My kid won't sleep! I hear it over and over again from so many parents (new and experienced). I'm here to tell you there is not one sleep solution that will solve everyone's problem. However, there are some things you can do to help your family (because yes, sleep effects everyone in your family) through sleep issues.
We have 2 children (R: our 3 year old and A: our 1 year old). We have gone through our share of sleep regressions, teething issues, nightmares, and any other thing that will keep a child from going to sleep or wake them up at night. First I'm going to share a few tips for establishing a good night time routine and picking out a sleep method that will work for you. Then I will share one method for getting your child back to sleep when they have woken up. (Later on I describe our routine and what book I recommend for getting your child back to sleep.)
Tips for establishing a routine
1.) Discuss what tasks are important when establishing a bedtime. Will you read to your child every night? Do you like to sing? Is bath time used for cleaning or play? Do your children take a bath every night? Who will put the kids to sleep (it doesn't have to be the same person every night)? Do you or your child get to pick out their pajamas? Does it bother you when your child cries for long periods of time? What is your end goal (shorter bedtime routine, getting your child to put them self to sleep, getting your child to stay in bed, stopping night time feedings)?
2.) Establish some sort of bedtime routine. Articles I've read from various authors suggest that kids thrive on routine. I've found the same to be true in my own home. By doing the same routine every night your children know what to expect and will experience less stress when it comes to going to sleep. An example might be: Taking a bath after dinner, brushing teeth, getting into pajamas, reading 2 books, turning off the light and singing a brief song.
3.) Create a calm space in your child's room. Leaving out toys, having bright lights on, playing loud music are all indications that it is time to be awake and play. Keeping a bedroom or nursery clean and quiet, with soft lighting (use a small table lamp) will help indicate it is time for sleep and not play. Kids can still have toys in their room but when it comes to bed time, I recommend all toys are put out of sight if possible. Dim the lights or use a table lamp, and use quiet voices. These things will signal to your child that it is time for sleep.
4.) Begin your routine ASAP! I cannot stress this enough. Begin your routine when you bring baby home from the hospital. We didn't do this with R, but did with A (we used the same routine we had eventually established with R) and we noticed a HUGE difference in sleep habits from the beginning!
5.) Give yourself and your children time to get used to a new routine. This is a hugely important piece of sleep training or getting your kid to sleep. Please see point #2. Kids do better with a routine. If you change the sleep routine every 2 days, 5 days, weekly, or monthly they are not going to know what to expect and will then not know what routine they are to follow. When you figure out your routine, give yourself at least a full 7 days to establish the new sleep system. The more days in a row you do your bedtime routine, the more used to it your kids will be, and the more smoothly bedtime will become.
6.) Any change in your child's routine at home or school (teething, sickness, travel, visitors, new surroundings at school, new teachers, new diet) can have an affect on your child's sleep habits and behavior. Even though they might not be in a "sleep regression" one of the above mentioned things or something else may be what is hindering their sleep. Allow your child time to get back to normal after a change.
During our first sleep regression, with our first child, we tried to let him cry it out (aka the Ferber method). This did not work for us mostly because I could not deal with R crying his lungs out for any substantial amount of time. So when hubby and I sat down to discuss it, we figured out our own crazy method which involved a regular bedtime routine (outlined later in this post), rocking R to sleep in the rocker, slowly standing up while still rocking, and gently continuing the rocking in my arms while I gradually lowered him into the crib. Once in the crib, I would inch my arms out from under him and hold my breath hoping that he would stay asleep. If I managed this 20-30 minute process I could tip-toe out the door and spend another 5 minutes shutting the door so that he wouldn't hear the handle click. (And this was just the time spent putting him in the crib, not the rest of the bed time routine!) Let me tell you, a few months of this and another sleep regression later and I quickly came to the conclusion that this method was not going to work.
Our Routine:
You will notice in the following routine, I do not attach times to any activity. This is because it is a routine, not a schedule. A routine follows a series of events done in any amount of time while a schedule has a given amount of time allotted for each activity and each activity begins and ends at a specified time. We begin our routine sometime around 6pm every evening, that being said, sometimes we have things come up, dinner runs late, we are out somewhere so then we begin later. Both children know that the routine begins after dinner ends so it is not highly dependent on a starting time. We try to stay within 30 minutes of 6pm so there is some consistency.
