“Often parents let the child fall asleep and then leave after the child is asleep. This can create a hyper-vigilance in the child, especially if the child is undergoing a natural phase of separation anxiety.”

What do you suggest as an alternative? We are not co-sleeping but my almost 13 month old has, at various times, been able to put herself to sleep after our bed or nap time routine. Unlike these babies though my daughter has never been a “terrific” sleeper. She’s never slept through the night and regularly cat naps. That said she is usually fairly happy so I’m comfortable that she’s getting enough sleep.

We went through a recent rough patch of travel followed by illness followed by cutting four teeth. For two weeks she would only fall asleep if held, and I’ve progressed to letting her chat herself to sleep while I lie on the floor. I’m now most of the way out of the room and she usually falls asleep within 15 min of me setting her in her crib. This is the only way I’ve been able to get her to sleep in a manner that seems to be progressing in the right direction and still allows me to have a little down time.

I talk her through everything we are going to do and I do a pretty decent job of preparing her, so my next step is to prepare her for me to leave the room after I set her down. But I definitely leave the room after she falls asleep currently so I’m not sure what you would suggest I do differently??

But after a long overseas trip where he was ill and teething and needed the breast a lot for food (he stopped eating solids) and woke up continuously at night so slept with us and breast fed all night, and since he could then stand in the cot and now walks.. I tried for weeks to get him to self settle in cot and then took dummy away (perhaps bad timing) and then it was becoming so stressful that i started to breast feed him to sleep.

But i want to teach him to self settle. Hes getting a bit better at lying down in cot with me there by the cot but eventually stands and cries. And he wont settle with rocking in arms it has to be whilst breast feeding. Some say i should just breast feed him and when i go back to work next week or want to go out just let me husband use a bottle.

Others say let him cry for 5 min with me out of the room and go in every 5 minutes to reassure then leave fir 10 minutes at a time. But we hate haring him cry… It seems do wrong to leave him… I cant do this anymore. I feel i am doing a half half approach of trying in cot then eventually giving up after an hour and breast feeding him to sleep. Please help. What should my next step be??

He is still on 2 sleeps but i think he is transitioning to 1 perhaps as sometimes only 1 sleep and recently two 45 min sleeps, even in morning when he seems soo tired.

Thank you
Danielle

So I’m wondering whether some babies just have inbuilt alarm clocks for super early in the morning or whether I have created this situation??

Update! What seems to be working at the moment is a reduced waketime in the morning 2-2.5 hours and an increased waketime at lunchtime 3.5-4 hours. He settles himself down quicker and sleeps longer. I keep following his cues and change this to suit his needs as he grows.

Great sign of readiness that he comes and asks for sleep.

Most infants stop drifting off to sleep on the breast because they are ready to go to the next phase of more autonomous sleep.

It sounds like he is ready to learn the falling that it takes to “fall asleep”. It is similar to the falling of gross motor development.

The crying every half hour is also another sign of readiness.

Eileen Henry, RIE Associate
http://www.compassionatesleepsolutions.com

Thank you, this is very helpful to me as well. We co-sleep with my 17-month-old son, but have been having trouble getting him to fall asleep as he gets older. He seems so ready– he comes and tells us when he’s sleepy– but it’s been hard knowing how to best support him in learning to fall asleep on his own since he no longer just drifts off while nursing. He also tends to wake up and cry every half-hour or so from the time he goes to bed until we join him.

Thank you very much Eileen for your informative advice. He stayed awake for 90 minutes for his morning nap yesterday and his afternoon nap today. For the last several weeks I’ve been trying to put him to bed close to 3 hours after he last got up but recently (especially if he’s been overstimulated ie I’ve had to take him out with me on an errand) he isn’t sleepy until 3.5/4 hours after he woke up. It seems like a transition period like you said and I’ll be prepared to extend his average wake time soon.

I know I fall asleep much faster when I’m warm but am weary of overdressing him as I dont want time to overheat/dehydrate and wake up earlier because of it. So try to keep his room and clothing not too warm, but I sometimes worry he’s a bit cold when he takes a while to fall asleep 😛 I can be a fine line I guess

Right on, this is a great incremental approach that many co-sleeping families do.

The next increment would be that he falls asleep talking to himself with you out of the room. This allows co-sleeping families to put their child to sleep and go about their evening or day time activities before they (the parents) return to the bedroom for sleep (co-sleeping).

Often parents let the child fall asleep and then leave after the child is asleep. This can create a hyper-vigilance in the child, especially if the child is undergoing a natural phase of separation anxiety.

The fact that this process is only taking 30-minutes is pretty darn good. If this 30-minutes starts to take an hour or longer you may want to consider the next step toward autonomous sleep.

This would take much longer to lay out for you. It is three three fold preparation.

1. Prepare yourself
2. Prepare the environment
3. Prepare the child

Co-sleeping and bed-sharing families can enjoy quality sleep. It just takes a little more preparation, determination and patience.

Eileen Henry, RIE Associate
http://www.compassionatesleepsolutions.com