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I need some sleep advice/research help

ahill1889ahill1889 member
in Attachment Parenting

My 21 month old will only sleep with me.  For a month or so she would get nursed to sleep, and then get moved into her toddler bed for the majority of the night.  In what was practically a mutual decision, she night-weaned (meaning she went a couple nights not doing any nursing, and then I couldn't let her because it hurt too much).  Now I'm lucky if she sleeps more than an hour or two in her bed, and especially the last week or so, I'm lucky if she's asleep for an hour or two at a time period. 

I'm due to have a baby mid-February, and am really concerned about how she will be when I deliver.  I am very much pro-bedsharing; but I do need some more space since she tends to flop in her sleep and will kick my stomach.  The kicker is she has NEVER gone to bed without me, and her father (who I've mentioned before) was so inconsistent with her that I'm the only thing she's ever had to rely on. 

I have NCSS, and have been reading it; but it really doesn't cover what to do if your child was neglected/abused by one parent when the other wasn't around.  I am seeing a psychologist and have been working on helping her get over her issues with men, but is there anything I can do to help her with sleep?  Any resources I can look into on helping her?  She's not sleeping well, I'm not sleeping well, and it's making it very difficult to be a good patient mommy at times.

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Re: I need some sleep advice/research help

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    TiffanyBerryTiffanyBerry member
    How does she do if she's on her own mattress, but it's on the floor in your room?
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    ahill1889ahill1889 member
    Her bed is in my room right next to mine.
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    jsugrinjsugrin member

    Are you able to vary up where her bed is? A room of her own, you taking the couch for a week or so if it's only a 1 bed apartment to help with some separation? Do you think she's waking up a lot more because of being in bed with you or do you think she's working on something developmentally that is interfering with her sleep?  If it's the being in bed with you, and I know my 2nd wakes tons when he sleeps with us while my oldest sleeps better in general when he's with us, but if she's not doing well than I would work on some sort of transition where you are farther apart at night.  It might be as simple as putting her bed right up against yours and talking a lot about her bed and your bed, that mama is right here but this your bed and this is mama's bed.  Then you could work on moving her bed farther away, or that alone might give you both the sleep you need. 

    My oldest was and still is our big bedsharer and we've gone through a lot of phases, only sleeping on me, only in our bed, sleeping better in his crib, staying in his bed until 5:30am and then cuddling with us until 7, going back to all night with us ect.  Through all of it I've found that when we want him out of our bed that we have the most success when we talk about it a lot.  So one night we'd start to prep him, tonight you're sleeping with mama and daddy but tomorrow after you fall asleep mama and daddy will go sleep in their bed/move you to your bed ect. Then during the day finding appropriate times to remind him, tonight at bedtime you can choose which bed we read books in but you are going to sleep in your bed and mama and daddy are going to sleep in their own bed.

    It was never a magic fix and often started with him part of the night on his own and part with us and then that lengthening to him all night or at least 95% of it in his own bed.

    Also, as hard as it is not to stress about the new baby coming, especially since it sounds as though you are on your own with them, so much will change between now and then.  Mine are 15 months apart and at 14 months #1 was still not STTN and I was a wreck about it, so much that we did an awful CIO that was terribly unproductive (it works for some kids, and I'm not anti CIO.  We did it with #2 and it worked beautifully in 2 nights).  We did everything and then bam, 2 weeks before #2 was born #1 started to STTN.  It was nothing we had done but he finally got all the last of his two year molars, so all baby teeth in and that is when he STTN.

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    ahill1889ahill1889 member
    imagejsugrin:

    Are you able to vary up where her bed is? A room of her own, you taking the couch for a week or so if it's only a 1 bed apartment to help with some separation? Do you think she's waking up a lot more because of being in bed with you or do you think she's working on something developmentally that is interfering with her sleep?  If it's the being in bed with you, and I know my 2nd wakes tons when he sleeps with us while my oldest sleeps better in general when he's with us, but if she's not doing well than I would work on some sort of transition where you are farther apart at night.  It might be as simple as putting her bed right up against yours and talking a lot about her bed and your bed, that mama is right here but this your bed and this is mama's bed.  Then you could work on moving her bed farther away, or that alone might give you both the sleep you need. 

    My oldest was and still is our big bedsharer and we've gone through a lot of phases, only sleeping on me, only in our bed, sleeping better in his crib, staying in his bed until 5:30am and then cuddling with us until 7, going back to all night with us ect.  Through all of it I've found that when we want him out of our bed that we have the most success when we talk about it a lot.  So one night we'd start to prep him, tonight you're sleeping with mama and daddy but tomorrow after you fall asleep mama and daddy will go sleep in their bed/move you to your bed ect. Then during the day finding appropriate times to remind him, tonight at bedtime you can choose which bed we read books in but you are going to sleep in your bed and mama and daddy are going to sleep in their own bed.

    It was never a magic fix and often started with him part of the night on his own and part with us and then that lengthening to him all night or at least 95% of it in his own bed.

    Also, as hard as it is not to stress about the new baby coming, especially since it sounds as though you are on your own with them, so much will change between now and then.  Mine are 15 months apart and at 14 months #1 was still not STTN and I was a wreck about it, so much that we did an awful CIO that was terribly unproductive (it works for some kids, and I'm not anti CIO.  We did it with #2 and it worked beautifully in 2 nights).  We did everything and then bam, 2 weeks before #2 was born #1 started to STTN.  It was nothing we had done but he finally got all the last of his two year molars, so all baby teeth in and that is when he STTN.

     

    Thanks!  That actually makes a lot of sense.  I'll give that a try.  She has a cold right now, so I'll have to wait a few days, but that's a great idea :)

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