Where do I start?

[Mummy to Grace]

Hello,

I have a complicated case & I'm just not sure where to begin with it all.  Let me list my problems & go from there? ;

My daughter Grace is 17mths, nearly 18mths. She no longer (for the past 10 or so months I’m ashamed to admit) settles her self to sleep & almost totally relies on me to put her to sleep. The only exception to this is if it is her nap/sleep time & we are in the car or she is in her pushchair, she’ll nod off then , but only if it is a normal time for her to be asleep. 

I should point out also that due to us renting a particularly rubbishy house with only 2 bedrooms, one of which has to be used totally as a stock room/office for our web business she is still sleeping in our bedroom.  There is no way around this until we buy our house, which due to the current UK market, will not be for a year or so yet.  So I completely accept that this will have a big effect on her ability to sleep & self settle but I am sure things can be an awful lot better than they currently are.

Currently, she also spends at least a portion of the night in our bed. This is because when she was about 7mths she caught a particularly bad virus & the only way I could get her to sleep was to lay her on my chest.  I never wanted to take her into our bed but after 4 almost totally sleep deprived nights I relented. I know its my fault that she’s still there & I really don’t have any genuine excuse. I think its very much that I have been dreading the training so much that I’ve sort of put it off .  I did do something to correct this habit a few weeks ago. Every time she woke up I settled her back to sleep in the normal way & put her back into her own cot. She woke three times in the night & went down  into her cot again after about 20-30mins each time. (At this point I was still practicing PU/PD & so was getting her to sleep by just standing next to her cot, resting my hand on her back). This went really well, until the third night when she really started to fuss & totally refuse to go back to her cot. I still persevered but only managed to get about 4 hours sleep that night & the next day she developed a very bad flu like illness & was very, very sick for the next two weeks. (Totally refusing all food, even milk, again refusing to sleep except on my chest, refusing to be apart from me) I have since found out that she has 4 molar teeth coming through now too, but she seems to be pretty much over the  illness.   But after two weeks of being totally put to sleep she has even more problems now.

I currently have to rock her to sleep & sometimes sing too. She has also developed the rather odd habit of shoving her hand down my top & wanting to touch or hold my breast while falling asleep.


So, after all that babbling! Here is the summary;

She won’t go to sleep on her own, needs to be ‘put to sleep’ by me
She still spends some of the night in our bed.
She will fight & fight sleep no matter how tired she is, unless being cuddled & rocked by me.

What I would like to achieve is for her to be able to self settle again & spend the whole night in her own bed. 

I am just a bit stuck really as to where to begin. Should I just start again from scratch with the PU/PD?  How effective is that likely to be if she is wanting/ expecting to be in our bed?  Should I work again on getting her used to not coming into our bed and THEN do PU/.PD?   Also when she wakes, I am picking her up, so I suppose that she now expects/needs that to go back to sleep. Should I work on breaking that habit first?

I am really confused  although I have to say, just writing everything down here does make it a bit clearer already.

I would be so very appreciative of any advice, support anyone can give me on this. Thank you very much,


Karen

[deb]

Good morning and welcome! Sounds like you've got quite a tricky situation, but not to worry, we'll help you sort it out bit by bit.

I'm still waking here in the States and can't stay too long, but  do have a few thoughts:

She's definitely old enough now to help pick out a lovey if she doesn't have one. Something that the two of you can go out and choose together (and buy one or two spares, because you WILL need them!) that he can use to help soothe herself. Maybe a soft blanket, a particular soft doll or toy, whatever. At the very least, you might get your chest back at bedtime.

You mentioned molars. Has she gottend her eyeteeth/canines yet? I ask because this was a particularly hellish sleeptime for Josie. They came in over a period of three months for her, and she learned to ask for Orajel by name through her 2AM sobs when the ibuprofen wore off (we'd give it to her before bedtime).

With Josie we adamantly refused to do the family bed thing, but Natalie made herself at home many nights around 2AM and is only the last 2-3 months (at 3-1/2) is staying in her room 9 nights out of 10. I just decided I needed the sleep more, and until she started sleeping crosswise and kicking DH and me in the face, we didn't mind it, but the kicking was when we encouraged her to sleep in her own room all night. She got a special stuffed toy to help her, and I even sprayed JUUUUST a teeny bit of my perfume on the big stuffed tiger's tummy so it'd smell a bit like me.

I'll turn you over to the other moms/mums here who'll have lots more fabulous advice. Now that mine are so much bigger, a lot of it is hazy memories for me now. It'll be OK! 

[Mummy to Grace]

Thanks Deb,

It feels so good to have just gotten it all off my chest to be honest. Thanks for your kind words of support.  I have just looked in Grace's mouth & I think you might have stumbled onto something, I don't think its molars, I think its her canines actually. The first time I could only look/feel for about 2 seconds but she was a lot calmer now & I could get a proper look.
I never, ever wanted to get her into our bed but after 4 nights of no sleep I just gave in, of course, it was only going to be for that one night though....