At 6:00pm or so we begin bath time. Baths can be long or short but are normally around 15 minutes, we practice spelling, and discuss colors, and let them play. After bath each child is wrapped in a towel and brought to the bedroom. Each child picks out their pajamas and we assist in getting them on if needed. Next, everyone brushes their teeth and we double check the work to get any missed spots. Each child gets to pick out a book and we sit on the floor and read. While the reading is going on the other parent warms up the children's bed buddies (a giraffe and owl that have rice in them and get warmed up for 90 seconds). After the books are read, we go potty one more time and then get into bed. (I still nurse A for a few minutes at some point, normally during books.) R gets into bed at this point and hubby or I hold A. We turn off the lights and then read (from memory) "Guess How Much I Love You". One adult says their good night to each child (same wording every night "I love you, good night") and then exits the room. The adult with the kids sings a brief song. A gets put into her crib with a kiss, and I say "I love you. I'll see you in the morning when you wake up." I say the same thing to R and kiss him good night. I walk out the door. I normally walk out of the door no later than 7:05 pm, but my goal is 7pm. Neither child is ever asleep when I leave, but they have both learned to fall asleep on their own (to find out how to get your child to fall asleep on their own, keep reading).
Getting your child to stay asleep when they wake up
*I'm not saying that the methods presented here will work for every family or child. Please do your research and find a safe sleep method that will work for your and your family. Remember, children need love, support, and comfort from their caregiver. While raising our children it is important to lovingly teach them how to do things, sleep should not be excluded from the list.
Getting your child to put themselves back to sleep is the other reason parents are loosing sleep (#1 being getting them to go to bed in the first place). You finally get your child to bed, you clean up the kitchen, and have a glass of wine. Maybe you get to do some laundry and get yourself ready the following day, and then you climb into bed. Just as you close your eyes and drift off your child starts crying. Immediately you jump out of bed to rescue them from whatever is haunting them.
When a child wakes up it could be for a number of reasons: teething, night terrors, they want to play, they are sick, hungry, they want to nurse, as well as any other make believe issues. If you child weighs more than 15 lbs and/or is older than 3 months old, most doctors and research will tell you they have the ability to sleep through the night. We have to help our kids to learn everything from the time they are born. We teach them to crawl, talk, walk, eat with a spoon, play, so why should getting back to sleep be any different? We have to help them learn how to put themselves back to sleep. Once again, there are several methods. Google "sleep training methods" and you will see the numerous books, articles, and videos you can watch. I've tried nursing back to sleep (which does work, but your child can and may get dependent on this method), rocking to sleep, singing to sleep, letting R cry himself back to sleep. Yes, I tried all these things and nothing stuck until I read the book "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems."
For children under approximately 2 years old (older than 2 described after this)
Tracy Hogg also suggests picking one method and sticking to it. R started sleeping through the night at 4 months old. At 10 months old I had dealt with a few sleep regressions already, and gotten through them, but rocking my boy to sleep every night when he woke up wasn't working for us any more. I also knew that allowing him to cry it out wasn't a method I could get used to. There were 2 things Tracy Hogg suggested. First, was allowing your child to fuss or cry for 2-5 minutes. This allotted time should not be given if the child is wailing in pain or agony. The other thing she suggets is the "Pick Up, Put Down" method described in her book (for children under 4 months the "Shhh, pat" method should be used).
We decided to begin the method on a Friday when hubby could help the following day. Yes, it took 4 full nights for us to notice a difference. I kept track of the number of times I picked him up and put him back down the first night (it was well over 100). The second night is was a few less and the third night a few less. By the 4th night it was noticeably less (I was in bed by a reasonable time). We stuck to this method and R got used to it. So much so that he started sleeping through the night and when he did wake up, I let him fuss for 2-4 minutes and he could put himself back to sleep or at least stay in his crib quietly until he fell asleep again. When he regressed again around 14 months we used the method again and it only took 2 days to get back to sleeping through the night.
