Sleep? What the heck is that?

[Condogg138]

I'm guessing this has probably been brought up in this forum before but I'm new and haven't read through every post. I'm reaching my breaking point. I have a 16 month old who I can count on 1 hand the number of times she's slept through the night. She will usually go down around her bed time which is around 7:30-8. She'll sleep usually until around 10:30 and then is up screaming for my wife and I. I make my wife stay in bed and sleep because she's also 7 1/2 months pregnant and I want her to get all the rest she can. I end up on the couch with my daughter after that usually and she may or may not sleep through the night then. I know there's many schools of thought on this and some say just leave them in the crib and let them cry until they just realize they should just go to bed and other will tell you that's horrible and whatever. 

 

All that being said, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has dealt with this and I was hoping people had tips or whatever on how to help them sleep through the night or how not to completely lose my sanity as I've been consistently getting 2-4 hours of sleep with a night of 5-6 mixed in here or there.

 

[calanthrophy]

My first question would be WHY your daughter is waking up and/or why she's screaming for you instead of going back to sleep. You may not know the answers (kids are weird like that) but if you have any information at all as to what the cause is of her waking up and (I assume this part by the way you phrased it) becoming upset, that would help us advise you.

[TempestTiffy]

My daughter was a horrible sleeper after she caught German measles. First off accept that working towards change will suck and take time. Cry it out has been worse than useless with my strong willed child and we must stick to our routines or she senses weakness and the next week is hell trying to get back into routine. 

What worked for us. Consistently calm her down and take her back to her own bed. Make it as boring as possible. Settle her and leave her. Over and over and over again. eventually she'll get the idea that this isn't fun. We used the phrase 'mummy/daddy will be back in one minute'  we'd return then 'mummy/daddy will be back in 2 minutes' and stretch it out longer and longer. Eventually we'd go in and she'd be asleep. Now i only say it once and she'll fall asleep before i return. We also gave our daughter a bit of independence that allows her to self settle to some extent. she has a touch on lamp. She has some teddies and books that we encourage her to look at if she wakes up or cuddle if shes scared. We leave the night light on which was something i wasn't keen on but relented in order to get some rest. It took us weeks to teach her to go to sleep at a reasonable time and stay there but now as long as we stick to routine we're good. 

Every kid is different but this worked for us. Also check things like, temperature in her room, white noise (my kid loved rain noise as a bub), lighting, having a special toy. it's hard because I'm not sure how well your 16 month old can verbalise what her problem is. 

[noxiousGnome]

When my daughter was around that age (16 months) she wouldn't sleep in her crib at all. We had one of those foldout little couches you can find at like walmart for children. She would sleep on that. So what we did was lay her down and cover her with blankets in the living room which had a dimming lightbulb. After that the wife and I would go crash in bed. WIthin a half hour she was out. There was a short period of time in the winter that due to the temps in the majority of the house (we didn't have heating ducts but a coal stove that would head the main part of the house but not the bedrooms) we would all sleep in the living room in a swarm of blankets. It wasn't an easy thing to do, especially after the winter went away and she needed to start sleeping in her own bed.

 

It was then that I removed the crib front and converted it into a daybed and she was able to climb in and out of her bed with no problems. We would drop a movie in for her and tell her it was night night time. That still works to this day now. We have moved and the move was tough to get used to her sleeping again, but nowadays we put on something like little Einsteins, Bo on the Go, or Octonauts... Or whatever else she wants to watch (We try to not do bo on the go as it is a fairly energetic tv show), we turn on a fish lamp we use as a night light, shut off the big light in her room and turn on her fan. She is usually out when 15 minutes. 

 

In all seriousnes though you need to find something that works for you and your family.

[Hammlin]

Is she eating enough fats and starches at dinner? My son is 14 mos and his sleep blows if he only has fruit and milk. So much so that we stopped offering fruit at dinner to keep him from filling up on that. 

 

I also second the idea of making it incredibly boring and calm. 

 

We also leave music music on all night and have a space heater and humidifier. To each his own I think with those. 

 

Good of luck to you!