Say my little one wakes up in the middle of the night and starts crying...the crying escalates and he becomes fully awake and starts screaming for "Mommy! Mommy!"
And mommy goes in and comforts him and lays down with him and he calms down and goes back to sleep.
But it's a repetitive pattern....would you continue to go in and comfort him or just let him exhaust himself?
My hearts breaks a thousand pieces when I hear him cry like that but I know he thinks of me as his "lovey" and when I'm not in there with him (he sometimes falls asleep on me and I am changing that habit as best as I can) he starts to cry and cry.
What would you do?
Re: Hello. I have a "scenario" question for you.
I would say CIO. It sounds like he needs to learn to help himself fall back to sleep without you. I did CIO with DD, but that was when she was a baby. I would imagine it would be a lot different if I did it now, or even at 21 months. Your LO knows a lot more now and knows that he wants you. I don't know if I could do that at this point. Hearing my DD cry for me and me not coming in would break my heart.
Nevermind. I'm no help. Sorry.
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ok....we'll see how it goes tonight.
Fingers crossed and thanks for the input!
"Wearing his BING CROSBY clothes and crooning...buuuh buuh buuuh"
I wouldn't cry it out, but that's me. It's not something I'm willing to do at this point.
I don't have a problem waking up to comfort LO so I don't see a point in changing anything. Cast aside your 'what am I supposed to do' thoughts and think about the situation and how you feel about it. If you're fine with the way things are, why change them? You have the rest of his life to change things, you don't have to rush into anything. But if you're tired, you're daily life is suffering, or his waking up is making you emotional, then look into sleep training methods.
Do what's best for you and your family, not what's best for anyone else. GL!
maybe give him a blanket to grab and cuddle with when he gets like that. idk. I hate to say CIO, because I could never do that. ESPECIALLY if DD would be crying out Mommy, mommy. No way could I do that. hmmmm, maybe you could just go in and comfort him, sing a song or something, pat his back (and not a full out cuddle), then leave him while he's still awake. If he cries, let him cry for 5 minutes (it's the middle of the night, he's probably really tired, maybe he'll go right to sleep).
If he is still up, try getting S/O to go in there to put him back to sleep. I did that a few times when DD was older cause it would take me an hour to get her back to sleep when she wasn't feeling good and wake up at night and it would take DH 5-10 minutes to get her back to sleep. I know he is probably playing you, but if you can't let him CIO, like I wouldn't be able to do, you gotta think of other ways to get him to go back to sleep.
Yep, at some point I would let him cry. I would definitely try to get him to love some object (even if it's just a t-shirt that smells like you).
At this point you should be fairly in-tune to his cries. . . so as long as he's not hurting (physically) or starting an illness or something, I would let him cry for a bit.
This. But as a PP said, we have bedshared since DS came home from NICU and I hate CIO, so take my opinion as you will....
Ditto. Especially if he calms back down/falls back asleep quickly when you go in.
I deal with this every night too.
I have just started spending less time comforting him. Unfortunately, things have gotten a little more drawn out now that he wants to go potty when he wakes up. But after I deal with potty, re-diapering and getting him dressed, I just put him back in bed and tell him it's still night time and he needs to go back to sleep.
Sometimes he cries, sometimes he doesn't. When he does, I feel it out and decide when/whether to go back in based on his crying.
What has made this work is that I don't ever spend more than a minute or two comforting him. I'll hug him over the crib railing, tell him he needs more sleep, lay him back down and leave.
It's great. I don't feel upset when he wakes up because I KNOW I won't be spending a lot of time getting him back to sleep. Going back to sleep is his job, I just make sure he knows I'm there, I love him, and I want him to get some sleep.
This.
My DD doesn't call out for 'mama' yet (even though she'll say it in other contexts) and I know when she does it'll be hard to resist...
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