desperate now... when they cry BEFORE you put them down...

[gigglinggoblin]

... what do you do? he is 16months and has always slept in our bed because he wont sleep anywhere else. i am getting no sleep so we have tried pu/pd, we have tried controlled crying and its not working. as soon as he knows you are moving to put him down he starts shrieking, as soon as he knows you are not he stops. help please?

[em_here]

Hi and welcome, Im sorry you are having some problems.  At this age pu/pd would probably not work well and is a strain on your back. As he has been sleeping with you for a while, I would be tempted to try Gradual Withdrawal, let me find a link for you and see if it is of any use to you

Hugs x

[em_here]

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63896.0

Heres a link that describes how you can encourage independant sleep with toddlers.

Also if you could post your routine to look at 

[gigglinggoblin]

Thanks for the quick reply, I will have a good look through the info now

Routine is a bit pot luck, we tend to work round what the other kids are doing but generally wait until he is tired, dh sits with him on the sofa and he falls asleep then we try to put him in his cot, sometimes this works sometimes not. If his dad is doing something else i try to get him to sleep but then he wants to breastfeed and he tends to mess about for longer. If he is in a cot he just springs back up as soon as you put him down. We have been trying for 9 or 10 days now and no improvement at all. We are not leaving him alone in the room. If we cant get him in his cot asleep he will happily sleep on us but my back cant take any more!

He always previously just stayed with me whereever I was, he has never slept in a cot, occasionally in a pram. If i put him in his cot he immediately starts screaming and I cannot get him to lay down. I have tried and gave up after an hour, within minutes he was asleep on me. I sat with him for 30 minutes tonight, he will not lay down he just screams and screams and I felt enough was enough.

Dh thinks I should give up breastfeeding and I thought I would try but its been 2 days and I feel like I am abandoning him by trying to get him in a cot and stopping bf at the same time!

[gigglinggoblin]

Have just read your link and walk in / walk out looks like the only option, but how long do you go for? he manages to scream for 4 hours, I dont think I can do it for that long, I would rather he stayed in our bed!

[em_here]

Wow! four hours! That IS a lot of crying. Hmmmmm well with Wi/Wo, it is SUCH a change, I take it he doesnt breastfeed to sleep?

First of and this is just what I would do, I would try taking a blow up matress into his room and falling asleep with him in there, he would be in his cot, but u are right next to him. I would stay until he falls asleep, gently reassuring when he cries, you wont be leaving him you will be supporting him. Next night move away a tiny bit and so on and on until you are in the doorway, and then just out of the doorway. This is where I would try WI/WO, as he will have mastered (we hope) the art of falling asleep not on top of you, but on his own. Do remember this is going to require a great deal of commitment and there is gonna be a lot of crying AT FIRST. But in the end it will work I am pretty sure of it.

He will cry because he has always slept on you and will be like "hey what the hell is going on, I dont sleep like this".  Does that make sense?

But, if you do feel that you would rather have him sleep in with you, rather than have the crying then I would do what your heart said, if you want your bed back and truly do, its going to be a bit of hard work but you will get there.

Also what time does he have his nap normally? wake up time? Sleep time at night? just wondered if it is kind of the same each day? my dd is 17 months and we do

Wake 7am
Nap 12 -2
Sleep 7pm

[em_here]

Oh and have you got a supportive partner who can help out too so you get some rest?

[gigglinggoblin]

Yes, we have been taking it in turns but we are both exhausted

He is my fourth so this shouldnt be a surprise but I have never come across anyone so determined before! I knew it wouldnt be easy but I never imagined it would  be this hard.

He sleeps in our room as he will have to share with his brother and I dont want him waking him up in the night. The cot is already next to our bed. I have started dozing off while he is screaming we have had so little sleep, the volume is ear shattering so I must be tired!

His naps are all over the place aswell, it depends on if I need to take the pram out in the morning and how tired he is. Sometimes he drops off while I am doing the school or nursery run so it can be 10am, lunchtime or 3pm. I tend to wake him up asap if its late. I cant avoid taking out the pram as I have to do the run, if he doesnt want to nap it doesnt matter how long I walk around he just wont go. Night sleep is anything between 6 and 10. Again, if he isnt tired we havent found anything we can do to get him to sleep.

I really appreciate your help btw

[em_here]

Thats ok, I dont have a lot of experience with it personally, but its just what ive picked up from the boards   Could you possibly work on the routine itself first before the independant sleep thing? Like a nap at the same time each day, using whatever method soothes him to sleep?  Just maybe if he has the routine, he will not be over tired or anything and therefore a little more compliant? so maybe 12-2pm nap? how long does he normally nap when he does nap, a good 2-2 1/2 hrs would be the norm at this age x

[gigglinggoblin]

I guess routine is the thing, its just very hard when there are so many other kids to work round. I do think if he had a good nap things would improve. problem is i can walk him round in the pram for hours and he wont if he doesnt feel like it. then some days he will nap for 3 hours, others its 20 minutes. Have never managed to get him in cot awake, regardless of how tired he is.

This is entirely my own fault, I was so smug when i was pg thinking 4th baby would have to fit in around everyone - he has taught me a lesson!

[em_here]

awwww hugs to you, dont beat yourself up, I cant imagine how it is with four children and routine etc.....  Try and have a think and see if theres any way you can fit any sort of consitant routine for him into the things you do, if there's anything you can change in order for this to happen. You must be SO tired, I cant even imagine!!! if you can work out some way that he can get a good nap etc... then the sleep training could come after that. Anyone who could help out for a bit while you get things sorted?

[mylittlelovelies]

Hi,
sounds like its all a bit tough in your household! It sounds a bit like my dd who is sleeping with us at the moment too. If it was me I wouldn't choose to get rid of Bf and completely change where they sleep at the same time, since Bf is a special bonding thing too, it might be better to do the two separately. You could try working on reducing the night feeds (is he feeding at night?) first so that then when you do work on getting him into his cot there isn't that extra factor to worry about. Alternatively it might actually be better to get him into his cot first (if thats what you want) and keep the night Bfs so that he can at least have that comfort and extra settling etc before going back into his own bed.
Anyway, i'd probably do it that way rather than going cold turkey on both.

Jessie

[mylittlelovelies]

one other thought...
it sounds a bit like he might be overtired overall. I think if he's able to fall asleep sitting out on the couch than he has probably gone past tired and into exhausted. Not sure if that seems possible to you at all, but i know that for my dd if she does that it means she's incredibly low on sleep and i need to catch her up with some early bedtimes before I can expect her to sleep independently or fall asleep on her own etc.
hope things get better soon
Jessie