Sleep Separation Issues? - Hillsboro,OR

We were worried that my daughter would want to be rocked forever! She didn't and now I miss it a bit. I would wait a while longer if you don't mind rocking her. We rocked my daughter until she was two and then it became difficult to put her down at all. At that point we limited the amount of time we rocked her to 3 songs. She understood that and it worked well. Sometime between 2 and 3, she just weaned herself with a little help. She started by dropping nights she wanted to be rocked. I think she was getting too big to feel comfortable in the chair. It really stopped when we moved the rocker out of her room and when she moved into a bed from the crib. We moved the rocker out because we needed room for the bed. We changed her room around and she was excited about the big girl bed. She sleeps through the night and goes to bed easily. Wait some more. Don't worry. You wont need to rock her forever!

My grandson was rocked every night for nearly 2 years, by mommy, daddy, or me (granny). It was such a precious time. As he got too tall to hold comfortably on our laps, he quite willingly made an easy transition to sitting beside us for a story, and then to his crib for a lullaby. No problems.

I think when kids have gotten the closeness and bonding they need, and when that bonding isn't complicated too much by the parents' need to have it happen in any particular way, things will usually progress more or less naturally. I'm sure there must be exceptions to this, if a child has special needs, for example. And some babies are much clingier than others.

I think your observation about making two changes at once is wise. Changes should be gradual, and ideally the child should participate in signaling readiness, or in the case of a somewhat older child, help make the decision.

One other thought occurs to me – I have found with my grandson that completely empathizing with his wishes often helps him settle for whatever must happen in spite of them. Once he knows I have really listened to what he wants, he's more okay with what I need him to do.

I think it would be weird if my 15 month easily slept on their own. Never seen it, never had it happen with any of my 4 children. I think it is natural to want to sleep with some one....after all most adults do, your child is smart and responding to her needs.

Put her bed in her brother's room and let the children sleep together for half a year or more. She suffers from separation anxiety. One of my grandsons was exactly as you describe your daughter. He needed to know someone was close by.
This idea of separate rooms for every child is a very modern one. We put them to sleep alone at a far too early age. Read Ashley Montegue on the family bed. It isn't popular today but it kept an entire generation from emotional trauma.
Cry it out is sick. Most asthmatic children and those with serious allergies were let to cry it out. It's an idea medical doctors introduced in the 1930's.
I've never trusted doctors including Ph.D's. They are too full of theories and have too little life experience.

Honestly, as someone who practices attachment parenting, I believe that she is telling you that she is not ready. 15 months is still so young and she still needs you to help her get to sleep. It will not last forever, I promise. We still lay with our almost 4 year old until she falls asleep. She sleeps just fine through the night and is a very confident, smart, well adjusted little girl. When she is ready to go to bed without us I am sure she will make it clear to us. Until then we are perfectly happy to enjoy the little bit of close snuggle time we get with her in the evenings.

She will learn. You don't have to do any training. Sleep-training is usually about having them do it on the parents timeline is all.
My older son is on the over-sensitive end of the spectrum, he was 4.5y before he could comfortably sleep in his own bed/room all night. I firmly believe it is his personality, not the result of early co-sleeping. He's a cautious, imaginative kid who scares easily--including fear of the dark, and not liking to be alone.
My younger son, he would NOT co-sleep after 6 months. But the little bugger would still wake up every 2 hours or so. He was in a crib by my bed until I felt i'd run out of options--I put him in his own room and did cio (never ever thought i'd do that in a million years!). He woke 2x the first night, complain cried for 10 then 5 minutes. Turned out he just didn't sleep well next to me.
Older one is comforted by having the bedroom door open, being able to hear us about the house as he's going to sleep, likes a snuggle and back rub. Younger one flops around for 30 minutes before falling asleep no matter how tired he is, room has to be dark, and we have used white noise from almost day 1 with him--outside stimulus has to be drowned out.
Point being....all kids are different. Do what works now, and when it stops working then try something else.
Helping baby get to sleep absolutely does not cause "problems" later on. I love nothing more than watching a baby fall asleep, and holding a sleeping baby. As you said, it doesn't last forever--the 2nd seems to go by much faster than the first, too.
I was a cling-on co-sleeping baby, and for as long as I can remember I haven't had trouble getting to sleep, staying asleep, getting enough sleep, and I have preferred to sleep by myself for a long time (I don't tell my dh this though :p).

I would keep rocking her for awhile longer. Rest assured that eventually she will grow out of the need to be rocked. I slept and nursed my older daughter all night long until 29 months, when she naturally weaned (with a little help from me) and she was sleeping in her own bed, going to sleep on her own with no fuss at all by 3. In fact she tells us shes tired around 7:30pm and walks into her room, gets into the bed and we do the bedtime routine of story, prayers and then I put lullabies on and she goes to sleep. I think it will be fine for you to rock her longer. :)

I'm also an AP parent (but we do co-sleep). My opinion is to give her a little more time. She's still very young and she might not be ready to put herself to sleep yet. My oldest had a big developmental shift just after 18 months and she started sleeping through the night. That's when we felt like she was ready to start putting herself to sleep.That was over a year ago and she does great and no CIO.

