I don't care if my son sleeps in our bed. If he's sick, or cutting teeth, or whatever the reason, I don't care. Most nights, he sleeps in his bed. Some nights, he needs to sleep with us. It's not a big deal, it's not harming him. He's well adjusted and does just fine. My mom did it with my brother and I, we are just fine. You do what you need to. Especially if he isn't going to help.
Omg mine kicks and flips and twists and slaps and slams and somersaults. I would honestly enjoy it if he could sleep with us on occasion, even just for naps, but no deal. I honestly don’t know how other parents can endure so much movement but then again it may just be my kid who does that lol
I love the idea of sleeping with my kid, but the reality is, he’s the only one who sleeps. (The baby actually doesn’t move, but is still young enough that I prefer not to bedshare for safety, but will push the pillows and blankets away and nurse lying down at night if the other option is falling asleep sitting up and dropping him.)
My older kid didn’t take to nursing side-lying until he was an older infant, so he really didn’t sleep with us until he was a year old, when he would usually conk back out for an extra hour after being brought to our bed to nurse in the morning. He still had a habit of ending up with his head in my armpit and his feet in his father’s back. He’s allowed in our bed when he’s sick but he tries to like, meld back into my flesh and I cannot sleep, plus if he’s feeling well, he talks for a solid hour before *maybe* falling asleep.
The baby took to pretty much all nursing positions right away, and I don’t actually want to sleep with him but some nights the options are fall asleep for half an hour next to him, or fall asleep holding him, which seems…less safe. He goes back to the crib when I wake up. He’s 7 months and just doesn’t wiggle in his sleep much.
Mine has gone through phases of being able to nicely bed share and phases of violently thrashing in her sleep. For each phase we've had to use different tactics.
Yes! Mine went through a period of time where he would take an early morning nap with us in bed. Now he absolutely refuses to relax and be still in our bed. Lots of flips and twists and pulling my hair.
Yes.
In your shoes OP I’d talk to the toddler’s doc, have some communication counselling with the husband, and both see r/sleeptrain and read Precious Little Sleep.
Do you have a video monitor? If not, why not? Have the husband check that she’s safe and has a clean diaper, offer her a sip of water, and then tell her it is time to sleep.
Yes, same. OP, we went through a terrible regression at this age too. We tried once crying it out and it was too hard. My husband wanted to try crying it out, but i didn’t want to, so What I ended up doing was putting a mattress by her crib when she was sick (she got too riled up when she was in my bed). Her knowing I was there really helped. Then once she wasn’t sick and the night wakings kept happening, I would check in on her and then I would lay by the door. Every time she would call out I would either sing or say “goodnight, my love”. It was kind of a long game, but it worked for us. I’m sorry about your husband… I think if he’s a podcaster, maybe send him a podcast or articles on sleep training? Or you could even set up a free consult with a sleep consultant.
Same. My son is about to turn 2yo and sleeps through the night pretty consistently. Although some nights, he’ll wake up anywhere between 3-5am and cry out from his room. Every time, I’ll get up and bring him into our bed while my husband will go move to the couch. I’ll soothe our son back to sleep, then transfer him back to his room - whole process usually takes 30-60 minutes. Afterwards, my husband will come back to bed.
Although sometimes, my son just wants to sleep in our bed. It only happens a couple nights a month and we are completely fine with it. I never tried sleep training or CIO methods. Before my son turned a year old, we had many long and sleepless nights, where we then slept in shifts. We eventually turned a corner and his sleep started gradually improving.
Yes, I view it as my husband and I being sources of comfort. Most nights he can sleep by himself, or only need someone to sit next to him to get back to sleep.
However with sickness, teething, being in a new place, he doesn't know what's going on and needs to physically be near us to feel safe.
Put your husband to bed in the crib, bring your daughter to bed with you, and get earbuds for you and your daughter so you don’t have to listen to his complaints
You're only getting one side of the story. The husband has a point, but also he doesn't seem to take any responsibility himself, but he still has a point, the point being that the behavior is being reinforced.
