OT: Small children and sleep

gtvlusso

Right, so, my first 2 (not my blood or creation, as previously mentioned): slept without worry, only the odd night of sleeplessness due to teething or sickness - but generally good sleepers.

My own litte creation:

1, Fights when put in cot - immediately goes to 10 on the scream scale
2, Turns into a banana and ends up bumping her head on the cot
3, Will sleep on either my wife or myself, but refuses to transfer to cot once asleep (wakes easily)
4, Is generally unsettled at night

We have tried:

1, Controlled crying - failed as she hits 10 immediately and does not stop
2, putting her down before alseep - hits 10 immediately

Trying:

1, New toddler bed and removal of cot (as cot may be too restrictive for her). At the moment she is trying one of the inflatable camping beds that we had for other 2. Some joy, but not a riotous success.

2, repainting and re-decorating room to make it a more toddler environment

Any other bloody bright ideas as we have not slept properly in 3 months......

Junior is 20 months old.

clarkey cat

when our little man is creating we lay him in his cot and pin him down while rocking him. He's a little fighter but generally works after 10 minutes or so. Dummy helps too.

MonkeyMonster

swaddling/wrapping em up. my niece was bad for moving about and hitting themselves awake but also a degree of your crying patterns. wrapping her up so she couldn't move her arms really solved that for her and after a few months of this - easily weaned off and normal sleep was fine.

asprilla

We persevered with your initial option 1.

It was horrible, but it's much better now.

On occasion we have been known to take her into one of the spare rooms (never into our bed; we don't want her coming in there once she can get out of bed herself). That worked when she was very small, but now she just wants to play if you take her to another room. If it's absolutely unbearable then one of us sleeps on the floor in her room saying 'shhhhhh' until we both fall asleep.

tailwindhome

Calpol and plenty of it,



Your problem is at 20 months she has a greater ability to fight off sleep and scream/cry/tantrum unitl you give up on the controlled crying.

The answer is to find the will power to keep at the controlled crying until she gives in.

When doing the controlled crying the partner who gives in first needs to stay out of the way.

tailwindhome

oh and consisitency is key. Our twins know as soon as CBeebies ends a 7pm the bedtime routine starts and the rountine is the same EVERY night.

Our friends think is all a bit military but with 4 kids we can't have it any other way.

veronese68

With our first we struggled for a bit. We eventually did the thing where you leave them to cry for a period of time, 2 minutes I think. Then go in and calm them down, then double the time to 4 minutes. Go in and calm them down. Double the time, calm, double, calm, etc,etc, etc. Until they have stopped. They will eventually. It's utterly horrible whilst you do it. But you have to stick to it. If you cav in and start to go in earlier you do actually make things worse. You will feel like an utter utter barsteward whilst you are going through this.
Stick with it and it'll work. I think it took the best part of a week.
With number 2 we were a lot stricter right from the off and never had any problems.
Mind you this was all a long time ago now. Now he doesn't want to go to bed because he wants to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Oh, soundproof the kids room.

el_presidente

run him round the park for an hour or two in the afternoon and hopefully he's so tired he just passes out.

rjsterry

gtvlusso wrote:

Right, so, my first 2 (not my blood or creation, as previously mentioned): slept without worry, only the odd night of sleeplessness due to teething or sickness - but generally good sleepers.

My own litte creation:

1, Fights when put in cot - immediately goes to 10 on the scream scale
2, Turns into a banana and ends up bumping her head on the cot
3, Will sleep on either my wife or myself, but refuses to transfer to cot once asleep (wakes easily)
4, Is generally unsettled at night

We have tried:

1, Controlled crying - failed as she hits 10 immediately and does not stop
2, putting her down before alseep - hits 10 immediately

Trying:

1, New toddler bed and removal of cot (as cot may be too restrictive for her). At the moment she is trying one of the inflatable camping beds that we had for other 2. Some joy, but not a riotous success.

2, repainting and re-decorating room to make it a more toddler environment

Any other bloody bright ideas as we have not slept properly in 3 months......

Junior is 20 months old.

Got the f***ing t-shirt, mate. MiniRJS no. 1 didn't sleep through for the first 19 months. She's much better now and generally once asleep will stay that way until the morning, although even now (2yrs 3mths) insists on falling asleep curled up on Mrs RJS's lap (will only accept me as a substitute in exceptional circumstances). She can be fairly easily transferred to her cot once asleep, but if she wakes in the night, she will not go back to sleep unless brought in with us. We are very much hoping that miniRJS no. 2 does not follow suit, but it's too early to tell at the moment. None of the 'methods' made any difference, it was just a case of endurance on our part and slow improvement on hers. Hang in there and grab any extra sleep you can. I hope you don't have another 16 months to go.

