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11mth old sleep help for a friend please- not CIO
hi ladies,
one of my good friends whose daughter is 3 weeks younger than santino, so about 11 months old, needs some non-cio suggestions for helping her daughter get to sleep on her own at night.
(please, no need to spark debate on cio- she is not open to it and i know there are those of you out there who solved sleep issues without it)
she can get herself to sleep on her own, no rocking or anything, for naps during the day. but nighttime she needs to be fed her bottle, rocked and sung to until she falls asleep. if not, she is up in the crib crying, screaming until she throws up. she calms as soon as mommy or daddy goes in and will go to sleep if she is rocked to sleep. same goes for if she wakes in the middle of the night.
she is a fantastic baby- sleeps 12 hours at night once she is sleeping. smart, hitting all of her milestones, eats well, happy.
any suggestions? books, websites, methods, etc.
thank you ladies!
Re: 11mth old sleep help for a friend please- not CIO
I did the supernanny method where I sat on the floor every night until he put himself to sleep. I didn't look at him but he knew I was there. He's cry and stand up but I'd get up and not say anything to him and put him back down. Eventually, little by little I moved farther and farther away even to the point of sitting in the hallway. It took quite a few nights but it worked.
I think it was called something like "a sane approach to gettin your child to sleep on their own." You can try and google it. I saw her do it on the show then I got her book out of the library and it was in there.
HTH! :-)
we had the same exact issues...honestly...i just rocked her to sleep...she would go down for naps fine...maybe a little fuss here or there, but really nothing major...at around 13 months, when we noticed that she was really starting to follow directions, we decided it was time...she obviously could put herself to sleep, and she obviously understood what we were saying to her...we were off between christmas and new years, so that's what we worked on...she'd have her bottle, we'd rock her until she burped, and then we'd kiss her and put her in her crib. the first few nights, we stood there and rubbed her back while she settled in...if she started crying and stood up we'd lay her back down and keep reinforcing its time to go to sleep...but once she was in the crib, that was it, she wasn't coming back out...we stayed with her and calmed her, but she had to stay in the crib...
We established a bedtime routine which seemed to help A understand it's time for sleep. So every night, we dim the light, get him changed into his night diaper, lotioned, into his PJs, we brush his teeth, when he was younger he'd nurse or get a bottle, we'd read to him, lights out and we go through his "good nights" where we say good night to everyone in the house together while he's sitting on my lap. We put him to bed in his crib, tuck in his favorite stuffed animal, and repeat the same phrases every night ("Good night A, mommy loves you, time for sleep"). It's become his cue that it's time for sleep. This helped us with being able to put him in the crib and he wouldn't fight as much. He would still roll around and chatter in the crib but doze off on his own.
Experiment with what time bedtime falls. Ideally, start bedtime routine when the baby shows the first signs of being tired. We thought A was not tired at 8:30 because putting him to bed at 8:30 meant he'd be up for 2 more hours bouncing around in his crib. I had read in one of the sleep books try moving bedtime up, which seemed counterintuitive but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Started the bedtime routine at 7:45 for 8pm bedtime instead of half an hour later, and he started going to sleep sooner and slept longer. He was likely overtired and getting a second wind by 8:30.
I've seen a few versions of graduated extinction - One was sitting with the baby, then moving a few feet away each night until you move out of the room. Another was referred to as the excuse me method - you sit with her, excuse yourself and tell her you'll be right back, leave and come back, but each night the interval that you're gone increases. We ended up doing the form of graduated extinction in which we did let him cry but only for a few minutes before going back in. The number of minutes before going back in would increase each night but we found that as long as we went back in, the length of time he cried was not getting longer. I never reached a point of letting him just cry because I tended to want to check that he wasn't cold, puking, soiled diaper, etc.
it's not a specific "method" but what we basically did was just weaned them slowly off each thing we did. just each night do a little bit less than what we usually did. whether that meant just singing for a minute rather than 5, then stopping... or not singing at all. wait until she ASKS for something before doing it (well cries for something). I find that we often do so many things just because that's what we do, but when we try to take something away, the kid doesn't care at all. Rock sing for a minute, then stop one of those actions while continuing the other. If there's a huge protest, go back to it and try to just shorten the length of time you do it for each night. Eventually get down to just singing from her room while she's in the crib... then staying silent in the room. Then leaving the room.