We had a really bad night again last night, after her regular bed time of 7pm (starting her routine at 6pm) she was up at 8.30 again & refused to go to sleep again, so she spent almost the entire night ( from 10.45pm) in our bed. I really do have to do soemthing about this now.

I think I am going to do PU/PD from scratch, picking her up at first when she wakes, then as soon as I get her back to the stage where I can lay her in her cot & just rest my hand on her back til shes asleep, I'll bring in the correction of picking her up when she wakes.

ok, that sounds daft & completely not what PUPD is about, what I mean is that currently, when she wakes the first thing I do is pick her up, quick cuddle & then back into PU/PD. so, just a quick reassuring cuddle.

About the lovey, I've tried  to get her to get an attachment ot a particular teddy but she just doesn't seem to be 'into' it. I've tried several toys for her, each one for a few days without getting any results.  Is it just a matter of persevering?  Maybe I should try & keep the teddy with me to develop my smell?
one other thing I've noticed from reading other posts on here is that she is not great at occuping herself, something I never realised before. I think I'll have to work on that one alot.
Thanks for your post Deb

[deb]

I did try PU/PD when mine were smaller but it got me nowhere, partly because I have a shoulder problem and it was downright painful. I'm not if it would apply to a toddler the same way, though; you might want to post something specifically on the PU/PD forum and see what responses you get there, because I was rubbish at it and have no useful advice about it whatsoever.

Have you tried letting her choose something to keep her company in bed? Josie called her stuffed animals her "bedtime buddies," and we actually had to limit the number of them she could take with her to bed since she wouldn't have had room with all 20 or so of them. She is also, at almost-7, still attached to a small pillow I made for her when she was about a year old, maybe a foot square, not too plushy. She would lay on it on her tummy and curl up and go to sleep that way. (I've since had to make it a pillowcase of some of the same fabric so the stuffing doesn't ooze out all over her bed; 5-6 years of cuddles can wear on a pillow. LOL) Oh, and the therapy pillows with the microbeads: both girls LOVE to squish theirs, and that's another one of Josie's current sleep "needs" every night. They make some stuffed animals with them now, stitched up nice and snug and they're SOOOOO cuddly! Nat used to be fond of a stuffed gorilla my aunt and uncle got her; now she prefers her fleece blanket, and as long as she's snuggled under that, she's good to go. Anyway, there are lots of cool choices out there, lovely fabrics and fillings, and there might be something that might appeal to her if she were the one in charge of choosing it.

It's also possible at this age that she might be interested in making a bad for herself in a special place in your room, or maybe a bed for her and her own stuffed animals/dolls? Even if she didn't stay there all night, it'd be a start; it was probably a good year till Nat could be induced to stay in her room, partly because she was a big girl and partly because her animals might be lonely all alone there. Like I said before, though, Nat sleeping with us just turned out to be a non-issue (she's REALLY cuddly and cute that way) until we started getting kicked in the head; otherwise, we probably would've just left it longer. (I think I'm turning into a softy!

Anyway, you might want to check out the PU/PD board; I think there's also a PU/PD FAQ section as well. Lots of good advice all around!

Cheers,
Deb

[Mummy to Grace]

aww, deb, Thanks for your lovely post & suggestions.  I have never tried getting her to pick her own cuddle toy to take to bed & to be honest, she doesn't really have a particular attachment to anything, shes a rough & tumble girl, not a cuddley little cutey (mores the pity!) but after reading your post, I did notice that she has been fond of cuddling a teddy my mum knitted for her in the last two or three days. Its cashmere so its really soft & squishy & I suppose to her, very comforting.

but!!! I have just had some very encouraging success!  I was determined to get her back to how she was, ie, going to sleep in her cot on her own with me just there & touching her lightly. So, for her lunchtime nap, I did her normal, cuddle & sing a song before putting her down, but I also gave her the teddy I just mentioned & tried to put her into her cot. Of course she was crying before I even got her butt on the mattress, so I picked her up & before I had got her into my arms, she stopped so I instantly put her back down. This went on for a few mins & she got a bit worked up so I gave her a bit of a cuddle, explained that she was a big girl, like her friend Millie, & that she was just going to lay down & go to sleep.  She protested again when I put her in her cot & then she started to laugh & it became more of a game, so I left the room for 1 minute so she would calm down as I felt it was my presence making her act up. She had calmed down when I went back in & we had another cuddle & this time I rocked her just a little, to get her back to being drowsy, as soon as her lids started to drop again, I lay her down, still holding her teddy & she moaned a little, rubbed her eyes & turned over & went straight to sleep!!!!!  The whole process, including her 10-15 min calm down as normal, and the 5 mins I stay to make sure shes asleep, took 45 mins!

I think thats a massive, very promising success.  Lets see what tonight brings.......

[deb]

Oh, yay!!!