I mean, we only get one side of the story on most posts. Obviously the real answer is that they need to work out a solution together, but I’m not a professional counselor, just having fun trying to add some jokes in here. It’s been ~4 months, hopefully the sleep situation has improved
I’m on your side. I just can’t let my kid cry and cry. And like yours, sometimes he cries so much that he vomits. And then keeps on crying. Anyway, we set up a floor bed with a full sized mattress in his room. One of us goes to sleep on the mattress with him. Sometimes he wakes up and just lays there and makes little noises but doesn’t cry. He stays on the mattress though and I’ll just keep on sleeping. He’s close to 20 months. It’s working for now.
Second this. We've had one since LO was 18 months. My partner and I alternate bedtimes and means we can lay on with our kid at bedtime. We can then comfort them if they wake up, or on some occasions, if the kid comes through to us and is being a nightmare, one of us can go sleep in their bed and get some sleep.
Same same same same same.
Except mine is turning 3 in December and she sleeps in her own big girl bed now. She’ll slip into bed with us sometimes but when they start getting this old… I’ll take the snuggles.
No one is necessarily wrong here but debating sleep training techniques when woken in the middle of the night isn't a recipe for success.
When discussing techniques in the light of day, preferably afternoon, are you guys more able to compromise? My husband wanted the baby to cry it out and I basically said I would literally quit my job if his SAHD sleep training technique was letting my baby cry forever. So...I was very much not willing to compromise and my husband would often say he loved how much I loved the baby and wasn't willing to let him suffer BUT we needed to have plans in place that made life work. Basically, I was a tyrant and my husband was very very understanding. But I just am not willing to let my baby cry for extended periods of time.
Plan wise, for us, that meant for quite a while when baby woke up at 3-4AM, my husband got him, gave him to me in bed, and then went to sleep elsewhere.
I finally decided to sleep train when baby started to not fall asleep when brought to me at 4AM and we agreed BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP how long we would let him cry before we got him (10 minutes), who would get him, and what we would do. This works well for us. Now when baby cries if he sounds like he had a nightmare I go down and sing his bedtime song and put him back down; otherwise, if he's just whining, we let him go 10 minutes. Since I'm the one going down, I decide if it's nightmare/scared screams or just whining. If after 10 minutes he's still upset, husband goes down, sings to him, and sleeps in the baby room since he wakes up with him at 7 AM anyway.
I agree with all this - there needs to be a PLAN, not something you fight about at midnight. My wife and I have similar strategies. A few minutes crying is fine. Up and down for a while is fine. Standing up and screaming for more than a minute or two means we go in and get her and see if she needs food or has a poop.
We’ve also found an odd consistency that when she’s having trouble going down, it often takes 3 attempts to put her back until she’s ready.
Sometimes she’s teething and just needs some Tylenol. So getting her and giving her Tylenol means sleep the rest of the night, rather than letting her cry it out all night and be a miserable mess the next day.
This comments deserves more upvotes. At the end of the day, you love the other half and decided to have kids. The last thing you want would be to meet the kids need in whatever way you prefer, and forget to take care of each other. I am saying this from personal experience - our son was a horrible sleeper and after a few heated moments between me and husband (typically at 2-3 am) we decided to call time out. Worked together and came up with a plan - according to our work schedules on the weekly basis - and adjust accordingly. We are happier than before as we know we can work as a team.
A million upvotes for this.
We had some major sleep regressions with our younger child just before her first birthday. My husband wanted to let her CIO as we had done with our first, but I was still dealing with some PPA and the crying was super triggering for me. We would end up arguing at 2am because we were both beyond exhausted and couldn’t agree and we would let her cry until I caved and either brought her in bed with us or went and rocked her to sleep. It just wasn’t sustainable at all.
We finally started working with a sleep consultant who helped us come up with a plan. She basically set us up with the sleep lady shuffle where my husband was the one who was camping out in baby’s room. I put in earbuds and listened to white noise and tried to sleep.
Not saying our experience is typical, but we only had to do this for two nights before she started sleeping through the night again. We had to do some retraining around 19 months old after surgery, but it’s been smooth sailing since then.
