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Getting a toddler to sleep all night


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My DD is 22 months old and has never, not one time, slept through the night. She wakes up about 45 minutes after I put her to bed. I pick her up and nurse her and she falls back to sleep. She'll sleep for 2 more hours at which time I'm in bed so I end up bringing her to bed with me; she will then nurse all night:glare:. I'm tired and I'm pregnant. I want my bed back. Help!!

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We used the No Cry Sleep Solution when my 10mo was up every 45min-hour. Over the past 8 months we've dealt with growth spurts, 6 teeth, and the sun giving the night a very short time, and his sleep has just gotten better.

 

There's a toddler version of the book out, too, but the basic gist is this: write it down, tweak the routine/response every two weeks or so, and keep going until you get where you want to be.

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My 23-mo dd has never really slept through the night. I got the No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers from my library and it was really helpful. I need to get it again and finish reading it. ;)

 

My dd is still not sleeping through the night, but I've managed to reduce her waking to one or two times a night. The one thing that I think has been most helpful was to stop letting her in my bed at night. She's not sleeping in a crib anymore, and when I hear her little pitter-pattering through the house, I get up, guide her back to bed, lay her down, cover her up, and pat her back for a few seconds. Then I move to the other side of the room and sit (or fall asleep on the floor) until I feel that she's settled down. I try to interact with her as little as possible, and I usually don't talk except to say a quiet, "Go back to bed" when I meet her in the hallway. At first I had to stay until she was completely asleep before I could leave. Now, I can usually manage to leave before she falls all the way asleep. I'm hoping to get her to the point that I can just lay her down and immediately go back to bed. Actually, I want her to stop waking up at all, but it's a long process.

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Sorry, I do know how you feel.

 

When my son was 15 months old I decided to night-wean him whether he liked it or not, because he was waking five to seven times a night and wanting to be nursed back to sleep every time and then he'd want to sleep with me still in his mouth and I felt like I never got any sleep.

 

The first few nights were a bit rough- I don't like the CIO method so I sat with him and shushed him and rocked him a bit but would not give in and feed him in the middle of the night, no matter what.

 

It did get better from there. He started waking three to five times a night, then two to three times a night, then finally one to two times a night (and each time, he would fall back asleep quickly, he'd just want someone to say "I'm here").

 

But he was just NEVER a good sleeper. Never napped (other than catnapping, except in the car or while nursing), never slept through the night (the first time he did it well past his first birthday, I got a cake that said "Ben slept through the night!" and invited a few relatives and friends over for a pizza party haha).

 

He's almost 6 years old now and most nights he still wakes up at least once. To lose the minimum amount of sleep (once I'm up, I have such a hard time falling asleep again!) I let him come in my room and lay down on my floor and go back to sleep on the floor when he gets up in the middle of the night. He's banned from my bed because he tosses and turns and rolls and kicks and I was tired of finding feet in my stomach or an arm in my face. :P But the rule is he has to at least initially go to sleep in his own room.

 

I can't imagine going through all that AND being pregnant though! Hope you're able to get more sleep soon, for a little while, anyway! And hope the next baby is a better sleeper for you! (My two girls both slept through the night all night before they were 8 weeks old. My son was quite a shock to my system). :D

 

P.S. I will also second the book mentioned above, The No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers.

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No Cry Sleep Solution

 

:iagree: We used it with great success. It wasn't a fast solution, but it was a thorough solution. Dd stopped waking in the night to throw a 2 hour fit, bedtime became easy, and her daytime behavior improved once she started sleeping properly. I'm about to recheck out the book so I can put baby ds on a better sleeping schedule. :D

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I am so going to look for that book! My son will be two next month and he has maybe slept one or two eight-hour stretches the entire past year. Most nights, he's up at least twice. I am SO tired! LOL

 

He also wants to nurse when he wakes...I'm trying the "don't offer, don't refuse" method for weaning and so far it's not cut down on his "bee" time at all (that's what he calls it, loudly sometimes! LOL) BEE! BEE! :lol:

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