Spirited Child and Sleeping with Mom

Hi D.
I f he does well when you are not home then he is playing you and getting his way. so if you really want to end this you need to be firm but loveing and tell him he needs to go to sleep in his own bed and sleep by him self. you can start a new routine of readin some stories and songs and cuddle time but before he is sleeping you need to leave the room. so he learns to put himself. Maybe this transition would be easier if dad put him to bed. If he wakes in the middle of the night you can comfort him for a minute but then he must go back to his bed. It will be tough for a few nights but if you dont give in he should be sleeping by himself in a few nights Good Luck

We let our youngest sleep with us until he was about 2. Then he just got too wiggly. We started transitioning out of it by putting him in his bed and laying in his bed with him. Then we went to the floor with him in the bed. Then his brother (who is 10, but I'm sure it would work with a younger one also) kinda took charge since they were sharing a room, and basically just told his brother to get back in bed and that he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, etc. It worked wonders and now he is sleeping in his own bed and 9 times out of 10 goes to bed wonderfully on his own.

Check out Sensory Integration Disorder. You say Spirited Child, which is fine, but is he getting certain needs met by having you lay with him.

Our kids are only young once. How soon is it going to be where they don't want to cuddle with us anymore?

I've been through this and there is no easy answer, unfortunately. However, check out both of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's books, "Raising the Spirited Child" and "Sleepless in America." She should address some of this in these books. She also has a website "Parentchildhelp.com." I see another responder mentioned Sensory Integration Disorder and both of my sons who are spirited and had similar sleep issues have gone through OT for sensory integration so it might be worth looking into. Good luck.

I can't tell for sure from what you have said, but is just sleeping the night with him in your bed not an option? So many mothers find it their sleep solution. Even if it doesn't make him sleep soundly through the night, it would minimize your interruption if you didn't have to get up. And he won't do it forever. It may be that having such security now will allow him to move more quickly through this phase.

Hi D.,

I too have a spirited child. As hard as it is to do, I'd really recommend just biting the bullet. Just put him down and leave the room. My 3 year old daughter's room has only her bed, a dresser (tethered to the wall) and stuffed animals. Her doorknob has a safety cover on it, so that she can't get out without supervision. So, I feel pretty safe letting her work it out on her own. I've had a couple of incidences, usually when she's sick, where I've made the mistake of letting her into my bed. And then paid for it with a week's worth of her screaming/crying at her bedroom door. But, as long as I stand firm on it, peaceful nights eventually return.

Bless you as you get through this,

N.

We wound up snuggling our boy to bed until he was 3 1/2... It was a very, very slow process for us--the whole transitions thing. Anyway. We started by snuggling him to bed and putting him in his bed. Then we moved bedtime preparations to his room (I know, this is so obvious...). Then we snuggled in his bed to get him to sleep. Then we snuggled for a while and sneaked out. Then we snuggled for a few minutes. Then we sat and read by his nightlight (3 feet from his bed). Then we read in the hallway. Finally, we started sneaking away from the hallway. Oh--and this took us almost a year. (Sorry.) Finally, at 3 1/2, we had a new baby, and I ASKED him to sleep through the night without crawling in with us. Using a rewards system (stickers, things from the One Spot at Target) we got him in his own bed, all night, and we mostly sleep through the night with him. We only did rewards for maybe a month, and after about a week of nightly rewards, we did "Now you have to go TWO nights...then THREE nights..." and so forth. Eventually he lost track of counting and we stopped the rewards. If only #2 could learn that... Good luck; I know how frustrating sleep issues can be!

Oh!!! I see someone has mentioned sensory stuff--my son sleeps better when I put him in lighter pj's and he can lay covered with a heavy quilt. His grandma made him a quilt from old jeans, and it's way too warm--so we turn the house way down, put him in light pj's, and bundle him up. He really does seem to sleep better that way.

my son is 2 and he still occasionally sleeps with us, especially when sick, however, his crib is still in our room, so its not as hard as having his bed in his own room.

i would just go with the flow. put him to bed at the appropriate time, when he wakes up, put him back in his bed when he falls asleep. this works for us, but like i said, his crib is in our room.
my son never cried it out, so i attribute that to his happy sleep habits.
good luck, and remember that wanting to sleep with you will NOT last forever. you might want to cherish it as much as you can. :D
however, dont if you cant you know? just trust yourself to know whats best for your family.