Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

Ds is 3months and has a hard time sleeping alone! He needs to be rocked to sleep, only wants to sleep on me. If I put him in the crib or swing after he falls alseep, he either cries right away or only sleeps for a short time. If he sleeps on me or in bed with us at night he sleep sooooo long!

My question is... if your baby did this, do they eventually learn to sleep on their own? Or will I have a terrible sleeper for life! I dont mind holding and rocking him at all, but I worry this will continue on (forever?)

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

You have FM

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

anyone?

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

I don't believe it will be for life...so don't worry! It'll all be okay but in the meanwhile your concern is valid.

I'll try not to ramble too much here but maybe something will help:

From the beginning I noticed that my son slept best and longest in the swing but at 4 weeks I also noticed his torticollis so at 5 weeks we had to take him out of the swing cold turkey. Very hard and what wound up happening was that while he would sleep in the crib we had to rock him to sleep and then put him in.

This went on until about 10 months old. Fortunately he would fall asleep in our arms and we could transfer him without any problems. He would sleep pretty sound and when he was younger only wake once to eat. But at 10 months he would wake as soon as we put him down. So I decided to give CIO another shot (I failed misserably in the beginning) and sure enough that worked wonderfully.

So now at 1 year we give him his bottle while rocking (will be moving away from that soon too) and when he is done he cuddles up with us and is rocked for 10 - 15 minutes...then he goes down in the crib. It's a 50/50 - sometimes he goes down asleep and stays asleep and other times he goes down awake and cries for a few minutes (no more than 5 now) and then grabs his teddy and goes to sleep.

When we are out he can fall asleep very easily in his carseat or stroller and at daycare he can independently fall asleep in his crib if the other kids are sleeping. But at home we follow the routine above. Mostly because I miss him so much and want to hold him. I'm trying to create a balance with the CIO so that he isn't completely dependent on me to sleep...so far I feel it's a good balance.

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

DS was a poor sleeper from the get go. He either slept on us in one manner or another...at some point he decided that his crib was a much more comfortable place to be and will now just fall asleep on his own every night...

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

my dd is 14 months old. I rocked her to sleep for the 1st 12 months, it was our quiet time and I treasured it

Then as she got older, she began to resist my rocking so I now just put her right into her crib, she wines / cries for less than 5 minutes and then falls asleep

I think at this age, you can continue to rock her to sleep, good luck

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

Things definitely change so you may not have a terrible sleeper. My DD used to just sleep on us or in the bouncy chair and now she is an awesome sleeper. She is a toddler now but she started sleeping great at about 6 months. Now I can't get her to sleep with me for anything---she just won't do it.

When she was an infant, I used to take my shirt off and put it in the crib with her so she would feel like she was with me. It really worked!!

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

Heh. We co-slept with both of our sons. And it wasn't a picnic getting them into their own beds - but I think that it was more because we were lazy and afraid of how they would react to being away from us.

They stopped sleeping in our beds completely 2 years ago when we moved into the house. Like everything else with them it was just a complete and clean cut off. We told them they had 20 minutes cuddle time with us and then they went to their own bed NO MATTER WHAT. The first few nights were definitely rough - crying and having to go in and check on them 100 bajillion times (especially Noah who was only 2.5 at the time) - but it worked out.

Both of my guys are great sleepers who sleep in their own beds with no issues at all now.

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

my son slept with us for years. he's 5.5 now. he's been in his own bed all night now for about 6 months. but for hte last yer and a half he went to bed in his own bed, just travelled part way through the night. he also decided to stay in his bed, we never forced it, one night he just didn't come into out room.

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

Posted by stephanief

my dd is 14 months old. I rocked her to sleep for the 1st 12 months, it was our quiet time and I treasured it

Then as she got older, she began to resist my rocking so I now just put her right into her crib, she wines / cries for less than 5 minutes and then falls asleep

I think at this age, you can continue to rock her to sleep, good luck

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

any other moms experience baby only wanting to sleep on mommy and grow out of that???

Re: Need help from moms of toddlers / older kids....

My son slept terribly until he was six months old. At six months old we started controlled crying, now he is two and a half and he is an awesome sleeper! Bedtime is a breeze.

The only constant with babies is change, so what happens now, is no indication of what your child is going to be like in a few weeks, or a few months time!