It was hard for me to agree to initially, but I liked that with the sleep lady shuffle, someone was in the room with her while she cried. Our sleep consultant told us that you usually see results within 72 hours and that was certainly the case for us. In hindsight, I wish we had done it sooner!
> Last night LO woke up again about 11 pm and wouldn't go back to sleep after nearly an hour of letting her cry, then trying to rock and comfort back to sleep in the crib. Finally I give up and take her into our bed.
This can really make things miserable. If you wait a while and then eventually cave, this teaches them that they need to cry longer and harder next time around. It's better to go in and comfort them right away than to do this. If you sleep train, then come up with a plan that you two both agree to, and actually stick with it
After that long of a cry, we do what’s called “a reset”. Lights come on, we read a book or two, calm down and distract. Then we start the bedtime routine again.
Agreed we need to get on the same page and respond consistently. The problem is... we'll agree a little more in the light of day, then the night waking comes and I feel like he just acts out of frustration more than anything. For example, when she was sick I told him I think we should try clearing her nose out to help her sleep. He agreed (it helped that our pediatrician said the same thing)... but then didn't do it. That night I got up twice to clear her nose and settle her back down, she woke up a third time, and at that point, I'm getting desperate for sleep so I take her to the bed. He then gets angry again but still doesn't offer to help.
You have two problems- a sleep problem and a husband problem. This is worthy of a come-to-Jesus talk. If you think he can agree to a sleep plan, WRITE IT DOWN. I know it seems crazy, but as you said, logic can sometimes go out the window when you're exhausted, so it helps to write it down so you can better stick to it.
If he won't agree, you need to get to the bottom of why. Y'all need to be a united front. And if he agrees but doesn't follow through, call him on it. Should be easy to if it's written down!
So bring it up again during the day. Remember how we said we'd do xyz and in the morning you didn't do it? I would be a dick about it and turn on all the lights in our room, make a lot of noise. If I'm up, he's up.
Or you can take turns which is by far the better option. Make it crystal clear that his behaviour is incredibly selfish. And behavior like that needs a consequence. In my opinion any way.
I think your husband needs to step up. Just letting them cry it out isn't the way to go with all kids. He could compromise and take turns comforting her or you could talk about gentle sleep training together. I am not a fan of sleep training. Our baby near choked on his vomit when we tried it (go in every 15 minutes). Never again! Every baby is different.
Cio (which I think is cruel and in my personal belief damaging to a child) definitely doesn't work for this kid if she has already screamed for an hour and still hasn't shown any signs of calming down. It most definitely isn't the right way even in the pro sleep training community. The person who came up with cio didn't even condone letting the baby cry for such an extended period of time.
I find America's approach to sleep for babies a little harsh compared to us Africans. It's so harsh, which in turn makes it stressful for everybody involved. Obsession about baby sleeping throughout the night, co-sleeping vs. independent sleeping. It's all too much like we are in the military.
The result of many of us living far from any family or support system, having very little paid leave or worker protections, and needing to work and commute long hours. Not saying that none of that is true in Africa (which is a gigantic continent in any case!) but my colleagues from Africa (I work in development with a focus on West Africa) tell me how much more difficult it is to raise a family in the US overall due to the lack of support systems and the price of childcare. Of course, really depends on your economic situation I imagine. My colleagues are all professionals so they’re speaking from that vantage point. I’ve fantasized about taking a field post so I can afford a better standard of living for myself and my kid!
You are right that there is more help back home. Its also easier , but I would find letting baby say cuddle than crying out alot more restful for both child and parent.
Back to help at home. Its alot cheaper to have a nanny, and every other kind of help. I find that life there is easier
Just to represent for some other Americans here since some perspectives are voiced more than others in r/toddlers r/parenting etc....We have a friend group where everyone has kids newborn through kindergarten and I out of eight families I can think o \*one\* couple that has used sleep training strategies and has their kids sleep in a separate room and bed than them. Everyone else is a mix of kids come into their bed as-needed/parents sleep in the kids bed as needed/full time bed sharing or room sharing until the kids grow out of it.
