13 month old does not sleep without mommy and daddy

jhunter77

I am sure that this question will lead to many different points of view, so let me just mention from the start that my husband and I do not have the heart to let our boy cry it out in his crib.  We tried it one night and we both lasted about 20 minutes (my husband wanting to get him before me).  Haha  Since LO was born he has been in our bed, attached to me, not learning how to self soothe.  He weaned himself off of his pacifier and onto me at about 6 months and has not turned back since.  I nurse him to sleep each night, in our bed and then about 1-2 hours later he is back up, needing me to nurse him back down.  Once it starts, it goes through the night about every couple of hours.  He does this during nap time as well, unless we are driving long distance, he can fall asleep on his own and even wake up/fall asleep again.  While I love snuggling with him, do not really care that he is in our bed and do not mind initially nursing him to sleep, I wish he would stay asleep.  

All of this being said, I know this is our fault, but when he was born, we did what we did to get by each day and didn't look back.  I'm aware that the answers will probably consist of putting him in the crib, letting him cry it out, etc, etc.  I know I could get through the first crying it out, but what about the next fifteen times he wakes up through the night?  Am I just lazy cause I do not want to have to do that?  I really want him to be a good sleeper, but I do not know if I have it in me to do it, which then makes me feel like a horrible mother because I am not teaching him how to sleep.  

Feel free to give me any ideas of things that may have worked for you.  Be as harsh or as nice as you feel necessary.  I can take it.  :0)  I am not at my "wits end" because really I feel like this is our life and someday he will grow out of it, however I am beginning to think that may not happen either.  LOL  

Anyone else have a little boy that likes to snuggle and wants to nurse until he goes to college?!?!?!?!

stgn01

I think you have some pretty good insight about this already.  You did what you had to do to survive and now it's become a habit but you're not sure you're ready to break it yet.  First let me say, if it's still working for you and your husband, fine!  Keep doing what you're doing and you're all good.  However, this would never work for me!  I can't get a good nights sleep with either kid in our bed and I like my sleep too much.  That being said, I nursed both kids for a year.  So I totally understand the nursing to sleep and in bed stuff.  

I will tell you what I did both times with my kids and you can decide for yourself if it would fit for your family.  For the first few months, the kids slept in our room in a sleeper right next to my side of the bed.  For MOTN nursings, this was essential!  At 4 months I started transitioning to their cribs.  This often led to me sleeping in their rooms for a few weeks.  Admittedly, I did CIO for both and it was the best decision I ever made.  DD took to it in about 4 nights.  The first night was the worst but crying only last about 30 minutes off and on.  I think I cried more than her!  She's a great sleeper now.  For DS, he kinda picked it up on his own right before he turned 4 months so I did a modified CIO with him.  Never had to do CIO for naps because they knew crib was for sleep and it was safe.  I nursed both kids at night before bed (this was the second to last nursing I dropped) and put them in their cribs awake.  Besides DS getting up crazy early the last few weeks (I think it's a developmental phase) he's a good sleeper too.  Goes down quickly at night, sleeps the whole night, wakes up plesant in the morning.  

I will say this though: Whatever you do, be consistent!  Don't do CIO only to backtrack after a few days because you feel bad.  If you do it, do it all the way.  It won't work if you do it half-assed.  If you don't do it, then keep doing what you're doing until it becomes a problem for someone.  Good luck with whatever you do.  Dealing with toddler sleep transitions sucks!!

BTW- DD is 4 and DS will be 2 in a month.  My siggys offically have a mind of thier own.

=Lee=B

We haven't done cry-it-out and I bedshared with my daughter until just over 1yr.  Nursed at night until recently.  BUT she learned to self soothe long ago.  As attachment parting as we are we do feel our child needs to self sooth later on and it is much easier for them to learn that sooner than later.

Our 17month old has a blanket (well, 3 identical ones) and still has her soother for sleep.  When she goes down we do our sleep routine and plop her down wide awake and she does her thing....mostly curled up rubbing her blanket but she will sit and play with her bears or bounce around a bit. 

When I wanted her in her own bed (she woke too much if I was in bed with her as she'd bump into me and wake thinking ohhhh boob time).  So I put my bed beside her crib (in her room) and we bedshared with her between me and the bars of her crib (on the bed) after a little while I moved her to the crib with me on bed on other side of the bars...I could reach in and touch her.  Then I moved my bed across the room and would 'shhhh' her.  Then I moved me out of the room.

There were numerous periods where my husband or I had to spend the evening in her room sitting on the floor near the crib until she fell asleep. We would play on our phones or laptops.  She would at times fuss or whine but we'd 'shhh' her and she knew we were there. 

My husband does his thing different then me but she accepts both.

Now when she wakes we let her fuss...she is a very busy, noisy sleeper.  She will often sit up after a sleep cycle play with her bears and blanket then face plant down and go back to sleep.  Sometimes she wakes crying but stops after a couple seconds, gathers her stuff and goes back to sleep.  If she wants us to come in, she stands up and cries.  When we come in 9times out of 10 she lies back down and we just stay a couple seconds, make sure she has her blanket and soother and leave.  She just wanted to make sure we still exist.  If she is really needing us she stays standing when we come in and puts her arms up...we will pick her up, cuddle for a bit then put her back down...it's rare we have to stay in the room long.

There was also a long period (before she was mobile, which helped) where I had a floor bed in her room and would lie with her until she fell asleep then leave her. 

