Does Your Toddler Refuse To Sleep In His/Her Own Bed?
Sleep issues. Some toddlers have them.
I recently read this advice column. A parent is struggling to get her daughter to sleep in her own bed, but that’s just the beginning of the story. Not only does she get up and go into her mom’s room, she orders her Dad out, then pulls her mom’s hair until she goes to sleep. Then she proceeds to wake up from 3:30 to 7:30, when she falls asleep like a baby. And then her mom has to wake her up so she can go to work.
This sounds like a nightmare.
And I thought I had sleeping problems.
Now, my kids are definitely not the easiest at bedtime and they don’t automatically just go to sleep in their own beds. At this point, Shnook still wants one of us to lie down with him until he falls asleep. My husband has no problems doing this because he just falls asleep with the Shnook. It’s a bit harder for me considering the sooner I get the kids to bed, the sooner I can start work. You know, writing. For your entertainment! So only very occasionally can I just fall asleep with the Shnook, which can create problems because some nights I need to get up and work before he falls asleep, otherwise I don’t get to go to bed until one a.m. (and wake up at six or seven, with at least one or two wake-ups in between). Unfortunately, some nights I end up staying in bed with him for an extra long time, because if I don’t, he’ll just cry and cry and cry. Oy, the manipulation.
But I still think this lady has it worse.
Has anyone had a toddler who does something like this? What did you do?
Photo Credit: Lilly darma
For me personally, I was very dilligent from the start about developing good sleep habits. I want to end the day on a positive note, not fighting with my child over going to sleep. My daughter was very easy going, so it wasn’t tough. My son was a whole different story (turns out he was consipated so sleeping on his back didn’t work well, thus making him overtired, but at that point bad habits had already developed . The book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child was extremely helpful. The author does recommend the “cry it out” method, however, he explains why and he does explain other methods with their pros & cons. I felt the book educated me on the importance of sleep, the sleep patterns of children through their different stages, and different options of getting to your desired end result. Within 5 days I had my son finally sleeping