night sleeps...fallen asleep on her own...first time ever! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi, my DD has never been a good sleeper. Since birth, she co-slept with us until she was 9.5months old. Then she went in her own toddler bed. She never went in a cot, hated it. The transition into the toddler bed was great but DD needed to be rocked to sleep or cuddled until about 3 weeks ago. I thought I would try something new. I changed her routine to bottle of milk in bed, story and a kiss from Mummy and words "ok, time to go to sleep, goodnight" and lights out. This goes for her day sleeps too except for the "goodnight" words!
I would sit there with her and stroke her hair. At first, she played up and wanted to play. So I would give her her little blanket and walk out. She would cry. When she sounded upset (not just whinging), I would go in and comfort, kiss and stroke hair again. I would only ever repeat the process about 3 times for the first couple of days. Then she started settling after two times.
The last week, she has been settling straight away with hair strokes.
But tonight, I thought I would actually say my goodnight words and walk out all together. Well....she whinged for 20 seconds, didn't cry, just whinged and then went to sleep, ON HER OWN!!! After 5 minutes, I heard nothing so went in and she is ASLEEP!
I am so excited!!! Just so proud of my comforting sleeping ways. I am having a wine to celebrate. Hope it lasts but if it doesn't, I really don't mind comforting to sleep.
Did she ever fall out of the toddler bed? When she woke and wanted to get out of bed could she get out of bed on her own without falling?
I am just trying to look at some options for my DS...he is 9 months old and is waking all night in the cot, he keeps banging into the sides of it and waking himself up!
No she never tries to get out of her toddler bed, unsure why actually, she will cry and I go in and she is sitting on her bed. Hmmm....she fell out once but I put her change mat down at the side bottom. Has rails top sides. So didn't hurt herself, it is really low to the ground, not too high. I did purchase a toddler bed from Babyco, the cot converted to a toddler bed but it was wayyyyy too high!
Thanks girls, feeling really good about it all. She loved her toddler bed from 9.5months and she was a co-sleeper right through, never imagined she would love it so much!
I've successfully got DS into his own room on a double mattress, following your example, now I'm gonna try and extricate myself from sleeping! I can't believe how well you have done all this. Well done! You should have a wine, you deserve it!
(All of a sudden I'm hopeful! 3 nights to start the word cue, you reckon? Cool!)
night sleeps...fallen asleep on her own...first time ever! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply With Quote
yay for you darl! Its great when you get rewarded for gentle techniques isn't it 
Bookmarks