I'm sure part of her good sleep habits are just part of her personality and part of how we've gently been there for her but still had the expectation that she learns to self sooth.  She typically sleeps 12-14hrs at night and does a 3-4hr nap in the afternoon.  More often than not she sleeps through the night now, but she will occasionally wake once and go right back down when we go in.  If she wakes in the early morning (between 6-7am) I go in and nurse her and put her back down and she will sleep until 8-9am.  Otherwise I no longer nurse in the night and I no longer nurse before she sleeps (my husband has taken over night routine) I do nurse about 2x per day usually after she wakes.

All that said, we are travelling right now and with her in the same room as us (in a playpen) I do nurse before naps and bedtime and will nurse in the middle of the night if she wakes...it keeps her calm and quiet, which lets other guests sleep, and it just helps her sleep.  She still plays in her playpen ad good 20min before falling asleep but she is calm and happy.

I will honestly say my daughter started sleeping MUCH better once I stopped bedsharing with her (was still going in and nursing every 2hrs for a few months) and she sleeps even better now at 17months since I have stopped nursing her to sleep...it was then that she started sleeping through the night regularly.  My girl needs her sleep and this is giving her better sleep.  On occasion when she wakes and doesn't settle easily in the night we give her one of those food pouches...it fills her tummy if she was legitimately hungry and she sucks on it...if she needed to suck to sooth. It seems to be working, but we've only done that a few times.

MrsG071809

We didn't bedshare with DD so my situation is also not exactly the same as yours, but mine is almost 18 months and I still nurse her to sleep at night - and am perfectly ok with that!  When I did transition her to her crib (around 7 months I think? she was in a PNP in our room previously) I did it slowly, and I still nursed her to sleep, would just put her in the crib after she was down.  At first she was waking more often, but I switched to nursing in her room (instead of ours) and that helped.  Now, we sit in her rocker after her bedtime routine and she nurses to sleep, and then I put her in her crib.  On an average night she doesn't wake again for 9-10 hours.  She goes down around 8, and usually between 5-6 she wakes and DH goes to get her and brings her in our room, where I nurse her back to sleep and then she's in our bed for another hour or 2 just depending on when we have to get up.  This has been working for us for several months now - I like the combo of a little bedsharing (love those snuggles!!) but getting the majority of my night's sleep without her there because we both do wake more often when she's in our bed.

I have not done any formal sleep training, and really don't care to, I've always just tried to go with the flow so to speak and follow her cues.  She does use a binky, some nights if she doesn't fall asleep after nursing I will give that to her and rock and that usually does the trick.  I would like her to be able to self soothe more, and eventually know I need to be able to put her down and have her fall asleep on her own, but for now this is working for us.  I'm hoping that as she grows out of nursing and starts to wean, we can also start to work on self soothing and as her bedtime routine is changing anyway (due to weaning) we will make strides in being able to put her down and her fall asleep on her own.  I have no idea when this will happen, or if I am crazy for thinking it will just happen naturally, but that's what I'm going with for now.

I do agree with PP that there are lots of options besides CIO (I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution and it has lots of good techniques - we use some for naps), and that if bedsharing works for you then by all means continue!  I'm in camp "do what works" for sleeping especially.

ashiscute

Honestly, nursing your LO to sleep and bed sharing are fine.  But not sleeping more than an hour or two at a time is not.  I nursed my DD to sleep until 13 mos and DS until 14 mos.  However, if they awoke in the middle of the night I didn't automatically nurse them to sleep if they were beyond the age of needing to eat through the night.  We made an effort to help them back to sleep without the association.  

I really recommend you read Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem".  It is really a great book and has a lot of information on sleep, bad habits, etc.  Ferber's method is a modified CIO where you do progressive checks on your LO.  There is even a chapter on how to do this while bed sharing.  I think people have this idea of CIO meaning dropping your LO in their crib and ignoring them all night.  That is not at all what sleep training is.  You don't have to do Ferber's method but I still recommend his book. 

At 13 mos your LO should be sleeping through the majority of the night most of the time.  One wake-up a night would be okay.  All through the night is no.  Sleep is very important and he is probably not getting enough of it.  I know you don't want to listen to him cry (no one does) but teaching them how to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own is important.  Good luck

BelhurstBride

We had great luck with the No Cry Sleep Solution with DD1, who was an incredibly attached, nurse to sleep bed sharer. Ultimately, it took DH taking over in order to see success and I am not sure if we would have noticed success if we had just had him do bedtime. (As opposed to following the NCSS.)

andrea0418

@jhunter77‌ I could have written your post. I also have a 13 month little boy who sleeps in our bed and wakes up several times per night needing nursed back to sleep.
It works for us right now so I'm not worried. I do transfer him to his crib when I want to stretch out or DH and I are gonna get it on. He usually only lasts in the crib an hour or 2.
I hope you find a solution that works for you!

Beth.1212

I'm a big fan of the baby whisperer when it comes to sleeping. Check out "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems."

cheesecakerunner

We bed share and nurse to sleep and have never done CIO for the same reasons you mentioned. Not sleeping through the night and not being able to "self soothe" aren't problems at 13 months - they're normal. I think the best way to teach a baby to sleep is to offer comfortable ways to go back down. At 13 months, my son was waking for 3-4 night feedings and at almost 17 months still wakes twice.

I haven't tried night weaning, but it may help you if you are ready: https://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html