Night wakings and sleeping in own bed

[jmartinelli]

Hi all,
I am new to this group, my name is Joey and I have a 2 year old daughter, Maya. Ever since birth we have been bringing Maya to bed with us in the middle of the night when she wakes. The time has come to put a stop to this, as my husband is ending up on the couch every night as our bed is too small. I am having a hard time with this as I try to keep her in her own bed for a few nights, but then get so exahusted as I need to get up to go to work the next day and am so tired. She was freaking out at bedtime with lots of tears, so I have used the approach to slowly move myself out when she is falling asleep. That has been working, as she used to need me to fall asleep in bed with her, and now I am almost out the door. She can still see me, but usually goes right to sleep. By the way, she is in a big bed now. THe problem is she is waking up at night and I want her to sleep in her own bed. She is in transition at her daycare and is moving to the 2 year old room, out of the babies room, so I am sure the transition is not helping. I would like to do this in the most gentle way possible, but not sure how. I would love some experice/advice on how any of you have handled this. It is creating a stress between my husband and I . Thanks so much.

[Florencia]

I can understand your concern since Maya's going through a lot of changes and she probably is stressed out because of them.

What i'm about to suggest is what you've been doing for bedtime, it's called gentle removal plan and it has worked great for me and other moms around here whose little ones just won't let them "away". One of Tracy's principals was "always go to them instead of them going to you", so by all means, do not let her in your bed, it might be exhausting the first weeks but it will pay off in the end.

Gentle removal is putting a mattress (or sleeping bag) on the floor next to her crib at bedtime and you sleep the whole night in her room. WHenever she wakes, she sees you there, you reassure her and help her go back to sleep (it's ok, it's night time, mommy's tired and needs her rest). As night wakings improve, you start moving your mattress near the door (away from her crib) in 3 day intervals (just as you've been doing for bedtime) till eventually you're out of the room and back to your bed. By then ,the habit of going to your bed will (hopefully) be broken. After gentle removal, you will be in your bed and if she happens to have a setback, you just redirect her to her bed saying it's night time the first time it happens. For the following events, you just lead her to her bed, no words, no eye contact, maybe just some pat/shs to reassure her that you love her but you're in control too.

Since it's been a 2 year tradition, it will be a hard one to break. But it's totally doable if you're commited to it and prepare your body and mind for a few sleepless and VERY LOUD (she will protest) nights. It's all for her sake and for the family's sake, you're not torturing her or leaving her alone, you will be right be her side. But sometimes it's a hard lesson so it will be some tears.

HTH and good luck!

[jmartinelli]

Thank you so much, that is very helpful. I will try that and just need to prepare myself for some sleepless nights!

[imsmum]

Since you are almost out the door at the start of the nightyou may not want to go back and re-do with the mattress method what you have already done.  So when she wakes at night do go to her but do the same thing that you do at bedtime until you can get right out the door for both.

[jmartinelli]

Just wanted to inform you how the night went last night. I put Maya to bed, with me in the hallway at 8:00pm. She fell asleep aroung 8:15pm and I left the hallway. She slept until 9:00pm and woke up crying for me. I blew up an airmattress and put in in her room next to the door. I simply told her it was time for her to go to bed and Mommy needed to sleep, I was tired. She threw a fit, crying and pounding her fists on her bed. I kept lying her back down, and she crying and sat back up. THis went on for about 20 minutes, then she layed down and went to sleep. She then slept all night until 5:30am! That is a miracle. At 5:30am the sun came streaming in (we unfortunately do not have shades in her room  ) and she woke up crying and asking for milk. At that point I gave her some milk and layed down next to her for a few minutes and she slept until 7:15am. I heard it was ok to lay next to them if the sun is up and it is morning, so I hope I am not confusing her. Let me know what you think about that..The night went better than expected so thanks for the advice. I am praying it goes ok tonight.

[Florencia]

Yep, it was definetly a great improvement! I would try to black out her room, if you don't have curtains, you can do it with aluminium sheets or with dark quilts (ds's room was blacked out with dark quilts for over a year... lazy mommy couldn't have the curtains made LOL)... it is important that now that you're on board for sleep training, don't let anything in the outside to compromise it, like noise or light...

Other than that, let's cross our fingers for the improvements to keep on coming... congrats on your hard work!!!!!!!!!!!