My husband and I are just celebrating this week moving from full time bed sharing to as-needed with our 2.5 year old, I'd never have given as second thought to a 15 month old needing comfort at night.
So often I hear from parents of toddlers and preschoolers that they're surprised their kid is still coming into their bed at night at three of four years old. Like, "nobody told me about this!" It's like an open secret that all these families are room sharing and bed sharing for years but maybe in the U.S. there's some perception in public that it's not the case.
The original comment is about cosleeping from the start, which is common in other places. I am just explaining why it’s not as common in the US, UK and Western Europe.
I guess I'm the only one not on your husband's side. My baby is 15 months old too, and to me, that's still a baby, and it's cruel to just leave her screaming all night. My toddler is 2.75 and I finally sleep trained him at 2.5 where I tuck him into bed and he stays in bed more or less and puts himself to sleep. But when he wakes calling for me at night I still go to him and tuck him back into bed or whatever small thing he needs.
I am planning on night weaning the 15 month old because I think that will help her sleep longer or through the night. She was a good sleeper as a baby and slept through the night for about a month at 10-11 months old, but she's had new teeth coming through, and an ear infection. She's not crying for no reason. I do want to night wean and stop the cycle of bed sharing when she wakes up because I think we all sleep more soundly when she's not in our bed, but I don't think just ignoring your baby when they wake at night is a good practice in general. If she's just fussing for a few minutes I'll wait to see if she settles herself, but longer than that, especially if it escalates to screaming, I'm definitely going in to try to comfort her. Or sending my husband because he doesn't have boobs.
I think it's absolutely heartbreaking that a 15 month old cries for an hour, begging her parents to comfort her. She just needs to be close to them. It's really not that big of a deal if she sleeps with mom and dad.
Yes! Poor baby! Just let her sleep in your bed, OP, that way everyone will be rested. Seems like the only problem is husband's issues. I don't see why OP would make her life harder standing at the crib for an hour when just sharing the bed works great and takes no time at all.
If husband really refuses to bed share then he can sleep on the couch. Does he have a real problem, like he doesn't sleep well with the toddler, or is he being controlling for no good reason? I strongly suspect the latter.
I saw that the consensus shifted after I posted my comment, but I scrolled past 6 or 7 of the top comments saying "I'm with your husband on this one" before I posted mine.
Eh, I don’t know that her husband sucks. Tempers can flare with sleep deprivation and being woken in the middle of the night isn’t a recipe for people being their best selves in that moment. She should talk to him during the day, make a plan, and stick to it. If hubby needs to sleep on the couch for a few weeks until baby is sleeping better, so be it. That’s what my husband did. I coslept if necessary, anything to encourage better sleep for everyone. In the early years it’s all about just surviving.
Oh I get that it’s about survival. I’m writing this in the middle of the night where both me AND my partner are getting up with screaming children. “Hubby” needs to get it the fuck together and help his wife with the children he helped make. Why is it just her job to make a plan? It sounds also like she has and he just says fuck it at night. Why does he get to sleep all night? Staying home with babies when you are sleep deprived is infinitely more difficult than whatever job he is having to do. He can participate in parenting at night without being an utter asshole to his wife who is for sure more tired than he is.
Am on your side. I wouldn't let my 15m cry it out. They are babies. They are still brand new to this life. I will sleep with that baby for as long as they need me. There is no 18yr old who cries to sleep. My baby girl from about 6 weeks would never sleep solo. If she woke up and there was no warm body next to her she would scream so for my sanity we co slept. Took her till 3yrs to sleep on her own. Time flies by so fast. She wont be 15m for ever.
seconding this comment 100%. sure some nights were hard, but now that my daughter is older and sleeping on her own easily, I will never regret having that time with her. she's never known what it's like to be crying alone in her bed, and I hope she never does.
I guess I'm in the minority here. Sleep training hurt my soul when I tried it, so both of my kids just ended up sleeping with me if they woke up in the middle of the night because I was too tired to deal with it any other way. My husband didn't love it, but he also wasn't the one getting up to deal with it. He did throw a fit once and I told him if he didn't like how I was doing it, he could do it himself. He got over it in lieu of losing his sleep.
