At 18m her routine was pretty much set. We did ST for going to sleep at 5.5m though.
So from 14m on (after I weaned) it's been bath (if needed), PJs, vitamin (started at 2), brush teeth, books, songs, bed.
We do still rock her/sing just before bed. It's pretty much the only time we get snuggles, so I'll take it. Sometimes she won't let DH sing to her though, lol.
He falls asleep on the couch and we transfer him to the toddler bed once asleep. My kid refuses to fall asleep on his own. We'll work on that when he gets his own room.
Still rocking over here at 20 months. It still works for DS and it's usually the only snuggle part of the day. DH and I switch who puts DS to bed because we both love the quiet time. My kid is probably ruined for life
Our routine: bath, PJs, books, bottle (yeah, yeah), and rock for a few. Sometimes he's completely asleep from the rocking (daycare is hard, yo), but sometimes he's awake. If he's awake, he's usually content with me throwing a blanket on him and walking out of the room. Very occasionally, I'll have to rub his back a little bit or he'll turn on his FP seahorse and fall asleep by the time the music turns off.
He's going to switch to a twin bed in a new room around September or October. At that point, we'll revamp the bedtime routine and I plan to go cold turkey with the bottle and rocking at that point. It's going to suck.
We put her in her diaper, read her a book, talk to her and cuddle with her a for a couple minutes (she's in a full size bed) and then she'll go to sleep. About half the time she falls asleep without issue (no nap those days so she is exhausted) and the other half she stalls, gets out of bed, asks for water, etc.
Sorry you're having a rough go of it, but definitely agree with tokenhoser.
Post by sporklemotion on Jun 22, 2015 11:57:04 GMT -5
I can't help but wanted to commiserate. My 19 month old started going through this last week-- bedtime moved from 7:30 (8:00 on a bad night) to 9:30. We tried CIO but she would get so hysterical she would vomit. Right now, we are going up a bit later (20-30 minutes) than we used to, so she's a bit more tired, but not overtired. We do bath/teeth, PJs/sleep sack, snuggle, and then stories in her crib. DH stays with her until she falls pretty much asleep. He often falls asleep on the glider while waiting. When I've done it, I snuck out and, if she stirred, I would let her know I was there. By the time I left, she stirred and said "night-night," but didn't really wake up.
The mess right now is that we will need to start limiting the number of books and also limit the time we're in there because a 90 minute process is not sustainable. She is getting better at lying down while he reads, anticipating that the last story will be it, etc. hopefully, we can start to enforce limits now that we have a new sequence that seems to work. We are hoping that she will also either become independent enough to playa by herself in the crib if we leave something there, or that DD2 will be in her room and they can keep each other company. Part of our issue is that DD2 is room sharing with us, so DD1 is all alone. But with wakeups every 2 hours, I think it would be harder on us all to put DD2 in the same room until she's sleeping longer stretches (DD2 is one month old).
With my son, 14m, we do bath, teeth, books then plop in the crib with his white noise. He usually protests for about 10-20 seconds and then snuggles in and goes to sleep.
My daughter is 2.5 and we lay in her bed with her, read two books kiss her goodnight and leave. She typically does a 20-30 second protest then snuggles in and goes to sleep.
I nursed my son until 13 months, so recently weaned but I always made sure he was going down awake. We had some major sleep issues with my DD around 1.5 because we did what you're doing and she would wake up afraid because we weren't there.
We had to do a major CIO boot camp (twice) with my son around 12 months because he was up literally 6-7 times each night for no reason. It helped immensely with initial lay down and overnight wake ups.
Post by gibbinator on Jun 22, 2015 12:20:08 GMT -5
I'd nurse him, then do books, then I'd leave and dh would put him in the crib and turn on his mobile and sit down next to the crib. He'd pay attention to the mobile for a few minutes (which would distract him from not wanting to be put in the crib) then just roll about until falling asleep. When I did bedtimes myself, I'd have to lay a hand on his chest through the crib slats or he'd get upset.
I feel like a heartless mom after reading most of these posts. DS has never been a cuddler, so I've never really rocked him to sleep. I started singing 2 songs to him at 16m after bath/diaper/PJs, turn on the sound machine, kiss and hug him goodnight and leave. By the time I get to bedtime most nights I'm done-so it's not a huge bonding time for us. It's usually the one calm time of night though because he will let me hold him while I sing and it reminds me that no matter how tough the day was, he can still be somewhat sweet/cuddly.
