So Tru’s new nursery looks great and all, but it’s thrown his sleeping patterns all off, which is not good for me. I think the reasons are twofold. First, it’s way too fun to be doing any sleeping in. He can play on the bed all night and when he’s bored he can easily climb off anytime. FREEDOM!
Also, I think he feels insecure without his crib, like maybe it’s too exposed and therefore susceptible to attack from unknown entities. I tried explaining to him that if something was to attack him (ie a flying cockroach or gorgeous zombie with killer hair), it’s far better to be able to escape rather than be caged in but I’m not sure he gets it.
If there’s one thing I learnt about parenting, it is the need to change and adapt. Just when you’ve settled into a nice routine and you think that life is good, it’s time for a change. Sort of like ninja training. You have to keep an eye out for sudden sneak attacks because the so-called sense of security you feel, that’s false. Prior to the new beds, the kids were doing good. They sleep on their own without any fuss and they sleep through for 12 hours every night.
This transition to a toddler bed was harder than I thought. Now when I put Tru to bed for the night, I can’t just put him down on the bed, kiss him goodnight and walk out. He climbs off the bed like a streak of lightning and reaches the door before I do. Either that or he starts screaming his head off. I spent the whole week reading up on toddler sleep training methods and tried them all. You might want to know that ALL of them were a real pain in the ass.
1. Every time he gets out, just put him back into the bed and say it’s time to sleep.
According to the books, this is supposed to work after a week or two. Except that I may already be committed to the asylum by then. One nap, I did it 83 times (I counted) and he was still bright as a button. He thought it was some sort of a game and kept giggling. I gave up after that and let him sleep on my bed.
2. Put him on the bed and leave the room.
He shrieks like a banshee the moment I leave and goes on for a very long time. This worked when we were training him to sleep in his crib but somehow this seems terribly cruel and it would totally break my heart if I went in to see him slumped over on the floor after an hour.
3. Sit beside him and pat him till he falls asleep.
Anyone who’s tried this will tell you that sometimes, you can pat and pat and pat until your hands lose all feeling and they will still be grinning back at you. Tru does one better. He’ll be digging my eyes, putting things into my ears and then just as I’m about to lose it completely, he spread his arms wide and says hug. He knows that’s one thing I can’t refuse.
So it’s been a harrowing week. I came up with my own method which is perhaps an amalgamation of all of the above. When it’s time for a nap, I sit down beside him but on condition that he lies down without playing. If he tries to get off, I tell him that I’ll leave the room and he’s got to sleep on his own. Obviously he tried it and I left the room for 10 minutes while he screamed his head off. Now all I do is say lie down and close your eyes and it totally works. But it still takes him a while to fall asleep and if he wakes up in the middle of the night, I’ve got to be there to help him fall asleep again.
Which means that the little sleep I’ve got has gotten even less. My only consolation is that this transition has got to happen sooner or later. Might as well get it out of the way now and hopefully he learns to sleep on his own bed without momma’s intervention. Soon.
22 Comments
try a dummy? give him a soft toy and tell him it will keep him safe. and tell him if he wakes up at night, he just has to look for it and hug it and he’ll be safe. lie down with him till he falls asleep with the dummy. chuck it into his arms before you leave the room. after a few days/weeks of this, move to sitting beside his bed/door in the dark, while he hugs his dummy and falls asleep. a few more days/weeks of this, move out of room completely. give him dummy and say good night and leave. helps if you have a ritual to signal when you’re going to leave eg singing a particular song, etc. that’s what worked for me anyway (but then mine is a lot older). good luck!
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@strawberrymilkmama, he actually has a precious blanket that helps him sleep and his bed is filled with stuffed toys (including a ginormous pooh bear). And right now we actually sit with him in the dark and he will sleep but he’s been waking up 3-4 times a night and we have to go sit with him again which is like army camp torture. He’s been sleeping through since 12 weeks so I’m not sure what’s causing him to wake up and cry.
oh dear….i’m also about to sleep-train my boy from sarong to floor mattress very soon… i can identify with the ’83’ times. when i tried to train him in his crib i also gotta get up xxx times to make him lie down every time he sits up and wave @ me. Maddening but hilarious!!!!
i think your method is working.. keep doing it and he’ll be used to it in no time! :)
@leslie, for me, it’s now less hilarious and more I’m-going-to-whip-your-ass-if-you-keep-this-up. I’m giving him 2 weeks to adjust before I resort to more drastic measures. Wish me luck!
Hi, first time reading your blog! I have just sleep trained my son v recently. It scares me to think about re-training him in a new bed that we will be getting him soon.