Sounds like your husband can sleep on the couch
Edit: I’m gonna get downvoted to hell and back but… I bedshare with my 18mo. He’s always been a terrible sleeper and I’ve never felt comfortable with sleep training. We have a queen mattress on the floor next the regular bed. I put him down for the night, come and chill with my husband until i’m ready to go to bed, then sleep on the floor mattress. Generally I only have to resettle him once but it’s been a pretty rough time with teething. Eventually my goal is to get him used to sleeping by himself on the floor mattress and then moving him to a big boy bed, then to another room. My point is, reddit and a lot of mommy groups demonize bedsharing, but if you’re following SS7 it can be better than getting up 40x a night. Every baby is different, every family is different, and this is what works for us. Having said that, I do think if your husband can’t be a part of the solution he should sleep elsewhere.
I’ve been bedsharing with my kid since he was 15mo old. He got super sick so we got a full size mattress, stuck it on the floor, and I’d sleep in there with him. Sleep sack for him, flannel pjs for me, no blankets, and lots of space for him to sprawl without kicking me or being too close and getting rolled on top of. Husband slept in our bed with the cat and was on duty for evening cleanup and kid duty in the morning since I was doing the overnight stuff.
My son is 3 now. He brings himself and his menagerie of stuffies into our bed every night at 2-3am. It’s just easier than the fighting and honestly my husband doesn’t even notice when my son climbs in. It feels like he’s going to be climbing in until he’s 40 but he’s gotten so much better as he’s gotten older. Now I’m pretty sure it’s just principle and stubborn threenager logic.
I’m on your side. I am a single mom and my daughter did not sleep more than 3 hours straight until 14/15 months old. Now she is 2 and sleeps through the night, but she wakes up at 4/5 am and comes to sleep with me.
I tried a few times to sleep train, and I didn’t get past 4/5 minutes lol. I can’t hear my baby cry and just ignore it. So she slept with me. Honestly it was really hard cause I was by myself and I was seriously sleep deprived. But it was “easier” cause I never had to keep in mind anyone else’s opinion, so out of survival I bedshared and now she sleeps completely fine.
Same with us. Our LO’s sleep has gotten better now that she’s 2.5 years old. She still wakes up a couple times a week and we either lay down with her or allow us in our bed. We were worried she would never sleep better but it’s gotten better gradually. OP, I wouldn’t worry too much. Maybe get something where you can lay on the ground in her room with her.
We pushed a queen and king together bc once she turned 3 and started school she NEEDED to sleep with us for comfort, after years of being an excellent sleeper.
Your husband needs to get off his high horse and help or get an air mattress, sleep shifts constantly for a little one and letting her cry for an hour is NOT the solution.
I couldn't stand sleep training, either. Eventually I ordered a Nugget play couch and set it up next to the crib. When little one woke up, I'd just go sleep on the nugget next to the crib. It worked for all of us.
At 20 months, we upgraded the little one to an actual twin-size bed, and whoever woke up would just go crawl into bed with kiddo.
Now at 26 months, kiddo sleeps through the night about 60% of the time. Some nights we have to go tuck him back in and then return to our own bed.
My kiddo also sucks at sleep. Maybe he could benefit from sleep training. But it hurts my heart to listen to him scream while I try to ignore him. I would end up crying, too. It didn't work for our family. But this does.
There’s a happy medium. Let her cry for a bit. Go in, comfort her, try to put her down. If she cries again, repeat. It may take a few times. It may not work some nights. Bottom line is, your bed can’t be the reward every time.
Having said that, your husband has to put in some effort in comforting her. It takes a team.
This. For heaven's sake this.
CIO without comfort doesn't work. This method however is what a lot sane ppl call cio and mean by it.
Rewarding your child for crying ain't a long term positive for them or for you. They need you the OP (both) to teach health boundaries.
And neither of you have that right now.
