Good Afternoon Moms! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! LL and I spent ours at my Mom's for lunch and had a great time! Okay so let's get serious. LL and I were out to lunch today with one of our play groups and the topic of sleep came up as it usually does with Moms of infants and toddlers. One parent was talking about how her son, who I believe was around 15 months, had just started taking one nap a day, another mom with a son who was now 2, chimed in that he had too around the same age. They started talking about it and I sat silent not wanting to say anything in fear of being the bragging Mom, because LL has been taking one nap a day since around 10 months, but he has also always been a very good sleeper. According to
BabyCenter.com toddlers usually switch to one nap a day between 13 months and 18 months. Click the link to find out how much your child should be sleeping.
Then the talk turned and another parent started talking about how they had just moved their 13 month year old out of their room and recently he had just started sleeping through the night. My heart sank for this woman, I can't imagine having LL in my room that long, not to mention he wasn't sleeping through the night, she must have not sleep well in over a year! This is a place where LL has always excelled and I credit my pediatrician's advice for that. We started sleep training with him around 4 months and he has been sleeping through the night ever since, he has also not been in our room, but I do realize that some people just don't have the choice. I've been there, we lived in a one bedroom apartment with LL until he was 2 months old, so he had to be in our room.
This is not just an isolated incident, being a member of several Chicago play groups, I have come across a large number of women who's children are not sleeping through the night until 1 year or later. All parents seeming to have similar bad habits, such as, letting the child sleep in their bed or in something other than the crib, the crib is in their room, they are getting up and feeding the child, they go in the room every time the child makes a noise, etc.. Though some claim to have tried everything and their child is still not sleeping, so bad habits may not always be the culprit, but you'd be surprised by what little things you can do to help your child sleep better.
Being that my son does sleep, I thought I'd share some advice in the subject. Now I am not a doctor and I only have one child so far, so I'm not backing my method by a license or years of experience but I do have a great pediatrician, I've done a lot of reading, talked to a lot of Moms and have one "wondersleeper" so far, so I hope some of these tips will help those of you who need to get some sleep!
Get your child on a schedule / routine
I have been adamant about starting LL on a schedule from day one and he has been on one since around 2 months. I started first by following his natural rhythm to his naps and then was able to establish times for bottles and eventually meals, walks, outings, etc., around that. Make sure to do things you do daily around the same time every day. This helps your child know what to expect and gets them into a rhythm , which makes life a little easier for them.
Set a bedtime and a bedtime routine
What time do you want your child to go to sleep? We do 8:00 at our house because that seems to be when LL starts getting tired and that's usually when Mom and Dad have run out of steam as well. We do a bath every other night, followed by pajamas, teeth brushing, then book reading in the rocking chair with the same blanket every night, then into bed, he gets 10 minutes of bedtime music and then he's on his own to soothe himself to sleep with his blankets. When he was an infant, he got a little rocking and a swaddle or tuck in, but since then can't sit still past the end of the last book. Establishing things you do every single night, in the same way, even with the same items with your child, will let them know that it's bed time. This also applies to nap time, I do the same thing with him during the day for his nap minus the bath and with only 5 minutes of music.
Start sleep training at 4 months.
My pediatrician recommended this age because the infant brain is developed enough for the child to be able to self soothe. What does sleep training entail? This is my husband and I's version: Once LL has gone through his bedtime routine, we lay him down, give goodnight hugs and kisses, turn on his music, which lasts 10 minutes, turn off the light and don't visit him again until the morning. It wasn't always that easy of course. When we first started, he would cry hysterically when we would lay him down and leave the room, so we would wait 5 minutes and then visit him, but not take him out of the crib and calm him down. We extended the time in between visits by 5 more minutes each time until eventually the crying turned into complaining and then sleep. This took us about 2 hours a night for 2 weeks. He eventually stopped crying and just complained when we would lay him down. We had to visit him less and less and then not at all. He still takes 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep but there's now minimal complaining and mostly just him talking to himself, making little noises and winding down to sleep. I totally understand that it's really hard to listen to your child cry and it breaks your heart, but you have to be strong and stick with it for their own good. Sleep training is a lot harder on you then it is on your child.
Don't let your child watch TV right before bed time
TV with it's flashing images and sounds are fun and exciting to your child and can also be overstimulating right before bed time. If you let your child watch right before they go to sleep those images are still going to be in their minds and it can make it more difficult for them to fall asleep. I do admit we have the TV on a lot at our house, but I have been lucky that LL doesn't pay much attention to it unless we set him right in front of it. Otherwise he just plays and ignores it. Your bed time routine will also help put some time between the television being on and the child actually going to sleep, so again that is very important.
Cut out the night time feeding & waking
This is recommended between 4 -6 months according to
Babycenter.com's Night Weaning article, I know I have referenced this website already, but that is my favorite source online based on it's helpfulness and accuracy. This is when you should be starting sleep training anyway and it also coincides with the time you should start feeding your baby solids, which keeps them fuller longer and asleep longer as well. As my pediatrician said, if you get rid of the night time feeding, they usually won't have any reason to wake you up in the middle of night, they wake up because they are expecting to be fed. When your infant or toddler wakes up in the middle of the night, offer them comfort without the feeding, singing, rocking, or if they are really having a hard time, offer water instead. We leave a sippy cup with a non spill lid in LL's crib so he can get his own water in the middle of the night if he is thirsty, but I would only advise this if your child doesn't have any problems with wetting through their diaper. We ran this by our pediatrician and he says, though it is not common, it is okay. You want to eventually not take the child out of the crib at all to soothe them and then do the sleep training by visiting them less and less and then not at all. Once we started doing this LL didn't even bother to wake us up in the middle of the night and now only does it when there's really something wrong, not just because he misses us or wants to be fed.
I hope you Moms out there that are having sleep issues can use some of these tips to help your child sleep. Having a sleeping child will literally change your life! What are some of your strategies for getting your child/ children to sleep? Do you have a secret method that works? Feel free to share your comments on infant and toddler sleep below!
xoxo Kate G