When A was born, she began sleeping through the night at 7 weeks. Part of this was because I let her fuss 2-4 minutes before picking her up to soothe her. Sometimes that 2-4 minutes was all she needed to get comfortable again. At 4 months when she regressed for the first time, I used the "pick up, put down method" (as well as letting her fuss), within 3 days she was sleeping though the night again. To our luck, she is now 14 months old and has not had a sleep regression since 4 months old!
The "pick up, put down" method can work as long as you are comfortable picking up your child multiple times a night. Some kids will get to heavy for this, and then I would suggest just laying them back down in their crib and doing the described method. We would lay R back down and then say "good night, I love you. See you in the morning when you wake up" and then I would leave the room and shut the door. If he woke up, I would let him fuss for 2-4 minutes (while guaging the fussing to see if he would just go back to sleep) and then would go in, lay him down, and say my phrase again. Over and over and over until he stopped fussing or put himself to sleep.
For children over 2 years old: How to cope with getting out of bed and "I don't want to go to bed"
Getting out of bed or "Stay with me"
When R was 18 months old, we began putting him in a twin size bed. His sister was coming along in 8 weeks or so and we wanted to give him plenty of time to adjust. One thing we ran into after 3 weeks or so was him getting out of bed in the middle of the night and wanting us to sleep with him (or getting out right after we put him down). We did try speaking into the monitor but we didn't always catch him in time and sometimes it was in the middle of the night and we didn't want to sit up watching him. When he would try to get out of bed or wake up and come find us we began telling him "Good night, I love you, I'll come check on you in 3 minutes". After 3 minutes we would check on him and say "glad to see you're in bed. I'll come check on you in 5 minutes." He would stay in bed and we would check in 5 minutes. Each time increasing the amount of time between visits until he was asleep. As he got older we increase the amount of time between visits starting at 5, 6, 7 minutes. He didn't know what the minutes meant but he did know that we would be coming at some time to check in. After about a week he started falling asleep before we would check on him the first time and when that started happening we stopped saying we would check on him. Even though we had to stay up for a few minutes to check on him, we still were able to get back to sleep much sooner than if we were getting up multiple times all night long. If you decide this method is for you, you do actually have to check up on your child or they will figure out there is no follow through. It is important here to stick to checking up on them and setting the example of following through on what you say you are going to do.
"I don't want to go to bed".
I don't remember when R started telling us he didn't want to go to sleep and didn't want to take a nap. It was shortly after he turned 2 1/2. Since I stay at home with both kids, I take advantage of nap time as well. Sometimes I do laundry or read, but most of the time I count down the minutes until nap time so that I can recharge my batteries and get some much needed sleep. So when R started getting out of bed a half dozen times during nap time I was at my breaking point.
I don't remember if I read it in a mommy blog or heard it from Parenting with Love and Logic (also a wonderful method for child behavior. We highly recommend it and I have not been paid to say so). But this person suggested the following phrase, "You don't have to go to sleep, but you do have to be quiet in your room." I gave R the option of taking a book to bed or his stuffed animal (he took the book). I gave him the option of laying under the covers or on top (he chose under). It took 2 days of this routine and he began staying in his bedroom (in his bed) and given a few minutes of quiet time I have found he always falls asleep. We have also used it for bedtime.
A friend of mine came to visit for a few days. Her daughter had been having issues getting to sleep and as a result my friend had been letting her cry it out until she eventually fell asleep. During a nap time I offered to talk to her crying daughter while she was nursing her newborn. I told her "your mommy is busy nursing your baby sister right now. She can come in when she is done, but for right now can you lay here quietly?" After a nod of the head, I slipped out of the room and by the time my friend was done nursing her oldest daughter had fallen asleep. She used the same wording for bed time "you don't have to go to sleep, but you do have to be quiet in your bed" and we got the same result.
As I said before, not all of these methods will work for everyone. I've run into parents who have said "I've tried everything! Eventually my kid just learned how to sleep at 1.5 years old." That is completely fine for those parents who can put up with sleep issues for that long, but it wasn't in the cards for us and I would imagine most parents would jump at the opportunity to get some sleep if it was possible.
*I have not been paid to write about or endorse "Parenting with Love and Logic" or "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems". Each of these methods had things that worked for our family and I'm happy to share our success story.