EDIT: +1 on consistency, and know when you've had enough and need to step out and let Mrs GTV have a go.

Lastly, this seems to help
http://www.princelionheart.com/site/n_bc_0035.html

veronese68

TailWindHome wrote:

oh and consisitency is key. Our twins know as soon as CBeebies ends a 7pm the bedtime routine starts and the rountine is the same EVERY night.

Our friends think is all a bit military but with 4 kids we can't have it any other way.

Agree a few hundred percent.

UndercoverElephant

Veronese68 wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

oh and consisitency is key. Our twins know as soon as CBeebies ends a 7pm the bedtime routine starts and the rountine is the same EVERY night.

Our friends think is all a bit military but with 4 kids we can't have it any other way.

Agree a few hundred percent.

This is the only real way, it *is* hard, but really does no lasting damage.

As they get older, you will be more and more surprised how other people try to get around this. Our kids have friends who had to be 'soothed' to sleep by Mum until they were 9, and others who couldn't come for a sleep-over at the age of 8 because they always slept in their Mum and Dad's bed. The latter was an only child, obviously.

flimflam_machine

gtvlusso wrote:

My own litte creation:

1, Fights when put in cot - immediately goes to 10 on the scream scale

We have tried:

1, Controlled crying - failed as she hits 10 immediately and does not stop
2, putting her down before alseep - hits 10 immediately

Junior is 20 months old.

These bits apply (more or less) to little flimflam_gadget. For ages we had to lie down next to his cot to get him to sleep. We have achieved some measure of success, through a process of trial and error, by doing the following:

1 - Obviously, not too much sleep in the daytime and not too late in the day.
2 - Get some sort of routine to bedtime (bath, In the Night Garden, milk, tooth brushing, stories in his room with the lights dimmed, saying goodnight to his toys, cuddle, bed).
3 - For several weeks we then put him in his bed and we went to the next room (our bedroom) to read a book, leaving the doors ajar and a nightlight on. If he started to cry out we could say that we were still there and he calmed down again, eventually he would stop crying out and drop off.
4 - After a while we put on some story CDs on a stereo in his room and he now goes to sleep with these on without us having to comfort him any further. So we can now go downstairs and get on with cooking etc. It's so nice to have our evenings back!

Obviously, our situation doesn't sound as bad as your situaton in that he never fought being just put into his cot but I think once he knew that we weren't just disappearing the moment the lights went out he was much happier. Whatever you do, it may take a while and you may have to transition gradually to leaving her alone completely, but it will happen eventually.

Good luck!

Pufftmw

110% agree with Asprilla

The little mite will cry its eyes out and pluck those heartstrings but it will eventually go to sleep. It WILL try it on the next night and possibly even the next couple of nights after but persist with it and it will work out that it has to sleep in the bed and all will be peace, harmony & serenity - I speak from bitter, bitter experience.

My wife (now separated for 3 years) used to give in after about 5 minutes and in the end just took her to bed with her. Result was that I slept separately and the end result was I was never able to claim on the sibling discount @ nursery.

I actually "broke" my daughter 3 times when she was a baby, by the simple expedient of being strong when my wife was away, only to have wife undo the good work at the first wimper. Its only in the last couple of years that my daughter does not sleep in the same bed as my wife, though still does sometimes - she is 12 now.

My wife used to complain of sleepless nights and being "too tired to function" because she was kept awake by my daughter, but then she wouldn't listen to my or indeed other people's good advice to have daughter sleep in her own bed.

Daughter now is much better (at sleeping in her own bed) but it also led to other problems, mainly discipline because child used to getting its own way.

It is undoubtedly one of the reasons why we split up, at least from my pov. I tried everything short of violence (I'm not violent & don't approve of violence against others), including months of relate sessions etc but at the end of the day, she wouldn't listen and insisted on doing things her way.

Possibly an extreme example but I ever so strongly recommend you being firm with your child until they get used to the idea that they have to sleep in their bed on their own. It is so important to have "grown-up" time as a couple, away from your children and I don't mean just for hanky panky but for sleep and de-stressing too.

Good luck, its tough but worthwhile persevering for all the right reasons.