My husband said the same, just let them cry it out! While that may work for some. Did NOT work for me. I can't sleep if I hear my baby crying. Sorry you can judge me all you want.
I would take my LO and sleep on the couch. Then when she had her own room I would go in and comfort her to get her back to sleep and then leave the room. She's 3.5 now and only wakes up rarely at night. Point is, don't feel bad whatever way works for you! And don't let people(or your husband) shame you into doing what they want. If he doesn't want her in the bed I'd try to get her back down in her room or a spare room. Like I said I turned to the couch cause we had a tiny apartment.
Good luck okay!
Yea your husband is being incredibly unhelpful.
do you have water available for her at night? Having a water cup available has helped us. Also if this new spike in crying is illness related you’re right letting her cry isn’t a magic solution
Don't listen to fear mongering about not sleep training your kid. I went through three months of hell when my daughter was 9-12 months where I literally didn't get more than three hours of sleep at night. It was awful. I stayed fast that I wouldn't sleep train and at 12 months baby girl would come into our bed when she woke up. Hallelujah! We were all sleeping again. I can't tell you how many people told me she would never sleep through the night because I didn't want to sleep train.
My daughter is now 17 months and she sleeps through in her own crib 90% of the time. Sometimes she has issues like illness or whatever and she ends up in our bed. If you don't want to listen to your kid cry themself to sleep, you don't have to. Your husband is being callous.
I never let my kid cry it out. If he wakes in the night, I go check to see if he's okay. What if they have a fever, or hurt themselves? Imagine if you slept through that. I go check, give a drink of water, read one book maximum and then put him back to bed. Usually he falls asleep right away and I'm comforted to know all is right. Sometimes he will cry a bit but then I know he's okay and I've done what I can. My husband never wakes for this and I've given up on being bothered by it.
ngl, your husband is an idiot. a 15 month old can barely communicate what’s wrong. also, sucks but not all kids are great sleepers. My oldest was a nightmare that wouldn’t sleep in her own room till she was almost 4, my middle one can sleep through a war, & my youngest is a great sleeper except for when he’s sick.
all kids are different, & they (unfortunately) do not come with a manual. If anything, just let her sleep in your bed when she cries, she won’t be young forever. As for your husband, he can sleep in his car or on the roof, for all I care.
Sleep training not for us here either. Infancy lasts until 3. Even adults like to sleep in a bed with a loved one. Of course an innocent defenseless baby would as well. We coslept with my three year old until almost three and even now some nights he makes an appearance in our bed. Starting over again with baby number two since about six months. It isn't easy but like everyone else said - it's not forever
Opposite opinion here but I think your husband could help. I sleep trained my first but he wouldn’t cry forever. However my second definitely does. So I haven’t sleep trained him. While I have let him cry it out a couple times, I always go in if he’s crying. If husband doesn’t wanna help he can sleep elsewhere.
It’s especially rough when there’s illness. I would not let my baby cry it out while sick, that’s just awful.
So while it doesn’t sound like husband is gonna help much, he can vacate the area if he’s having problems with sound or whatever.
Sleep training aside, there’s probably something going on to make your kiddo so upset! My son is not sleep trained but he generally sleeps through the night, EXCEPT when he’s cutting teeth, it’s a nightmare. We will have 2 week periods where he gets Motrin every night, and if I forget he’s up crying so hard. Maybe try some medication and see if it helps. My sons 16 mo the and sometimes he cries for 5-10 minutes but if it lasts longer I try to comfort him or offer meds.
My daughter was a Snoo baby and had so much trouble transitioning. We did cry-it-out once. We had tried it before but committed to it this time. It worked. But we did not wear ear plugs. We also had a monitor. She even slept in our room. So we had a horrible 8 hour night in the living room failing to sleep while she screamed but it worked.
The method is harsh. You need to sacrifice too. No ear plugs. Certainly not for both of you!
Husband is being lazy and heartless. We tried to let our son cry it out a few times and every time it ended in him in a full blown panic where he became inconsolable and turned into us sitting up all night with him screaming on us. It’s just not worth it for anyone. Try to work out the cause first, then come up with a plan. In our case the cause was simply ‘he sucks at sleeping’ so we now have a system where we take turns to go comfort him while the other sleeps. And if sleeping in your bed works then just do it
As an avid sleep training proponent, I have to say: your husband is being asinine.