Hi!
We're going through a similar situation with our son, Cole (17months). I nursed until he was about13 months old, he had always been nursed, rocked, walked, etc. to sleep for the same reasons you have done it. We recently started trying to get him to fall asleep on his own in his crib. He's actually done fairly well with it, but still has some trouble. One thing that I felt was important: we waited until he understood what it means to "lay down, put your head down, etc." and was able to follow those directions. We also have a 3 1/2 year old daughter, and with both of them, tried to make sleep training as un-tramatic as possible, so it has been a very gradual process, and try to follow their cues as to what they are ready for. Now that Cole will lay in his crib before he falls asleep, we still need to stay in his room right next to his crib. I can't even sit in the rocking chair a few feet away yet. I believe it is a separation issue as you mentioned. We followed a very similar routine with my daughter. I think she was close to 2 years old before we could walk out of the room while she was still awake and she was ok with that. There are times that Cole won't lay down when he is supposed to. He will sit or stand there and say 'no' when we tell him he needs to lay down. In that case, we walk out of his room for a few minutes. He cries, but that's sort of his punishment for not doing as he's told. Sometimes he does need to be picked back up before he will settle down again and be ready to lay down. Recently he started taking 'Wolfy' (a stuffed animal) to bed, so we are telling him that 'Wolfy' is tired and needs his sleep. I'm not sure if he understands that, but it's another tactic to try. Good luck! You sound like wonderful parents!
~J.

We went through some similar things with my first daughter, now aged 3. She was nursed and then rocked, patted to sleep for a long time, and we eventually had to phase it out. (In our case she was still waking up several times at night when she was 15 months old, which was our primary motivation to change the pattern.)

I found that doing one sleep period at a time reduced the stress for me. We would work on having her put herself to sleep for one daytime nap at first. Once that was solid, we'd do the other nap, and only when both naps were working did we try to phase out our night-time routines. And there was a long tail on the night-time routine before it finally worked consistently.

Good luck!

Well, I think you are doing the right thing for your daughter already. I know that might not be the aha answer you were hoping for! But, you are tuned in to what your daughter needs, and that it can be different for different children. If you soothe her, she will be comforted and sleep longer and longer stretches. That is what we did with our son, no crying. It took a couple of weeks (at 14 months old). If you don't know that it's going to get progressively better, you may wonder if your child will ever sleep! But I would give it at least a week before deciding that your current method is ineffective.

We just comforted/soothed him as soon as he seemed like he was waking himself up, till he dropped back off, and like I said, he slept longer and longer stretches.

Best wishes!!!!!!!!!!!! Good for you for answering your baby's needs!

My daughter is the same age as yours, and we have the opposite problem - she won't sleep if any one is in the room - she thinks it is time to get up and play. That being said, I am a big fan of letting them take it at their own pace. We went through a similar situation trying to wean off of bottles and to cups. Forcing the situation simply made it so much worse. I have no experience with sleep training, but what my mother did with us, and what I did with my daughter at a younger age was this - we went through our normal bed time routine and I put her down and left the room, timing for 2 minutes and then coming back in, picking up, comforting, when she was relaxed again, repeating the process. After a couple days of this, my daughter stopped crying when I put her down because she realized I was only gone for a tiny bit and then came right back. After a week or two, she would be asleep by the time I came back. I know you said you don't want her to cry, and I am not in to crying it out, but sometimes it is hard for kids to learn without a few stressful moments and they express that with crying. If you this method (which really did not envolve much crying) I would explain to your son that it is scary to babies when their parents leave the room, but you can only show your daughter that you are going to come right back by leaving for a minute. and then coming back in the room You might also explain to him that she does not understand that you still exist when she can't see you like he does. He knows that when you say you will be right back, you come right back, but she does not and so while she is learning that, she might get scared a little.

Even if this is not helpful to you, all I can say is ease into it and take it at your daughter's pace. She will figure it out in her own time frame. Just watch her signals and respond to her. You can't treat a baby like a machine (obviously you know that, but many of the sleep training books seem to take that approach). If you are responsive to her and take it day by day I think you will do great!

It will not get easier as she gets older, only harder in fact. And by starting and stopping the sleep training she is learning that if she just holds out and cries enough she will lever have to learn to sleep on her own. I sleep trained at 1 month, and it came so naturally it took only a night for each of my boys to be putting themselves to bed and peacefully sleeping through the night. It is such an important skill, I hope whatever method you choose you stick to and make it work. Best of luck.