Post by browneyedgirl9 on Jun 22, 2015 12:38:14 GMT -5
DS is 17 months, so young toddler. Bedtime at our house is 7:30. We read book, sippy of milk, brush teeth, put on sleep sack, and put him in crib. He will take anywhere from 5min-1hr to fall asleep in crib talking to himself, rolling around, at times crying on/ off. If I go in and try to engage him/ rock him/ try and get him to sleep....it makes the process MUCH MUCH longer. So I just let him hang out, and fall asleep when he is ready. But we are consistent with the routine and bedtime of 7:30pm.
We do change, pjs, brush teeth, plop in crib, white noise, leave.
We had to Ferber to get him to this point.
Yeah, this. Sometimes I lay in my bed until she falls asleep if she seems to be legitimately upset and sad about having no one in the room with her (her crib is in our room), but I'm kind of a sucker because she's our last baby. She turned two in April.
DD1 was awesome. By the time she was in a toddler bed (~15 months) she would run and jump into bed on her own when we said it was bedtime. She would have had a bath already and we usually would read a few books in the living room but sometimes she would just be playing. We would call to her and say it was bedtime and she'd say "Ok" and go get in bed on her own. We'd go in a few minutes later, kiss and hug and turn on her glow light, and that would be it. She stayed in bed and slept all night.
DD2 was difficult at first. She didn't sleep through the night till the week she turned 1 but the very next week we moved in with my parents while our house was being built and that screwed up her sleep royally. She went back to waking 3-4 times a night and I would just give her a bottle of water. I couldn't let her CIO because we were in my parent's small house. Once we moved into our new house and she had her own bed (3 months later, so she was 15 months) she slept through the night and never had any more problems. About six months after that we moved her to a twin bed and had a similar routine to DD1 when she was that age and everything went very well.
After (sometimes) bath time and PJs, we turn most of the lights off, start reading books, close the blackout curtains, and then start the white noise machine. We started having problems a few months ago when he would stall by wanting to read a million books. Then we limited it to 4 and we say "okay this is your first/second/third/LAST book" really emphatically. We say "LAST book" before we start and end the last book. It took a couple of weeks but he started to get it. When we're done with the last book, we say "you can read all by yourself if you want" but at some point when he is just stalling, we say it's time for night night. We keep a lot of his stuffed animals in the crib, which he likes, and we make sure there are fuzzy things he can hold onto for self-soothing.
This weekend he didn't really want to read books at all so it was a challenge trying to find some marker that it was time to go to bed.
Ds2 is 15 months. Bath, pjs, in the crib with the FP seahorse. He cries for a little (maybe 5 minutes at most) and then sleeps well the rest of the night. We had to Ferber around 13 months because we were still co-sleeping basically. One week of Ferber was all it took. We were slow to do it but I wish we had done it sooner.
Ds1 was always a snuggler so we read books in his bed and snuggled him. Ds2 is not a snuggler unless he is feeling well, and likes his own space when he goes to sleep.
We are also very consistent in bed time too, which I think helps.
We had a lot of problems when DD turned 1. We did have to start a solid 'bedtime routine' and we find that unless she is REALLY tired (but not TOO tired), we have to have that routine. Last week FIL dropped by and I skipped the bath part of routine. All hell broke loose. But on Saturday we had family over, the nephews tired her out and she went down fine (mind you, it was past 8pm and she usually goes down at 7:30ish.
Our routine is play, dinner, bath, bottle, bed. I told DH I want to change the bottle part and move it but we are both hesitating to fuck with what is currently working. (edit: bottle is a sippy cup but it's essentially the same thing).
Say "go to bed"...literally that's all we do all while never leaving the couch.
Huge plus of having older siblings . DD4 goes up with them (she started doing this on her own starting soon after I weaned at 2) & they take turns reading her books. End of story.