Not sure about this, but I think I have seen Tru around in church nursery?! =)
Hi! For some reason this went to my spam queue! Managed to retrieve it.
Yes and it was nice meeting you that day. I hope he wasn’t behaving like the psychedelic kid that he usually is when you saw him!
I found your blog googling “floor bed sleep training.” I’m starting my son out on the floor bed and, while not good to hear your struggle, it is good to hear that my struggle at 7 months old is the same thing that would happen later anyways. So, did you have any luck? What worked? I will send you gold coins and homebaked anything for a strategy to try here! My little Rome is 7.5 months and loves the game of crawling out of bed only to be dragged back to it. He giggles. So friggin cute and annoying because I can’t get too mad. I hate to think of closing the doors and letting him collapse outside of them! What to do!!?? I can’t keep waking up every two hours though! I’m a mad woman!!
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@Ali, Hi Ali, thanks for popping by. You’re really quite bold to start Rome at 7.5 months!
The thing with Truett was that he could already walk (he was 15 months then) and when we shut the door on him for about 5-10 minutes he would cry till he was weary – and then trudged back to bed. So when we go in to check on him he isn’t slumped over the floor or anything but nicely tucked in bed.
So I’m not sure if Rome can walk at 7.5 months (that’ll be way ahead of the development scale) but it may be a little challenging at this point. You may want to try letting him sleep with a helmet and knee guards.
All the best!
@Daphne, Seems, after doing some reading, that “sleep training” isn’t the proper thing to be doing in the attachment phase… So I guess I’m just strategizing for longer sleep periods.
He can crawl, so that’s my problem. Probably best to just tend to him until he is older and can understand a little bit better. But if I lose it, I’ll be sure to try the helmet/kneepad combo.
[…] Even if we did this, when it came time to transition to a floor bed at toddler time, we could face the same set of proble…, waking, crawling to the door, walking or running to the door, fear of letting child cry-it-out, […]
So I know I am late to comment but I just came across this post by googling “sleep training methods toddler” because I am loosing my freaking mind. For some reason I thought my 2 yr old would just plop on the bed and go to sleep. HA. I too have tried all the methods (it’s only been 2 naps & 2 nights) and I no longer have feeling in my right arm from the head stroking and both of my legs could have well been amputated and I wouldn’t have felt anything. Have I mentioned I am 6 months pregnant? which is why we started these shenanigans in the first place. The goal is to have her sleep trained in a bed before I am too big to get off the floor with out a crane.
So she was awake from 10pm until 4am last night and I was just flailing around on the bed crying and laughing at the same time while reading your post. Send help!
@seekingclarav, I’m just curious – what exactly is Madelyn DOING when she’s up from 10p.m – 4a.m? Crying? Shuffling around the house like it was Zombieland? Having Froot Loops while watching reruns of General Hospital?
If she hasn’t been already, you may wanna consider shifting her to another room. And if all else fails, my doctor friend tells me a little sedative never did a toddler any harm. She recommends it for friends who bring toddlers for long-haul flights. True story.
How ironic, I also stumbled upon your blog when googling toddler sleep training and I’m also late to arrive in this forum. :) It is so good to know I’m not the only parent pushing a big rock up an even bigger flippin hill! What’s worse, I broke the cardinal rule of parenting. Never get cocky. I certainly did. I was at my breaking point during my husband’s first deployment and decided to sleep train my (at the time) 12 month old. I suffered through method after method, and like you, modified a few into one. In a week, she got the message, that she was going to go into her crib and like it. I felt so in charge. I felt so confident. I felt so cocky. And therein lies by big mistake. Recently, I received a phone call from the retailer that we bought my daughter’s crib from, explaining to me that the crib was recalled. So, since it was a necessity, and since the timing came in with my husband’s military bonus, we felt like buying her a “big girl” bed would be in her best interests. I bought her an adorable twin bed. Blue, no less. Its so totally HER! We took pics when we showed her the room. All the while, mind you, I’m still sitting there, feeling the unlimited certainty of success, because MY daughter at 20 months is SLEEP TRAINED!
We are on night 4 of this nightmare and its like I never even sleep trained her. Its like some distant dream. I am in sleep training HELL. Its worse to try this at 20 months than it was when she was 12 months because now she physically is able to beat me up when she is having a tantrum. At 12 months, she had HALF of the tantrums she does now. And because of my husband’s many deployments, she really only wants mommy at bedtime, even if its just to beat like a scared schoolgirl.