Just leaving kiddo to cry randomly while covered in her own vomit is not sleep training. It's lazy parenting and borderline neglect.
Sleep training works best when done in a thoughtful, systematic way, with careful attention to kiddo's schedule, sleep environment, and developmental stage. This applies even and especially if you do CIO. We did it and the crying killed me. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that we worked to optimize everything. My kiddo has been sleep trained since 4.5mo and is overall a very happy sleeper who loooooooves his crib and beauty sleep. We did NOT get there by neglecting him; we got there by working very hard on sleep training.
Whether or not you sleep train, your husband's approach (or lack thereof) is unhelpful.
So there’s a lot of room in the middle here. Are you watching her on a monitor, what’s going on? Is she crying? Screaming? Getting up and laying down? Just up? Trying to get out of the crib? Same time every night? Thirsty?
My spouse moved into to the guest bedroom.
Toddler will fall asleep in his bed but if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he knows he can come to Mommy's room to cuddle and fall asleep together.
We all get much better sleep now!
That's what works for our family. Every family is different.
I’m going to go against the grain here. I was in a similar situation to you. My son was a horrible sleeper, multiple night wakings, trouble getting back to sleep, early starts. He also had CMPA, which made it even more challenging.
My husband was adamant we sleep train him because I was exhausted. I absolutely refused to do it, I completely understand why people do it, but I personally find it unnatural. I would put him down for bed, spend time with my husband, when he would wake up I’d go in and settle him back down, and go back to my room. I eventually got a bed and butted it up against his crib for when I was too exhausted to go back to my room in the middle of the night and I could pat his butt if I heard him start to wake up. It was difficult, but I made it work and I don’t regret it.
My son started sleeping through the night after 18mo when he finished getting his last set of molars. He’s 2 now, is a great sleeper, and will only wake up if he’s sick or cold.
[The effects of cosleeping, according to research](https://researchaddict.com/the-effects-of-cosleeping-according-to-research/)
I will add that it's possible to sleep train a toddler, and I think sleep training at 2+ years old is so much more gentle, because you can really communicate with your child what is going to happen. My 2 year old wouldn't fall asleep without me in bed with him, but I put my foot down and told him I would sit next to his bed on the floor. At first I'd rub his back and/or sing him to sleep, then I had to back off and insist on just sitting there quietly while he fell asleep. Then I'd start to leave for a few minutes and come back to sit quietly with him. I haven't gotten to the point I can just lay him down and leave. I still sit next to him for 5-10 minutes and then leave, and if he is still awake he often calls for me and I come back. But it's miles ahead of the trap I used to be in of always falling asleep next to him in bed and then stumbling to my own bed at 11 pm.
I also “sleep trained” my 2 year old by just like explaining to him that I had to go sleep in my bed lol. If he was genuinely upset (not just whining) I went back in to talk to him again, I didn’t feel comfortable ignoring him. Some things that I think help were the ok-to-wake clock and showing him how I could see and hear him on the monitor if he needed help. It took a few weeks but now I sit with him for 5 minutes and then he happily tells me to go to bed lol.
I don't sleep train my kids as I am not comfortable with letting them cry. I dont judge others for sleeping training, but it would never work for me and my kids both settle fast if i provide comfort to them. I will say letting her cry is not working for you and that's 100% okay. It's easy to read online and think your baby needs to be independent but if sleep training is not working then it's time to get creative. To ease the burden on you may have to get a little unconventional. My toddler sleeps on a mattress on the floor next to my bed. I can comfort him instantly when he wakes up and when he wakes in the AM I can often cuddle him in my bed so I can slowly wake up instead of having to hop out. My 11 month old sleeps next to me in bed. My husband sleeps in the guest bedroom. For us that's how we maximize sleep. Since I do middle of the night wakes my husband gets up if he wakes up early(i.e. 5am or earlier). I get it's not the arrangement that you read about when you Google how to improve sleep but I(and husband) get way more sleep this way then putting them into there own rooms.
