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I still can't get my 23-month-old to fall asleep on her own!

Michelle - posted on 04/30/2010 ( 3 moms have responded )

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13

After all these months of trials and failures, my husband and I still cannot get our nearly 2-year-old daughter to sleep without a fight! I do not understand how people do it. She screams and cries and gets out of her crib any time we try to place her in there (she's obviously tired, just fighting it).



Most nights we let her fall asleep in our bed and then place her in her crib when she's asleep. It's a bad situation, I know, but it's all we can do because she'll be up until 1 in the morning or later, otherwise, and my DH has to be up at 6.



What's worse is that I am going to have my DS via C-Section on the 10th and she still wants to cuddle in our bed to sleep. She will not self-soothe. She has a little blanket and a doll to sleep with, but she just lays there and screams or climbs out. We do not have any sort of bedtime routine set up for her, however. I am not good at that sort of thing. I am lousy with time management and discipline for myself. It's probably rubbed off on her.



It is really bad when she wakes in the middle of the night, as well. We cannot simply go into her room and give her a kiss or anything like that. She wakes up and screams. I usually try to wait five minutes to see if she'll go back to sleep and then I'll check on her if she doesn't stop. Occasionally she will not and we have to decide whether we should bring her into our bed or just let her cry.



Ex.: Wednesday she woke at 4:15 am and would not go back to sleep. I was up from 4:15 until 12:00 that night. She only took a 2 hour nap from 9:15-11:15 am.



I don't know what to do except for put her in her bed and let her climb out and scream and bang on the door (which luckily she cannot open). We have to nip this in the bud before we move our son into her room once he's out of the bassinet. I would really appreciate advice. Often it is let them cry-it-out, but we've been trying that since she was 8 months old. I would really like advice other than that. Oh, and baths don't work either. They wake her up, and we don't have a working bathtub.



Thanks.

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3 Comments

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Sam - posted on 05/03/2010

5

18

it might not help but when my child is giving me a hard time going to bed i give her toys and let her sit in her bed and play with the light on untill she goes to sleep on her own

Leslie - posted on 05/03/2010

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51

My mom did daycare for 17 years and she was a genius with this one LOL It worked for us but every child is different. What we did once the kids knew how to get out of the crib we put them in a toddler bed with the railing on the side so they couldn't roll out. My mom had the fan going on low for the soothing sound and toddler nursery's playing some with words and some just instrumental. She made the toddler bed really fun and neat looking so my kids would want to be in it. Like little glowing lights on the wall and princess stickers around the bed but high enough they couldn't pick them off.We started off sleeping with the child in her bed, then leaving once she fell asleep so she would wake up in her own bed eventually she got use to it and got where she would go to bed in her bed and just listen to the music or the fan and put her self to sleep. if she did wake up in the middle of the night we would just go back and lay by her in her bed tell she fell asleep again. Well now she has a sister lol the biggest problem we have now is they like to play and won't just go to bed LOL They keep each other up..and we can't seem to come up with a solution for that one yet. Anyhow maybe this might help get her use to her own bed and use to the soothing noises where she can fall asleep on her own I hope this helps. Also I wanted to add we are on a strict budget financially and all the stuff we got other then the bed was at dollar stores or yard sales, or little thrifty stores. We also just got it over time. While we were sleeping in her bed with her we would every once in awhile see something that was cheap or look cute in her room that would make it more fun and relaxing. So you can do it on a low budget, it just takes a little longer but so worth it.

Kathy - posted on 05/03/2010

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14

i was just wondering how things have been going since you posted this?

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