hello wise ones,
just when i think i know something, just when i think .
we're moving ahead, i realise i know nothing and i feel like i'm going to be here forever. please god, when is this going to end? i'm so tired and i don't feel like i can do this anymore. of course i know i have to, i have no choice. i won't let him cio, i won't do control crying.

this morning he was up at 5am (after an appalling night), he played & nursed in our bed until 7:30am (i just couldn't wake up fully, i couldn't get out of bed. i finally got to sleep at 1am, had one block of an hr and was woken every 30-45min until 5am).

so, up from 5am... eventually he got tired and curled up next to me and fell asleep at 7:30am. i was worried this would mess up all his naps for the day, so decided to get him up and have some solids. i wanted to keep him up 'til 9am. we can get back on track from 9am, even though his usual nap time is more toward 10:00am.
so i did our pre-nap routine and everything was fine.

then i got brave and decided to try something new. i fed him to drowsy and popped him down in the cot in a sitting position. my hope was he would lie down of his own accord. NOT! he woke up and thus began an hour of trying to get him back to sleep. then after many tears shed by us both, he went to sleep for a grand total of 35min. not the hour & twenty min he's been doing.

what would you have done?

love&light

Hi! s to you! It is so hard during the phase when babies wake up at 5am. I just personally went with it and got up and took my DS for a walk, and decided to wait this phase out... it went away eventually. Sometimes we'd be exhausted and we'd put a Baby Einstein DVD on repeat play and gave our DS toys to play with... it was in our bedroom, so obviously we could hear the video, but at least we could just lie there.

As for putting my DS down drowsy, I always laid down with him.... even now if he doesn't just pass out on his own (which he does sometimes... he even will sometimes say he wants to go to bed and go up on his own), then when we do the full bedtime routine, both my DH and I stay after stories until DS is completely asleep... partly because we think he's horribly cute and we love to watch him fall asleep, and partly because even now at 3 1/2 years old he may sit straight up and freak out if we leave when he's not totally asleep yet. In fact I e-mailed Pantley about this at one point (it may even be in the "extra tips" sticky) and she said she doesn't know many children even up to 4 or so years old that can fall asleep from drowsiness. What I feel I read in NCSS for toddlers and preschoolers is more of a relaxed sense of how to go through this whole process... less of a sense that this whole thing can be wrapped up in a few 10 day sessions... it's a really hard thing to learn how to sleep and I still see my DS go through weird phases where he'll be up until 11pm, or where in the middle of the night (around 2 years old after having slept through the night great for a year) he desperately and relentlessly screeched about NEEDING to watch Finding Nemo or Shrek for hours, which he doesn't do now thank goodness... and he would wake like this every night for weeks... and once they are 2 or so in a normal bed, there's no CIO because you can't make them stay in the crib. You could lock their door but that starts to seem very abusive and creepy to me to lock a child in a dark room.

Another thing about the 5am thing which is interesting is that someone I know has a little 14 month old who has woken up consistently for months at 5am or even earlier... and she has tried a lot to use CIO and it doesn't work either. Basically it's something that happens during the process of sleep patterns changing... if they start skipping one of the wake up times, then somewhere else in the course of hte night, something else sometimes happens such as waking up super early. Because of this part of the process, it can seem like things are getting worse, but really it just shows that changes are slowly starting to emerge and something is working... but it all takes time (eg it took my DS 5-6 months using NCSS to get him to sleep through the night... and even then sometimes he'd have weird relapses like the ones mentioned above) so it's frustrating.. but eventually it gets better if you just keep doing the bedtime routines and have the tips like white noise, and darkness for night wakings... I just love that I'm teaching my DS skills to get himself to sleep that will work for his whole life... bedtime routines are recommended for anyone who needs help at any stage of life, so it's a great system to share with little ones to give them such a good start...

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Attachment Parenting

What would I have done? I would have done exactly the same as you - except dd is now 22 months old and I've learnt my lesson - never mess with naps!!! I have never managed to get dd to settle herself for naps. Our routine at the moment is that she either falls asleep in the car on the way back from a morning out or we go for a walk with the buggy. Occassionally (sp?) I can get her to fall asleep on my lap while I sing but it has to be timed perfectly! I have tried sometimes to lay her down drowsy, but as you said she is straight back up, there's just too much going on. Then the moment is lost, I get frustrated etc etc.... Now I don't bother. I concentrate on getting her to settle herself at night, which is a lot easier as she is properly tired, it's dark and she's had a good long bedtime routine. My advice is, just do whatever it takes to get him to sleep during the day and concentrate on bedtime instead.