Post by humpforfree on Jun 22, 2015 15:55:02 GMT -5
Read a story or two and say the same thing every night "can I have a kiss? Can you tell mommy night night? Okay, time to go night night in bed with doggy & Mickey!" Then I sit him in he bed and walk out without making eye contact again. He cries/screams/whines in some combination for 2-30 minutes deepening on how tired or whatever he is. Usually closer to 5 and then he lays down and rolls around a little until he falls asleep.
Post by AlpineSlide on Jun 22, 2015 16:18:31 GMT -5
I rock him to sleep. He's 19 months old.
Routine is: 2-3 books in living room prayers in living room undress bath sometimes advil lotion diaper jammies straw cup of milk rock for.ev.er (15-45 minutes, idk. usually 20-30 min.) then once he's out I stop rocking for ~10 min. but still hold him. then transfer to crib. he sleeps all night usually
I found that stopping rocking helped the transfer. if I rocked and then plopped him in crib he woke up and i had to start over. but stopping for a while helps him get used to not having the motion?
I figure when he goes to a big bed (full or toddler bed) that I'll lay with him until he's asleep.
Post by chickadee77 on Jun 22, 2015 17:11:10 GMT -5
I started a bedtime routine early (like, birth? Lol, thanks, MMM!). We do bath (not every night, though), change, jammies, cup of milk with songs, brush teeth, read book (sometimes), put in crib, walk away. Lately, she's been losing her shit while putting her in her jammies, so she drinks her milk while I change her.
She has always cried/yelled for a bit before going down (never really liked to sleep in our arms), and the only time that I go back in (this is only true as of around ten months; before that I would totally go in and soothe/feed/whatever) is if I can tell she's pooped or if she's scared (bad thunderstorm or strange environment), but honestly, she rarely goes down without a little yelling/crying. That's just how she is.
I think it's going to take some work and there will be crying.
We have just now gotten to the point with the girls (15 mos) where I nurse them and put them in their cribs awake. One of them often cries for a minute or two and then they go to sleep.
With J I lay with him in his bed while we listen to his lullaby song on the iPad and then I leave. I often play the song again after I leave the room. Until he moved into his regular bed I rocked him while we listened to the song and then put him down awake unless he randomly feel asleep.
Around 13 mos we had to break all 3 from cosleeping. This involved a sleep lady shuffle type thing for J and some extinction for the girls who became hysterical with checks of any sort. I also nursed or rocked the girls to sleep until about a week ago when they stopped falling asleep while nursing and became restless and agitated when we tried to rock them. All 3 of my kids reached the point on their own where they no longer wanted to be nursed/rocked to sleep and at that point we started just putting them down awake.
Eta: our entire routing involves the following: bath for all 3 lotion Pjs teeth Books with all 3 Nurse girls and put in cribs 2 more books with J lay with J and listen to lullaby, leave room
halfpint it sounds like you've made progress! How did it end up last night?
Our routine is teeth brushing, bath, playtime in low light in his room for 15-20 minutes, pjs, 2 books, song and crib (with approximately 5 billion stuffed dogs). He cries every.single.night, usually only for 5-15 minutes, though.
halfpint it sounds like you've made progress! How did it end up last night?
Our routine is teeth brushing, bath, playtime in low light in his room for 15-20 minutes, pjs, 2 books, song and crib (with approximately 5 billion stuffed dogs). He cries every.single.night, usually only for 5-15 minutes, though.
He was out super fast! He cried for just a minute, but H put on his favorite song and he snuggled right down.
He did say it's harder to tell when he's actually asleep this way - at one point he peeked in at him, and was met with a mischievous grin and giggle.
I think we'll keep this up for a while and see how it goes, hopefully eventually moving further away from the bed, and out the door while he's still awake.
Neither of us mind the time in the room with him - for now
Post by carolinagirl831 on Jun 23, 2015 10:30:43 GMT -5
He probably is going to go through a phase of crying when you leave. We've had to do it various times... mainly because neither of us are willing to sleep in her room all night .. lol. but seriously, if allowing him to cry to get used to it isn't ok with you, then you just have to be willing to rock him and stay.
With DD, we read a couple books, we watch one short you tube video on trains (2 mins) sing 3 songs and say good night. We've been doing this routine for about 6 months. Every once in a while she'll cry a little, but stops within 5 mins or so.
I kind of hate that she has watching a video in her routine, but DH accidentally got her started on that and it works so oh well.