My 17 month old twins resist bed time now, which I understand is fairly typical developmentally. The problem lies however with one of my girls who seems to need me to ideally have a hand on her back or for me to be in the room while she calms herself down enough to actually transition into sleep. The trouble is that it takes her almost an hour to actually drop off most nights, which leads me to believe that me being there is also hindering her ability to calm herself enough to drop off. If I leave she cries hysterically and I'm not willing to let her cry it out in any form however I do believe that it should be ok for her to be in bed awake for a bit before she is ready to fall asleep, but I can't seem to leave (or it becomes CIO). I feel trapped by her at bed time which is a shame because the rest of the day is wonderful.
At naps I just put them both down and walk out of the room and close the door and they both just go off to sleep without a peep.. It's soo strange that this doesn't seem to be happening at bed time.
I wondered if they were overtired at first so we tried super early bed time but it was the same. Actually it took her longer to drop off. Then I thought under tired so we tried later but it was the same.
My sense is that how she is able to calm herself into a sleepy state is being compromised by my being there but equally that my being there helps her to calm into a sleepy state! Please help us!
Other baby gets herself off to sleep just fine for nap and bed time.
Our easy looks like this
08.30 wake
Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Milk
12.30-15.00 (I wake them at 15.00, they'd sleep longer if they could)
Snack
Dinner
Bed time routine
Milk
21.30 bed, although I've tried bed time anywhere rangin from 20.00-21.30 and it's still the same thing...
