him to bed with me. He has us trained! Another weird thing that he has been doing lately is waking up (in our bed) about 3am wide awake and ready to play. We can rock him back to sleep in about an hour. I know I’m doing things wrong by reading some of your articles such as 1) not putting him in the crib awake 2) letting him fall asleep with a bottle (which we are trying to ween from now) 3) bringing him to bed when he does cry out and 4) rocking him to sleep. I also got from one of your emails that you do not agree with letting them cry out. So I’m at a loss to how to handle this. I’ve got mixed reviews on “parent assist” soothing and “self-soothing” for which one is best. Are there any suggestions that you could give?
Thank you,
Jennifer
HELP!!!! I am stuck….
My daughter is 18 months old and wakes up around 4 times between midnight and 6 am. I am a single mom who has 4 kids living in a 3 bedroom townhome, which means my two youngest daughters room with me. My 3 year old has to sleep with me since there is not enough room for even a toddler bed. My problem at the moment is my 18 month old daughter. She sleeps in her crib just fine at the beginning of bedtime. She goes down awake and usually has no problems getting to sleep. Around midnight she usually wakes up and wants to be nursed and will do so about 4 times a night. When she wakes up she then needs to be sound asleep before I can attempt to put her back in her crib. Many times she will wake the instant I start lowering her into the crib and then screams nonstop. Since we sleep in the same room she can see me so she knows I can hear her. I am contemplating making a temporary bed in the hall way or sleeping in the living room until she gets used to sleeping without me in sight, but then I am afraid it will create a problem with my 3 year old. Help, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.
My daughter that is 2.5 yrs old has been co-sleeping with my husband and I since she was born. I can’t get her to sleep in her room at all even with me laying down with her. I use to be able to get her to sleep with me in her room, but now she won’t do it. Any suggestion how to get her back in her room and hopefully without me sleeping by her side?
Hello,
My son Carson is 10 months and has never slept through the night. In fact, he has never slept longer than 4 hours at one time. We have a consistent bedtime routine at 7p.m. with a bath, pyjamas, story, breastfeeding and into the crib no later than 8p.m. He has a soother and a musical bird attached to the crib that plays soft music. Over the last two weeks he has been falling asleep on his own in his crib but he still wakes several times in the night. Carson is usually able to go back to sleep when he wakes at 10 pm and 12 pm as long as we go into his room, give him his soother and sit beside the crib. However, anytime after 12pm he really wants to be nursed and that seems to be the only thing that calms him down. We have tired to let him cry but he ends up waking up his 3 year old brother, then we have two crying children. I am so tired by 3 a.m. that I make the mistake of nursing him in my bed and he sleeps the rest of the night with us. I am so tired I do not know what to do. PLEASE HELP!
Thanks, Glenda
i have a very similar situation with my 6.5 month old(only difference is he is the first born) any suggestions pls im not coping from exhaustion!
I have an issue with naps. My daughter takes naps really well at daycare, but I cannot seem to get her to nap for me during weekends or my days off. I try to keep everything as close to how she naps at daycare as I can, but she knows things are different and doesn’t cooperate. I’ve tried doing the same things I do to put her to bed at night, but that only works when she’s completly exashasted, otherwise she just plays or gets mad depending on the day. Everything can’t be 100% consistant because she is in a different place than she’s used to, but I’m running out of ideas how to make it work better.
TJ is 17 months old and every month is worst and worst, he wakes up 5 times every night , every hour sometimes, can’t take it anymore, just put humidifier in his room and a little bit better but desperate, he is going to sleep at 9 or 10 then he wakes up 9 or 10 , what can i do…..he was sick 3 weeks ago then we decide gave him lots of liquids, wasn’t eatting but then we went to mexico to the holidays now we are back and don’t know what to do, if my hubby goes into his room while he is crying he cried more so don’t know…..he still drinking bottles all night, please help me
My son is 11 weeks, and he ahs started to have a long stretch of sleep, usually from 7:00 to midnight. He then wakes up to eat, but doesn’t ever settle back into a deep sleep. He is constantly flailing his arms about, waking himself up. He won’t tolerate being swaddled anymore, so how do I get him into a deep enough sleep that his arms will calm down (he’s fine during his early sleep).
hayden is 20 months old. Once he is to bed, he sleeps well all night. But we have hit a stage where he resists going to bed, and at times, becomes so upset about it, he cries until he vomits. Any suggestions to help this situation?
i want to know a whole day schedule for my son includin meals time so dat i can make him sleep in time
Lilly 20 week old now and evey nigh she sleep on my hand. If I take my hand out after she sleep she will cry right away. I let her cry few time then she threw up and milk com out from her nose too. That very scare me. All nigh she sleep with me if i go rest room she know right away and she cries. I don’t know what to do now please help.