(I'm not bitter, I'm in a far better place now)

Keith1983

TailWindHome wrote:

Calpol and plenty of it,



Your problem is at 20 months she has a greater ability to fight off sleep and scream/cry/tantrum unitl you give up on the controlled crying.

The answer is to find the will power to keep at the controlled crying until she gives in.

When doing the controlled crying the partner who gives in first needs to stay out of the way.

Apart form the Calpol bit I agree completely. Our littlun was a monster around 18 months, but we encouraged it by going to her for every whimper. If they are fed, got a clean bum and not too hot/cold then leave them be. Don't go filling them full of Calpol as if they are not in pain it will not help at all. You wouldn't take paracetamol if you were struggling to sleep so why give it to the kids? Also as "TailWindHome" says get in a routine and stick to it religiously.

MonkeyMonster

UndercoverElephant wrote:

because they always slept in their Mum and Dad's bed. The latter was an only child, obviously.

this bevahiour sometimes never leaves them - gf can't sleep very well at all on her own, needs me or at very least two pillows to hug/be near to otherwise craps night sleep...

Gran E. Gear

Snap.

Our breakthrough was not controlled crying (our 18 month can cry for hours, no problems) but was actually a bowl of ready brek just before bed. We have a long wind-down time - dinner, ready brek, story, bath, draw curtains routine, calm music on CD routine, story, cot (while still awake), say goodnight, leave, return as and when necessary - but say nothing other than, "Nite nite" or whatever, and leave again.

The routine works better or worse depending on noise outside or teething, mostly stuff outside of our control.

But we went 15 months with very little or no sleep, so our convoluted sleep routine is the result of keeping only what works and keeps our family together!

gtvlusso

Some great ideas so far and some great experience;

Just to clarify:

Junior will try and not sleep during the day - she is known as 'Dura-Cell' at nursery and regularly goes around waking other kids up.

We have a solid bedtime routine:

Play
Dinner
Cbeebies (in the night garden)
bath + teeth
ready for bed
story
then bed

When she has gone ballistic, we have brought her downstairs, but don't play with her and only have the radio on. She then gets bored and asks to go back upstairs - we eventually get sleep!

The 3am wake up is the killer, because if she won't go back in her bed after an hour - you are f*cked. Can lie with her, but she often just snoozes rather than sleeps - only sure way to get her to sleep is if I sleep on the floor and she sleeps in our bed with my wife.....

The controlled crying just winds up with junior whacking her head on the cot.....We have a livewire here!

SimonAH

Gina Ford was our salvation.

I actually slept on the garage floor a couple of times just to get some kip until I pointed out to the Mrs that we'd bought the bloody book long before the blighter was born so we might as well give it a go....

Within three or four days the routine was locked in and, except when woken up for a scheduled feed, the heir slept through, every night. And has continued to do so ever since (OK, now seven and a half, but....)

Also a MUCH happier baby. As she was getting the right amount of sleep and the right amount of food she was way less fractious when she was supposed to be awake.

But BEST of all, you are able to plan! You know that between X O'clock and Y thirty the child will be asleep.

I know Gina Ford has been contentious for the regimented approach, but I can not recommend her enough.

will3

gtvlusso wrote:

1, Fights when put in cot - immediately goes to 10 on the scream scale

Mine goes to eleven.
Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most kids, you know, will be screaming at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your scream. Where can you go from there? Where?

gtvlusso

will3 wrote:

gtvlusso wrote:

1, Fights when put in cot - immediately goes to 10 on the scream scale

Mine goes to eleven.
Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most kids, you know, will be screaming at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your scream. Where can you go from there? Where?

I've been spinal tap rinsed......

:-)

Gallywomack

Well my little 'un is only young enough to still be measured in weeks, so there's not really any kind of established pattern at the moment - although she is starting to sleep for longer spells, which is nice.

The wife is very keen on getting a bedtime routine established - but while I of course see the benefit in it, I wonder if it doesn't become a kind of millstone round your neck. What happens when the routine is disrupted, as it is bound to be from time to time by the realities of life intruding? If a kid is too used to things a certain way, does it not lead to trouble if there is any disruption? Or does the benefit of the routine outweigh any issues arising from this?

bails87

?
I am not a parent so don't know if this sort of thing is encouraged.....

Could you cut back on the number of double espressos the kids are having?

Gran E. Gear

gtvlusso wrote:

Just to clarify:

Junior will try and not sleep during the day - she is known as 'Dura-Cell' at nursery and regularly goes around waking other kids up.