As for the 'many tears shed by both' - I've so been there!! It's taken me a long time, but now I just try and relax about it all. As I said in my other post to you, I read the Science of Parenting book and now feel completely confident in the way I'm bringing up my dd (I didn't realise it, but I think in the back of my mind before I did keep thinking that maybe everyone was right and I was bringing all this on myself) As soon as I relaxed, dd relaxed and things got better. Babies / children can sense if you're anxious and that makes things worse. She still doesn't regularly sleep through the night, but bedtime is easy (bath, stories and then I sing her to sleep in her cot) and night wakings are easy too - we just sit on the chair and cuddle until she falls asleep. Some nights are terrible (she has got about 6 teeth in the past few weeks) and some nights are fine, but we're getting there.

I completely agree with what Zennifer says about this being a long term strategy too. When I first started posting on this board I remember Zennifer saying that now her son was older her friends were asking her for advice about their child's sleep as the CIO didn't work for toddlers. At the time I thought, Ha! can't ever see that happening to us! Well, no-one's asked my advice but I have heard various stories about bedtimes from friends, and ours sounds easy! Some have children who hate bedtime and cry and cry. I would much rather have the gentle stories, singning and cuddling that dd and I have.

It will all work itself out in the end I promise. It just takes time and a lot of working out. If you read back over some of my posts you'll see how frustrated and tired I was. Well, for the past few weeks I had been cuddling dd to very nearly asleep before laying her in her cot at night. The past couple of nights, I've turned the lights down as usual and my dd, instead of wanting to cuddle me, has pointed to her cot and said 'In bed!' I laid her down, sand some songs and she went straight to sleep!! So, things do get better. Just keep thinking of the bigger picture.

goddesses both!
thank you both so much for your wisdom and continued support. i'm just so tired, i'm really not thinking straight and relaxing seems like the hardest thing to do. & i can't talk to anyone about this, even my dh is off limits now. if he knew how bad each night really is, i feel he could be on the edge of giving in to the radical cio enthusiasts. i won't let that happen, so that would mean i would have to shift beds & sleep in another room with my ds and that's a path i don't want to go down. i'm really scared at the moment. things are getting worse at night, early wakings now & worse naps (funny to think 5 months ago i didn't think things could possibly get worse, ha ha). of course i know you're right about relaxing & i'm trying to bring... i just trailed off, i have no idea what i was about to write. i just hope i have the endurance to get through this marathon. every time i write something like that, i always come back to 'i have no choice'. i have to stick it out because my ds needs me to. he needs to not be left in a dark room, crying and alone, i can't do that to him. that thought makes me pull him closer into me at night and cuddle him extra tight. he deserves more from me. maybe things will get better when he starts walking?!?
now i'm just raving on like a lunatic.
today i'm exceptionally tired. all this worsening sleep stuff is co-inciding nicely with the emergence of his 'will' and attempts at defiance.
lord, give me strength.
i thank god for you both and this forum.
wish me luck.
baby steps. we'll get there one day... i may arrive insane and unwashed, but we'll get there.

love&light and thanx

Love&light--I am so amazed by your courage. This is all so challenging and I feel your pain so to speak because the night time and day time is such an effort for me too, plus when you're so tired you can't even form a complete sentence to tell anyone how hard it is. It's extra hard when you know that the CIO's are out there, promising a quick fix, when really it isn't. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for sharing. In the middle of the night, I think to myself that I am not alone, I am not the only one trying to love and do what's best for my child, that there are other mothers out there doing the same thing. I read somewhere, "Every time you judge yourself you break your heart." I'm trying to remember that as I walk through the world. Thanks for being out there. You can do this. We can do this. It's the right thing.
Love to you,
Mountain Dancing

oh... mountain dancing...
i'm speechless. tears are welling in my eyes from... the only thing i can think of is the word 'sisterhood'. thank you!!!
yes, you are not alone and tonight i don't feel so alone either.
my ds and i had a serious talk about our ds' sleep and it wasn't a wholly positive affair. cio loomed, i managed to keep it at bay.
i feel so buoyed by your letter, your existence. it IS right for us and i'm so happy to know it's right for you too. it can be lonely & easy to doubt yourself when you feel you're standing alone with the world (it can seem that way) against you. you're right, it takes courage. i don't feel very courageous, but we are aren't we. sticking to our convictions, that is courageous.
i haven't had a chance to read your post before writing this, but no matter what your situation, i wish you much support & hugs & sisterhood
love&light