So we have the big bed up, all decked out. She has been talking about it for days...and its made no difference at all. Ok OK its not going to happen overnight....but WHY NOT????
Sj, pluurleeease tell what it was that worked for you....I had some half-assed idea about using Brauers calm on her - is that what you used??
Lulu when you work out what to do please tell me!! I dread bed time cause I have to sit in DSs room for anything up to 90 minutes while he falls asleep then he wakes up crying aytime from midnight to at best 4am and comes in with us where he proceeds to kick the cr@p out of both of us. I never had this much trouble with the 2 girls and I am at my wits end as you sound liek you are too.
Im sure its not supposed to be this hard...but you know what makes it harder?
Her stupid fricken father just has her a fricken sandwich when she came into the kitchen a minute ago. What happened to the PLAN??? Just walk her back to bed, no talking, no matter how many times she gets up.
god, It takes a while for the men to get the routine thing happening also.
Don't expect it to happen in one night, I know it would be great if it would. But Isla has been a working progress over the last month or so. I gave each stage a week before movingon to the next. So it was aweek, (probably more for this bit) of lettingher fall asleep next to me in my bed then moving her to hers. Bringing her back to mine when she woke during the night. then it was a week of putting her in her bed & laying with her till she stoped screaming & carrying on about being in daddys bed (why is all of a sudden daddys bed??) she would get up, try to get out of the bed, hit me, scream & cry & eventually give in & come lie with me & fall asleep. I would still bring her back to my bed when she cried through the night.
Then it was a week of nice & calm, happy to lay with me in her bed till she was asleep, little fuss, but lots of chatting. comforting her in her bed if she woke ( up to 3 times a night!)
then a week of me sitting right next to the pillow on the floor beside her, still comforting her when she woke but in her bed.
Im now onto sitting by the bed but not right next to it & reducing the amount of water she has in her sippy cup. As I think she was waking everytime she wee'd. Her nappy is soaked by morning & its a bit much! So between the current thing she has about my hair & her hair & the more dink requests she is getting there. My aim is to be able to take her to bed & feed the baby if I need too & know she will stay in her bed & go to sleep with me in the room & leaving the room if I need to with out her getting up & following.
I have had a few times I have got up & said I will be right back stay there & surprisingly she stayed till I came back.
Baby steps is the key.
OH & if you can, turn the house off. No point getting up if everyone else has gone to bed.
I admit that she sleeps WAAAAY better for me than for XP, and that she'd sleep WAY less well for me if he was here doing bedtime more than once or twice a week. When i put her to bed i am out of her room by 8.40pm at latest. He is still in there reading stories at 9.40pm....
With the 2 beds i gave her a choice every night "Big bed or wee bed?" - if she went in the cot i sat on the floor next to her to read stories, if she went in the big bed she got to cuddle up with me. She preferred the cuddle up (i'm not mean - her cot was only big enough for her, it was a little IKEA one, there was nowhere else TO cudle up but the big bed!). When she was mainly asking for the big bed i put the cot away. When she asked to sleep in it i showed her it, dismantled, and said "oh, it's all taken apart, you can't sleep there now!" and she quite happily went to the big bed. Took about 4 months to fully transition, though i chucked a delay in because i was having friends come to stay and it was handy to have the cot and bed there for them (had kids with them).
Lu, I took DS to the homeopath and that was an overnight wonder thing... until we stuffed it up. Now DS is a lot better than he was, but not as good as before we messed him up (we had three months of sleeping through every night - now it's only once or twice a week and one AWFUL night a week). It's worth looking into talking to people in "alternative" places as it can work in some cases.
Lulu,
I was told different things work differently for everyone, so give anything a try.
The one that worked for my daughter is Weleda relaxing drops.
Another thing i thought of which may or may not be helpful, my cousin had a lot of probs getting her daughter to sleep and they worked out they couldn't bath her at night because that hyped her up, but then came along baby number 2 and he had to be bathed at night or he wouldn't settle.
Another thing, have you head of the Queen Elizabeth Centre?? it is a facility in dandenong (I think), they can possibly give you some help. I found out about it after I had started getting my girls sleep patterns under control.
The whole sleep thing just never seems to end. If you are consistent it does get better. It may not be wonderful and easy every night, but it does improve.
We have had so many ups and downs with Miss 3 and sleep. She is getting better though. We have found that we need to be tight with our routine, if we let things go too long it will fall apart. There was a tendency for us to lengthen the time between bath and bed when she would have her milk. Either we would be watching TV or DH would be online gaming. Often it takes both of us to prompt each other to keep on top of it. DH does the teeth brushing, getting her in bed and reading the first few books. Then I will go in after a bit of a wait. Sometimes she will be asleep, other times she will be yelling out for me. I read her a couple of books making sure I warn about how many are left. Then I will leave with some excuse of checking on Evie, or just being firm that it is time for sleep and I will check on her later. Often she will sit there and read till she goes to sleep, the odd time I will have to go in and read till she goes to sleep. She probably takes longer to get to sleep than some "experts" would like, but she gets there. Oh and she does wake some nights. She is still so hyped before bed, she has so much energy, it is amazing really that she does go to sleep.
To be honest I still hate bedtimes, as sometimes it will all go to hell and there will be lots of tears. that bubs is much better than her sister, she seems to be so far.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
The whole sleep thing just never seems to end. If you are consistent it does get better. It may not be wonderful and easy every night, but it does improve.
that bubs is much better than her sister, she seems to be so far.
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