We’ve transitioned our 1yo out of our bed and to their own cot. We had to co-sleep after they puked on their old cot and refused to sleep at all once it was cleaned. Every time we’ve gotten them used to the cot something messes it up like travelling etc. but it’s finally looking like something stable.
I was amazed the other night because it was the first time ever we didn’t need to hold a hand or pat them to sleep, I could just lay them down in bed and watched them drift off.
The sleep is a little better but still not sleeping through the night and also constantly sick from daycare so they keep waking up cause of the coughing. When they were with us it was a lot easier to put the pacifier back in and go back to sleep but now we have to get out of bed to send them back to sleep.
Then there’s also the night feeds… we’re still doing a 10:30pm bottle and another bottle anywhere from 3am to 7am, it all depends on how much they ate during the day. Which they’ve now decided they don’t like any of the food we make even though it’s exactly the same stuff that would be at daycare. Which then prolongs the cycle of not eating enough and needing night feeds and then not eating much because there was milk overnight. I feel like we have to cut the night feeds somehow but it feels really cruel to starve them when they’re used to it…
I just hope getting them to their own bed will be a positive turning point and we’ll actually be sleeping through the night soon. I know other people have it worse but everyone I talk to directly has babies that sleep from 8pm to 8am with no stirring and no bottle, it’s making me feel like I’m messing something up. Overall still feels like we’re taking positive steps though.
Thanks for reading the rant.
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everyone I talk to directly has babies that sleep from 8pm to 8am with no stirring and no bottle
That is fantasy talk by those people.
As a long term nanny and now a parent myself, I’ve had exactly ONE charge out of 22 + my own child who can sleep 8 hours with no bottle. He stirs but puts himself back to sleep silently and if you aren’t watching a video monitor, you’d have no idea that he had stirred.
But if you ask The Mister about our own child, he’d swear our own kid sleeps twelve hours with no bottle and no stirring. That’s because THE MISTER sleeps twelve hours and wouldn’t hear a smoke alarm, much less the child stir. So I agree with you to consider the source and that it is very likely fantasy talk.
Which they’ve now decided they don’t like any of the food we make even though it’s exactly the same stuff that would be at daycare.
Are you judging this based on dinner? Ask any pediatric dietician and they will tell you that toddlers and preschoolers are quite likely to skip dinner. It might not be the food but the fact that there is a meal at that hour which is the issue. The recommendation is to serve a full meal afternoon snack and then consider dinner a bonus meal if they even eat it at all.
Which then prolongs the cycle of not eating enough and needing night feeds and then not eating much because there was milk overnight. I feel like we have to cut the night feeds somehow but it feels really cruel to starve them when they’re used to it…
Trust your instincts. It is biologically normal for children to have one or two night feeds up until age 3. Though at some point you can start leaving “the offering” (a bowl of food you are comfortable cleaning up left in their room for them to eat from overnight without waking you, such as a bowl of cheerios).
The sleep is a little better but still not sleeping through the night
Unless you get extremely lucky, plan on your child not sleeping through the night until age 3. Instead, focus on teaching them what is appropriate for them to do by themselves when they wake in their room. You’ll sleep through the night and they will wake, play with some toys, and put themselves back to sleep and everyone will thrive and be happy.
OK. I recently had to go thru a lot of this and here’s my experiences. Every child is different… But there are some points here I think I can help with.
- night feedings. Talk to your Dr. if you don’t believe me. But I asked ours when our baby was 6 months old. The Dr. said that the baby was completely possible of sleeping thru the night - they did not need extra food in the night. They just wanted it. That’s fine … but it seems like that is affecting their sleep.
- location. Both of our kids slept better outside of our room. Noticeably so. I think us turning in our sleep or snoring is what triggered them to wake up. From tossing and turning and waking up to going much longer before wakeups. I subscribe to the view that your job as a parent is to minimize sadness in the long term - and sleep training does that - you have a bad week and at the end of it you’re kid can sleep in a room by themselves.
- sleep training - The goal being that your kid knows that their bed is a safe place to fall asleep - and to do that they need to fall asleep there by themselves. Wait until they’re sleepy, almost falling asleep, place into bed, pat pat on back for 10 seconds, then leave. Let them cry. Wait 10 mins and come back, comfort, get breathing even. Then place back in bed and let cry. Repeat a few times and they fall asleep. A few nights of that should be enough as long as you stick to the schedule.
- when child was 6-9 months, we did the transition to falling asleep by themselves. At first we got 8 to 3 am. Wife was doing night feeding, just to let children sleep so that she could go back to sleep quicker. Once we quit that by me stepping in instead at nights, child stopped waking up in middle of night. We were getting kid to sleep for 8-5. Now at almost 1 yr we’re getting 8-630.
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most babies do their highest caloric intake at night because it is the lowest stimulation time. While it is possible to have them fast all night long, it isn’t in their best interests because their stomach has a fixed size and simply cannot hold enough calories to get them through the nightly brain growth without a meal. Can vs should. And also, that pediatrician needs to attend some continuing education.
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the fact that children sleep less well in the room with the parents is EXACTLY WHY roomsharing is recommended to prevent SIDS. Cannot die in deep sleep if you never get to deep sleep. Sleep apart at your own risk. And on that note, almost every single SIDS prevention tip is designed to give your child sh-tty sleep in order to prevent sleeping deeply because you cannot die in deep sleep if you never get to deep sleep; it is by design. Ask me sometime how I feel about that.
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sleep training doesn’t teach them that their bed is safe to sleep in. It teaches children that parents don’t want to hear them cry. There have been objective studies that find that children night wake the exact same amount whether sleep trained or not. Absolutely no difference whatsoever. But the sleep trained children wake silently. So this one is one where the benefit is to the child from having a well rested adult caregiver. But the child doesn’t learn anything from it other than to shut up.
- Babies yes. I don’t think 1 year olds like the op are in that category. Both I and my friend with a baby recently asked our separate pediatricians that question - and they both responded with what I said.
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/sids-risk-by-age. The highest risk is 1 to 4 months old. That’s not op. This is about assessing risk vs other risks - like PPD and health of the parents. It’s ok for you to take that risk assessment one way and others to do differently.
- what I’ve heard is the same - there’s no difference in sleep trained vs other babies at the end of the day. So another way of saying that you can balance the impact on the parents and baby. We needed to do that for us. It’s ok if you didn’t need to.
Re: sleep training, they have shown that sleep trained babies, while they cry less at night (i.e the training), they have higher cortisol levels at night. Additionally, recent research has suggested that it may have an effect on attachment.
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