How to unspoil/sleep train without driving others crazy?

amother

Sun, Feb 22 2015, 11:28 pm

My 2-year-old is very spoiled, partly out of convenience and partly because she truly seems devastated when she doesn't have her way and most of the time she's so sweet that everyone's inclined to just give in to her. But now she's older and it's getting out of hand, it seems clear that it's time to stop coddling the baby and put our feet down. It's been going OK, most of the time she cries for about a minute, sees I mean business, and stops crying - but moves on to demanding something else, which she will then cry for, etc, instead of moving on to be happy with what she got. Well, it's a little promising, though I worry it will be a long hard journey ahead with this... especially since sometimes I do give in if it seems it's something REALLY SUPER important to her. Because she does get like that, I feel it's just inhumane to refuse on principle when someone cares that much. But of course it sends the wrong message to the kid so I try to avoid this.

The real HUMONGOUS problem is sleep. It is driving me crazy. She is very stubborn/rigid/ritualistic in the way she sleeps. If she weren't 2 I'd worry about OCD or PANDAS but I'm inclined to think it's just a toddler thing. So this is a problem because 1 - she's tired at the time so not the best time to "train" anything, 2 - the rest of the family is trying to sleep (she falls asleep later, and also this is a problem again if/when she wakes in middle of the night which doesn't happen every night but often enough) so I can't "tough it out" and let her cry even if I wanted to or I'll have more waking (and later tired and grouchy) people to deal with, 3 - this seems to be one of those things that is THAT important to her that even if I put my foot down she won't give up on it.

To give you an idea of what I mean, she often decides that she can only fall asleep on top of me, in a very specific position that is somewhere between uncomfortable and painful, no matter how long it takes for her to fall asleep, and sometimes even when she appears to be deeply asleep she wakes up if I move and demands to return, so I am stuck this way uncomfortably for a while sometimes multiple times per night. That's besides the highly specific blanket/drink/doll arrangements which could be demanded even when she decides to go easy on my chest and stomach and goes to sleep in bed (that's MY bed, btw. Grumble. But she is transferable.) But I actually tried being firm about this a few times and it did not go well at all... she just got louder and pushier and more hysterical and of course no one else could fall asleep during this time, and she kept it up long enough that I caved. Yes, I confess, I caved, but what else was I to do?! Really I waited quite a while, and the whole city was going to hear her soon.

I did try substituting various forms of soothing. She is very stubborn and persistent and will not take compromises.

Ugh I'm so worn out from this. Help!

Mama Bear

Sun, Feb 22 2015, 11:53 pm

I have a similar situation in which I really need to wean my 18 month old but he's very stubborn. I can't afford having the whole family up at night. So I'm waiting for a quiet time when one of my kids will be away for a few days and I can use an empty room at the other end of the house for a few nights.

If you really want to work on the crying/night thing, do it in your room, so no one else gets disturbed, put noise machines in all the rooms,a nd maybe even your husband can sleep in a different room for the duration if it'll bolther him.

HUGS> it's hard. I know.

amother

Mon, Feb 23 2015, 12:17 am

Apt is too small, there IS no place where noise can't be heard.

There's also the part where I can't stand the idea of making my baby so miserable. I can handle making my kids miserable, lol, I can be a meanie sometimes, but when they seem to be really truly devastated/traumatized/hysterical I say this is just not right. I can put up with a lot of kvetching, tantruming, etc, but when the child looks like her heart is seriously broken because all her security and stability and comfort has been ripped away from her and she can't understand why... I just can't. Well, that's the problem at 7:00, anyway; when it's 2 AM she also I guess realizes that I will give in to her as soon as she raises the volume because I REALLY don't want anyone else awake at that hour (next kid older than her, if they wake up they never fall back asleep....)

I wish there were a way to do this without all the trauma!

Maybe a book. I did that when I weaned and it helped a lot, made up a looong story about the tiny little baby who had no teeth and could only drink milk and how she grew up and didn't need it anymore (the story went through every member of the family that way, lol) But I don't know how much of an impression it will make in this case. She is VERY stubborn about this. Also, I still had to do some crying it out by the weaning.

Mama Bear

Mon, Feb 23 2015, 9:13 am

I had to get my baby used to falling asleep daytime without nursing bc I'm on a medication he cant have in the milk. First time was torture. I put on a show on the computer and crammed earphones in my ears and went in to console him every 3 minutes. I think it didnt take more then 1 or 2 days for him to consent to being rocked to sleep as opposed to nursed to sleep (and then I could never transfer him to crib!)

It's gonna be rough the first one or two times. So try it at first by day when no one is home. and block your emotions by watching/listening to something between consoling sessions.

((HUGS))