If you put your LO down awake, come in!

AnotherPreggo · July 2013

So, DD screams the second she goes into her crib, will calm down a bit, but then when I walk awake she scream bloody murder for probably 5 minutes before falling asleep. I cannot rock her to sleep... I literally have spent hours trying and it just doesn't work. My grandma made me feel like crap when she was over, telling me that DD is going to hate bedtime because she will think of it as a punishment, yadda yadda. I started to wonder if this was true. Maybe DD will end up hating her crib... she always wakes up crying. But then I wonder if it is just her separation anxiety. Anyone else dealing with this?

hilsy85 · July 2013

So she cries for 5 minutes but then falls asleep? That doesn't sound that bad at ALL--sounds really normal actually! Some kids need to release tension before going to sleep, and a lot do it by crying...or am I missing something else? Are you trying to find a way to get her to not cry at ALL?

LO fusses sometimes when he goes down awake, and sometimes will cry for a minute or two..we sleep trained, so I let him fuss up to 10-15 min as long as he's not screaming/hysterical and seems like he's trying to fall asleep.

AnotherPreggo · July 2013

No you aren't missing anything... my grandma just got me paranoid that DD will hate bedtime. I guess I started overthinking it all

( She made me start thinking.. yeah, she does wake up screaming... maybe she hates her crib... maybe she hates bedtime... ahhh. Just started feeling like a bad mom!

NoelBird · July 2013

I put LO down awake, sometimes he doesn't cry at all, others he cries 2-10 mins. What has helped decrease his crying is helping him to calm down and decompress before we put him down. When I can tell he is tired I hold him and we listen to nursery rhymes for a couple minutes before I put him down. Sometimes he still cries but much less than before I figured this out.

hilsy85 · July 2013

No you aren't missing anything... my grandma just got me paranoid that DD will hate bedtime. I guess I started overthinking it all ( She made me start thinking.. yeah, she does wake up screaming... maybe she hates her crib... maybe she hates bedtime... ahhh. Just started feeling like a bad mom!

Ah ok...mom guilt! That I understand I wouldn't stress about it...your LO will not hate bedtime and does not hate her crib. My LO also wakes up screaming sometimes, I think it just has to do with where they are in their sleep cycles when they wake up.

GraysMama104 · July 2013

I used to be able to put him down totally wide awake and he wouldn't even fuss, would just sit there and look around and then close his eyes. That stopped about a month ago maybe. We went away for a week for Memorial Day and just went away for a week about 3 weeks ago. I think those totally jammed up his bed time and sleep schedule.

I've been so stressed out about his sleep and nap schedule for months now

Mrs_Lady · July 2013

wow i'm not sure how to even do any of this... I hope he learns soon though

clrgrdfrk · July 2013

DD will let me rock her to sleep for naps but if I rock her to sleep at bedtime she'll wake up a lot during the night. We do one last bottle, a bottle, a little song and I put her down in her crib. She will move around a bunch until she decides it's sleepy time. Some nights 5 minutes, last night, it was like 30 minutes. But on the nights that she falls asleep on her own, it seems she sleeps a lot better than when I rock her to sleep.

Ssssoooo... OP, keep doing what you're doing. Sounds right to me.

pb_bride · July 2013

I agree that 5 minutes of crying isn't bad. Does your DD have a lovey? sometimes that helps DS. Also, I try to have some "play time" in the crib every now and then; say after I change him I put him in his crib w/his fav stuffed animal while I go wash my hands. I hope that by doing this, he won't have a negative association with his crib.

opaque1997 · July 2013

Well a few notes.. 1) most kids around this age don't like to be separated and going to sleep (with or without you) is separating. 2) Most kids around this age want to be crawling, pulling up, playing, eating, exploring, trying new things.. sleeping is OLD NEWS and boring. So I honestly think they protest that 3) Em used to scream / cry for all sleeps - it depends now on how tired she is - what she was doing - how wound up she is, etc. So .. my point? My baby doesn't see her crib as a bad thing - and she used to SCREAM every put down and wake up.. in fact last night she was fussing and carrying on before bed time and then stopped immediately when I put her in bed - she wanted to sleep and was PISSED I was not letting her do it!

hpoff33 · July 2013

I put our son down awake. He usually falls asleep while he is nursing and then I wake him up a bit before I lay him down. He will cry for 5-10 mins. and then goes to sleep. I read somewhere that you should try and spend time playing in a babies room so that they look at it as a safe and happy place - not just somewhere they are changed and forced to go to bed. I really thought that was great advice.

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