@PrincessLia, Sorry- the little doll just came and pressed her Pop Tart into my keyboard which submitted before my summation. I know this is long winded for a comment, and I’m sure you can already smell out a fellow blogger and English Major, but its so GOOD to have adult conversation! Anyway, so not only are we attempting to put her in a bed after we go through our routine, but she hits me and head buts me. When she does this, I put her in bed and walk out, trying to send the message that I will not tolerate being her “bitch.” But in the end, she still wins because it takes me 2 hours just to put her to sleep, a process which prior, only took 30 minutes and that includes brushing her teeth and snuggling for story time! I’m literally having to sit there and rock her until she falls asleep. I read on the Supernanny website that you should just keep leading the toddler back to her/his bed. But this will take 3 hours!! I know there are probably no shortcuts here, but I miss my evenings. I’m grateful to be a mommy, and to have Gracie (my baby), in ANY capacity because I know there are many who don’t have children. (This is my disclaimer because you can’t complain to the older moms! They always have something to say in retort, like “You’re going to miss this one day!” I hate to say it but I think to myself- really? I’m going to miss THIS? THIS has me discussing a hysterectomy with my doctor!). But with that said, I can’t do much more of this and stay sane!!!
Hi Daphne,
I also googled toddler sleep training and this blog came up. It’s so great to hear other people having the same problem. My 2yr old was also trained in his cot, before he learnt to climb out. After being forced to transition to the bed, I too tried putting him to bed more than 84 times (I lost count), which included holding him down in his bed a few nights before I came to my senses and put a gate on the door of his room. Now his door can be open, but he’s stuck in there. We do the routine and leave him in there, and he’s pretty happy because he’s not shut in behind a door, but has some boundaries to help him contain his own freedom (I think he was as relieved to get the gate as we were!). Also we make it completely dark except for a little trace of light from a half covered night light. The gate has helped ENORMOUSLY and he can now put himself to sleep on his own, but it takes him 1-2hrs to do it (as opposed to the 30 mins on his own in the cot that he used to do). So instead of going to sleep at 7.30pm he’s now going to sleep at 8.30 – 9pm.
Initially having blackout curtains meant that he slept in until 7 or 8 in the morning, so he was getting a fair amount of sleep (he USED to sleep 7.30pm – 7.30am). My problem now is that he decided to potty train himself, and is waking up at 5.55am because he’s desparate to go potty (he refuses to go in his diaper), but is still going to bed at 8-9pm. So I’m going out of my mind trying to work out how to get him to sleep EARLIER at night. As you say, all the published methods are nuts. Sitting in with him kind of helps, but not that much. Unfortunately he’s now learnt to lift up the blackout curtains so he can see out the window (where the summery daylight streams in) and he’s trashed his room so much that it now has baby proofing on the baby proofing.
And forget about nap time sleep training – we just take him for a walk in the stroller to get him to sleep, and then bring him home and transfer him into his bed! Not a good long term solution, but until I get his night time routine back I don’t even dare touch the hallowed daytime sleep or I might lose it altogether!
This post is years old now, but after a very long night of trying to sleep train my little one I felt relieved to know I wasn’t alone in my struggle to get him to sleep by himself in his bed. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. :)
Hi Chel, it does get better eventually so hang in there and all the best!
Hi,
Just saw this post, as we are going through the same thing with our 2-yr old daughter. I can see that this was written a couple years ago. Can you give me an update on how this process ended up working for you?
Thanks,
Carrie
Hi Carrie, we did eventually manage to get them to sleep in their own room for a couple of months until they started regressing and wanted to sleep in our room again. These days, they are sleeping in their own room but it’s a constant battle and they do invade our room every now and then.. Just hang in there it will get better.
Good luck!
I hope by now you are over the sleep training woes. I found your blog after searching for sleep training tips since my very tired and pissy toddler seems to like tantrums better than napping. Ugh. I know I am just like every other parent who hopes the magic answer will be on the internet and doesn’t. But at least you made me laugh :)
Daphne, thanks for this. Really tough month, and was starting to feel really bad about myself as a mom… (When enough ppl tell you your child is manja, or too clingy, or that it’s your own fault that she can’t get to sleep without you patting till your hands turn purple, it starts to get to you.) But this made me laugh, and I really needed that.
I, too, found your blog entry here after a long night of attempting a sleep teaching method. My girl is 21 months and I am so tired. I had finally gotten her to accept holdin my hand to to to sleep, but now that is taking 45+ minutes. She’s got to put her self down eventually, why not now? Ugh. It’s been some long nights of being beaten up or crushed in a bear hug to get her to sleep. Sleep teaching has been a beast, and on top of that, we live in a small one bedroom apartment. There is literally NO WHERE for her to be but in the same room as us. Not good for teaching her o sleep in her bed when she can just wake up and climb into mom and dads bed that is 10 steps away. Sigh. Well get this down someday.