i need sleep

Megan - posted on 07/07/2010

You're right, Melissa - I keep putting it off....actually since then he's been back in his crib!! I just had to make it absolutely clear that he was not sleeping in my bed!

Melissa - posted on 06/26/2010

Megan if he dont want to sleep in his crib why dont you change him to a big boy bed that may fix your problem.

Megan - posted on 06/26/2010

You are NOT alone. The past week has been an absolute nightmare with my 2 year old son deciding he doesn't want to sleep in his crib - he wants to sleep in bed with me. And he'll cry all night if that's what it takes (not that I let him cry that long - you know what I mean!) I'm in the process of trying to figure out what to do about this b/c I'm sick of walking around like a zombie all day!! Good luck & hang in there!:)

Melissa - posted on 06/26/2010

yall must not have anymore rooms in your home since all 3 will be in one room. good luck with that i bet its gonna be crouded & prolly already is lol

Melissa - posted on 06/26/2010

i was friends with a girl & what she did was put her 2 yr old in bed & waited til she went to sleep before putting her 4 yr old to bed. they share a room as well. what i did with my daughter is turned her closet light on & shut her door & i put a child proof door thing on the inside of the door so she couldn't open the door.

i put my daughter in her bed read her 2 books then kisses & hugs turn on the closet light & shut her door some nights she goes to bed great son nights she cries a lil longer but goes to bed. i just let her cry it out & it works with her she goes to bed.

also try cutting out that 5pm-6pm sleep she does that could be the problem of why she is hard at bedtime now.

Allie - posted on 06/26/2010

I agree with Christie, she may just be getting too much sleep. Try cutting out the 5-6pm nap and shortening the 12-3 to 1-3. Also there are these plastic door knob covers that you can buy for child safety, and I would suggest putting a cover on the knob inside her room so she can't get out, but you can easily get in.

Christie - posted on 06/24/2010

I think maybe she is actually getting too much sleep. If she was actually asleep for all those hours before you moved her from the crib she would have been getting 17 hours of sleep a day, which is more along the lines of a newborn's sleep needs than a 2-year-olds. We've battled a lot of sleep issues with my son and I've read many, many sleep books looking for the magic answers that would work for him. Most of the books say 2-year-olds need between 11-13 hours of sleep a day total. So if she is still napping for 3+ hours during the day then she only needs 8-10 hours at night which might by why she is waking up so early after going to bed at 7 and why it is taking so long for her to fall asleep some days. They say that often kids in cribs may just be awake for a while in the night or during the day but parent's don't realize it because they are playing quietly or just hanging out.

Once I started charting my son's actual sleep and realized that he only needs about 10 hours at night and 1.5 hours during the day we adjusted his bedtime accordingly so that he wasn't waking up quite so early. It was a definite bummer to realize/accept that I wasn't going to get a bunch of "off" time while he was sleeping like I thought I should, but a lot of his middle-of-the-night and bedtime sleep issues are gone now because he is going to sleep when he is actually tired and isn't getting too much sleep during the day so overall we're a happier family.

I'd say try to pay attention to how much actual sleep she is getting for a week or so and then figure out how you would like to break that out. Maybe shorten her day sleep a bit and bump back bedtime a bit and she won't wake up quite so early.

I really liked Dr. Ferber's book for this info. A lot of other books focus primarily on getting kids to sleep by themselves, but he talks about all sorts of sleep issues and gives the reasoning behind them. This is how we discovered that our son's issue wasn't about being able to fall asleep alone, but it was about our misconception about the amount of sleep he needed. We were putting him down when he wasn't tired and trying to have him sleep more than he needed, which resulted in long bedtime drama, middle of the night wake ups that could last up to an hour and early mornings. No fun for anyone!

The early wake ups could also be coming in part from the longer days and earlier sunrise. We use black out shades in my son's room and that helps a lot.

Good luck! Sleep issues are no fun at all, especially with another baby on the way.

Chrissy - posted on 06/22/2010

we moved her so our next baby could go in the cot, she has now been in the bed since march so i would rather not move her back in to a cot and i think she would get out of it now as she is a monkey now lol

Melinda - posted on 06/22/2010

What was your reason for moving her in to a bed? Was she jumping out of the crib? If not, would you consider putting her back in the crib. My son is 2 and we have a baby due in September, and I got advice from some moms to keep my son in his crib as long as I can. He is sleeping well in there and not getting out on his own (although he could if he wanted to) so my plan is to just get another crib for the baby.