Someone once tried to calm me down by saying, "Well, maybe the little one is just having too much fun to want to go asleep."

How long have you been trying the camping bed?

gtvlusso

bails87 wrote:

?
I am not a parent so don't know if this sort of thing is encouraged.....

Could you cut back on the number of double espressos the kids are having?

Just for ref - I am a coffee fiend and was in my yoof....so, if you plan to have kids in the future, cut back now to avoid this!

rjsterry

gtvlusso wrote:

Some great ideas so far and some great experience;

Just to clarify:

Junior will try and not sleep during the day - she is known as 'Dura-Cell' at nursery and regularly goes around waking other kids up.

We have a solid bedtime routine:

Play
Dinner
Cbeebies (in the night garden)
bath + teeth
ready for bed
story
then bed

When she has gone ballistic, we have brought her downstairs, but don't play with her and only have the radio on. She then gets bored and asks to go back upstairs - we eventually get sleep!

The 3am wake up is the killer, because if she won't go back in her bed after an hour - you are f*cked. Can lie with her, but she often just snoozes rather than sleeps - only sure way to get her to sleep is if I sleep on the floor and she sleeps in our bed with my wife.....

The controlled crying just winds up with junior whacking her head on the cot.....We have a livewire here!

Sounds all too familiar. That point whne you think, "well, I may as well get ready for work now." Ours has collided with cot bars on a number of occasions, and has even almost climbed out once. She is strong as well, so just hanging on is quite a struggle if she decides to go for it. I blame grandmaRJS, who is still a bad sleeper.

rhext

What's worked for us:

1) make sure they're tired when you want to put them down. It's no good trying to get a fractious toddler to sleep at 7PM if they've had a three-hour nap in the afternoon.

2) routine helps a lot, as long as the routine doesn't involve a long afternoon nap! Especially important is routine at bedtime: in our case: food, hot bath, milk, 3 stories (no more, no less) had them almost nodding off before they even got close to the cot.

3) Sing them to sleep once they're in the cot......I dusted off an old guitar and taught myself to play a bit. They're not very discriminating at that age (thankfully), and all you need to do is distract them from crying for 5 minutes and they're gone.

Never had much luck with the 'cruel to be kind' approach. If they woke up later in the night, we just made space and went back to sleep. For us, as they got older this naturally tailed off, and I don't think their development has suffered at all.

Calpol is a painkiller, not a sedative. If it works it'll either be placebo (in which case maybe replace with a spoonful of 'special' milk) or they're genuinely in discomfort of some kind. If the latter, bed-time tends to be when it manifests. Could you be suffering from teething pain?

tailwindhome

Keith1983 wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Calpol and plenty of it,



Your problem is at 20 months she has a greater ability to fight off sleep and scream/cry/tantrum unitl you give up on the controlled crying.

The answer is to find the will power to keep at the controlled crying until she gives in.

When doing the controlled crying the partner who gives in first needs to stay out of the way.

Apart form the Calpol bit I agree completely. ...... Don't go filling them full of Calpol as if they are not in pain it will not help at all. You wouldn't take paracetamol if you were struggling to sleep so why give it to the kids? .

The Calpol bit was a joke

Honestly

*ahem*

Gallywomack

bails87 wrote:

Could you cut back on the number of double espressos the kids are having?

We stick to lattes only after 5pm

el_presidente

Gallywomack wrote:

Or does the benefit of the routine outweigh any issues arising from this?

Very much so. You just perform as much of the routine as possible and they (mine, anyway) just drop off perfectly.

Gran E. Gear

Gallywomack wrote:

doesn't become a kind of millstone round your neck.

I know what you're saying, but our experience of our little one when she was your little one's age is that a routine can last a day before something comes along that turns it on its head.

However, by 18 months, a routine is a different thing entirely. There's an incy wincy bit of, ummm is 'reasoning' the word? with the wee bairn. It's mostly teething that upsets the routine now, and there's baby ibuprofen and calpol for that. The regularity of the routine is as much for the parents' sanity as for the child's sleep. With a routine, we each know what has to happen and when, and whether or not things look like they're going to plan or not. It's the not knowing that puts years on you.

For me, the most annoying bit is the way there's always someone who says you're just not doing it right.

Hide the knives, etc.

tailwindhome

I have 3 brothers, all 3 have become fathers in the last 12-18mths

There all getting this for Christmas