Slee Training | Imamother

amother

Wed, Feb 03 2021, 11:28 am

Help!
I’ve been trying to sleep train my baby since he was 6 months old. He’s now a year and a half. I can only use a gentle approach as I can’t tolerate just leaving him to cry, especially without being in the room with him to soothe him. We weren’t settled in one place when corona hit and once we finally moved to a home in the summer, I’ve been sleeping in his room with his older brother (4 years old) to help them get used to that room and their beds. I took away night formula feeds from him as well but as soon as I left his room, he woke up continuously each night. No matter routine, or coming in to calm him down..he’s very attached to me. And going away for Shabbats to our parents makes it much harder as we’re in one room and I can’t let him cry it out at all so our parents don’t wake so I just give in and bring him to bed with me and then all the training I did at home goes to the garbage cause now he knows he can find his way back to me. I feel like he’ll never just stay in his crib and go back to sleep at this point and the sleep deprivation is getting to me. I feel like it’s just easier to bring him next to me so we can both sleep through the night but I’d really like to train him to sleep through the night on his own in his crib. Any advice?
Thanks in advance!

Rachel Shira

Wed, Feb 03 2021, 11:32 am

He needs to learn to fall asleep by himself at bedtime, if you don’t want him needing throughout the night. There are quicker or more gradual ways but at that age it’s guaranteed to include tears as it’s a big change for a toddler. If you don’t want to leave him to cry, you can try the method where you stay next to him for a couple nights, then gradually move farther away each night until you’re outside the room. But you need to stay in each spot for the whole night so he doesn’t get surprised when he wakes up and you’re not there.

yiddishmom

Thu, Feb 04 2021, 12:28 am

Regarding going to your parents:
Acknowledge that you will need to stay home for 2-3 weeks straight so that he can be trained properly before you go away. It's not fair to the child or yourself to go away while training....

Good luck! It's tough! So much easier to just give in when they cry... took me a while to push myself to train my little one.