Long story short- DD is 2 and half. In a big-girl bed. Goes down easy, the a few hours later wants to come to my bed. Last few nights she has gotten up every.half.hour and only wants me. I can't do this every night. Help?
My gut tells me I am taking care of her emotional well being by listening to her needs. My sleep is telling me this is nuts. My husband is telling me this is nuts. I don't know what to tell myself anymore...
Re: pls pls pls I NEED YOUR HELP
This. We put DS to bed in his own toddler bed, too, but he always wakes up a few hours later and comes to bed with us. We don't mind, we love snuggling with him.
If you're not against co-sleeping for part of the night, just let her come to your bed. Then you're comforting her and getting yourself right back to sleep. It's worked great for us.
I think you need to determine why she is waking so frequently. DS1 always get clingy with horrible sleep when he is sick or had bad sleep patterns or something new is happening. If I get him to nap well, go to bed well, healthy, etc. he sleeps great. Sometimes I did think about CIO when we had so many days/weeks of bad sleep. But I'm glad I didn't push it because his poor sleep was related to something he was going through.
That said, I have done The Sleep Lady Shuffle to help him go to sleep on his own and fall back asleep on his own for naps. DH sleeps with him at night. DS1 did have some tears when we were doing the sleep lady, but it was only for a couple of minutes and we were constantly reassuring him. We also started when he was 22 months. It has helped him be a little more independent with sleep.
If you are not sleeping well and resentful of LO, then it's hard to be patient and your best as a mom. If you feel that sleep training might be helpful, I would look into doing something more gentle like The Sleep Lady Shuffle. GL!
I think this is a snotty way to put this. Yes finding the cause may help her but she can not care for anyone else if she is not able to function herself. She is clearly doing a great job but needs some advice.
Good lucky, mine is to little for me to have any advice.
I was always crawling into bed with my parents and even sleeping in bizarre places. I have a few problems but my worst is panic attacks so maybe there is a larger underlying reason she is coming to you at night.
Mommy loves you Eevee!
<a href="http://s834.photobucket.com/albums/zz270/cpali/?action=view
If you don't mind her coming into your bed for part of the night, can you teach her to come in quietly? I did this with Ari - I basically told him "I don't mind if you come to mommy's bed @ night, but you need to come in on your own & not wake me up. When you wake mommy @ night I get grumpy & can't play the next day."
The first 2 nights I let him whine/fuss/cry for about 2 minutes until he came down to our room. That was it. Most nights he doesn't come down till 4 or 5 a.m., but if he's sick or something it could be as early as 1 or 2. I could honestly care less where he sleeps as long as I'm not woken up repeatedly every night, so it works for us.