Two hours it’s taken me tonight to get the toddler to sleep. TWO HOURS and now I’ve got to somehow get my dinner, tidy up, get stuff ready for the morning and do some work and it’s already past 9pm. I don’t have a clue how to improve the situation and I’m mega stressed by it as James is away for a week on Saturday and I know how stressed I am with just one night of it on my own tonight. Sleep help needed!
She naps fine in the middle of the day, after her lunch we take her up cuddle her for a few minutes, put her down in her cot drowsy and that’s it, she sleeps for at least an hour. If it takes more than 10 minutes you are unlucky. I have no idea why bedtime is so different. Getting her babygrow on tonight she was crying with tiredness wanting her milk, eyes rolling as she drank it and then it took two hours for her to finally go to sleep. She’s got into the habit of wanting to hold your hand, our own fault through nights and nights of sleep deprivation, sticking a hand through the bar of the cot to settle her. She likes to hold on in the day even when she has hurt herself or is sleepy and she sucks her own lip. I don’t mind this but sitting next to the cot for 2 hours with your hand through the bars every now and then lying her back down when she sits up is soul destroying. She doesn’t cry unless you leave her which we don’t like to do, can’t do as it breaks my heart.
She wakes at least twice if not more in the night so we don’t even get a solid nights sleep and neither does she. We’ve tried the same routine every night, tried a sleeping bag, no sleeping bag a comforter, music, white noise pacing the room, pulling our own hair out and generally everything you can think of to get her to sleep. I don’t know if it’s to do with her allergies or if her reflux is still bothering her. We took her off her meds as the pediatrician said how bad they were for her long term. I don’t know if it is that though as she naps in the day ok. I really don’t have a clue on how to improve the situation and don’t know how much longer we can keep doing it for. When I’m on my own its extra hard as the boys need sorting out too, they end up going off to sleep with no story and me not saying good night as I’m trapped with their sister, my hand through the bars of the cot and a numb bum.
If you have any words of advice please, please send them my way.
I wish I had a magic solution for you lovely. Thankfully Toby’s really good at going down, it’s staying there that he sucks at doing! We find it good to get Toby in his pj’s about 30 mins before his bedtime, then he can keep playing for another 10-15 minutes then it’s teeth, stories in his room and bed. He’s only a couple of months older and this has been working for us for a while now. Definitely worth exploring the possibility of her reflux playing up too, again we’ve had this with Toby a few weeks ago and a small dose of Gaviscon with his evening milk was enough to settle him. I hope something works for you, it’s so, so tough xx
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Oh bless you! Like you say, soul destroying. We had a tricky patch of bedtime recently where T didn’t want me to leave. Our current answer is that’s she’s allowed to have one book in bed (board or cloth) to read to bunny and flopsy. It takes her between 1-2hrs to go to sleep but she plays pretty happily until she conks out! Hope it sorts itself out soon. X