How long does it take your LO to settle down at night?

TinaL99 · May 2011

Once we mastered sleep training by 7-8 months, Stella would still take up to 20 minutes to settle down for bed. She wouldn't cry, just whine and babble herself to sleep. We instilled a 20 minute rule before going to rock her unless she was full out crying b/c most nights she'd be alseep by 19 minutes.

Lately she's been taking up to 40 minutes to fall asleep, not getting to sleep much before 8:00 when her usual time is 7:15-7:30. And she's been crying enough that we go in and rock her once or twice before she finally settles down. She's also been crying out/whining more in the middle of the night which is unusual, too.

I'm sort of thinking maybe separation anxiety? Or we just need to get better at settling her down more before her bottle and bed time. Thoughts?

mrsoc · May 2011

He goes right into bed and is settled within seconds to minutes...I do consider ourselves lucky by this but it took time to get there. It used to tkae him up to an hour or two to settle down. What worked for us was in the book Good Night, Sleep Tight by the Sleep Lady (rec. by another nestie). We try to stick to the same bedtime, bedtime routine is in his bedroom (except for bath) and then in his crib. We had to do sleep coaching (variation of sleep training where you stay in the room), which was successful after a night or two. I have found if E has trouble settling down, he is usually overtired (missed a nap, bad nap, later bedtime, lot went on that day), but even then he settles down pretty quickly. GL!

battybtags · May 2011

It varies...some nights she'll fall asleep in my arms or within a minute of me putting her down. Other nights it takes her an hour+ after going in her crib-granted she doesnt cry, but plays in there until she falls asleep. But shes had nights where we put her down around 8 and at 930 shes still up there singing to herself! I figure if shes not crying, its not a huge deal!

NikCole · May 2011

It all depends w/ Evan. Some nights he doesn't make a peep, others he's in his crib singing and talking for over an hour. He rarely cries, so I typically just let him go and he falls asleep eventually. I notice on days he takes a longer or later nap he falls asleep much later... so I try and wake him from his nap after a certain time.

Maybe she's not be tired yet?... is she still taking 2 naps? If she is taking a 2nd late nap, she might not be tired. You could try moving her to one afternoon nap and see how it works. Also- I remember Evan's bedtime moving a bit later shortly after he turned 1. He had always gone to bed by 7-7:30, and around 14mo we had to switch it to 8ish. Some days he still goes down earlier, others later.

BelhurstBride · May 2011

We rock Stella to sleep but lately it's been taking a lot longer for her to drift off. I don't know if it's the day light (her room's obviously dark, but the whole house is light when we go into her room) or if she's going through something developmentally.

octoberbridesrule · May 2011

It was making me sad to hear DD cry when I put her down, so I just started (this week) rubbing her back when I put her in the crib. That has cut down on the crying for us. I only do that for about 5 minutes tops. And she is down to one nap a day. We used to do two naps of about 1 to 1.5 hours but now we do one big nap in the middle of the day anywhere from 2 to 3 horus.

TwoStrong · May 2011

Ladies,

DS was the perfect sleeper. Suddenly at 2yr 2months he climbed out of his pack and play while we were on vacation and since then our world has been a bit of a nightmare! This was last June. We can hardly believe the year we have had with this.

We had to make his crib into a toddler bed because he kept climbing out of the crib and would do it in the late night. Now he refuses to stay in the bed and runs around or comes into our bed all night. He also screams and fusses in the night without waking up so that wakes us but he keeps sleeping.

I have tried many suggestions, rewards systems, etc. I have eliminated his weekend nap and sometimes that works but not always.

So one night he will go through his nightly routine with grace, lay in his bed and quietly fall asleep and it is like a dream. Then the next night he will fight and kick his way off of his bed like it is full of nails or something.

I just wanted to share that I had a perfect sleeper gone bad. I noticed your babies were younger and hopefully they are not on the same track as DS!

sunnygirl05 · May 2011

Justin (almost 3) takes about 5 minutes to fall asleep. Dylan (16 months) is rocked to sleep every night. Normally we rock him about 10-15 minutes and he's asleep. We've been having a very difficult time with him though this past week, as he's waking up a lot after we put him down. I've done sleep training with him in the past. I let him CIO on tuesday and it worked well. He didn't wake up again. However, then last night he started waking up every 5 minutes. I don't like to let him CIO when he's sick and I think he may be gettting a cold. We caved a few times this week and brought him into bed with us. As soon as he comes into our bed he immediately stops crying and sleeps great. That makes me think he's smart and knows if he cries we'll bring him in with us. And it makes me think he's not crying because he doesn't feel well. If that were the case I'd think he wouldn't sleep well with us either.

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