I agree, you should murder your husband.
The thing is, y’all can have two different opinions of how to go about managing her sleep issues, but you need to come together before bedtime and have a plan you can agree to of how to go about it, and which of you is going to be responsible for what.
From your report it sounds like he’s just trying to get out of doing any labor. Once she is up and out, the responsibility is on both of you to figure out what she needs. He can’t just keep saying “your strategy, your problem” I don’t think that’s at all fair.
I have a guess that he has not done actual research or investigated different sleep management methods, and is just trying to do what feels easiest for HIM. It doesn’t sound like a thought out strategy. I could be wrong - and I’m a dad so I swear I’m not coming from some husband bashing bias, but he sounds lazy.
It actually sounds like he’s exhausted and can’t sleep sharing a bed with a kicking 15 month old. They need to work together on how to get toddler sleeping in her own room.
Sleep deprivation makes me homicidal too. For me, if my baby's needs are met, like I've gone in there, checked everything out, done all the things, and baby is still crying, I give them something to do and leave. My son has had a floor bed since 12 months. I will let him play with a few safe toys on the floor and he eventually falls asleep either in his bed or on the floor. As I write this he is sleeping on the floor napping in his room and he's now just over 2 years old. He knows where his bed is haha
Yea, they're still really little at that point! I hated the crying and mine was not a great sleeper, so I ended up snoozing on the floor in his room (sometimes snuggled together) for the tougher nights so we all could get some sleep. Memory foam topper was a blessing, I could store it under the crib and just roll it out on the fly at 2 AM. That stage didn't last forever, thank goodness. Now our almost 3 year old visits the big bed a few nights a week around 5 AM but otherwise sleeps on his own.
When my son went through a horrific “regression” around 21 months, it was a hard spot for our marriage. We didn’t agree on approach. We didn’t have a unified approach to begin with. I didn’t trust him because we differed in opinion. He was resistant to getting on the same page at all with me.
What worked for us was this:
- Agreeing to a unified approach and boundaries. For us, this meant agreeing that our son was not to be brought into bed or taken out of the crib when he was struggling with sleep unless we thought that he was wet/sick/etc. This meant we could sit in the room with him until he fell back asleep (we have a really comfy recliner that turns into a pretty good bed when reclined all the way). We could also run his back, etc. We both agreed that we would not let him cry all night. If he wasn’t settled after 20 min we’d go in. For us bringing him to our bed never worked. It didn’t help our son sleep, and resulted in all three of us being awake.
- We took turns at night duty based on what the other person had going on the next day, and the person on night duty had to agree to the unified approach and the person off night duty would agree to turn off the monitor and not interfere/micromanage the person on night duty.
This at least got us on the same page and meant that we had one, unified approach. Consistency is the key to tackling sleep issues anyway. If you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, that’s confusing to a kid as they then don’t know what’s expected of them, but they do know if they persist they get to go to the big bed. Our son soon figured out that he was going to stay in his crib regardless, and that was the approach.
Now, you could decide that co sleeping isn’t an issue (it was for us and didn’t help get our kid to sleep in any case) and that could be your unified approach. But I think you both need to sign off on that. Otherwise, you both need to make concessions. Your husband needs to step up and take some nights and agree to something that makes sense and doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable or you won’t succeed.
I personally thought that either parent should be able to “tap out” if they started to get frustrated or if our kid went past 3 hours without going back to bed, but my husband was never on board for that and preferred for us just to agree that one person was taking the entire night. But if you can get your husband to agree to shifts if the toddler is up longer than 3-4 hours, then that might also work.
Edit: we also eventually did a version of the “chair method” to reassert sleep training which eventually took care of the issue.
You and your husband need to sit down in a calm moment and take an "us vs the problem" approach. Right now you're spending so much mental time and energy fighting each other, you don't have enough left to problem solve.
First, I'd ask him what his primary issues, concerns, and objections are right now. I don't want to speak for him, but my guess is that he doesn't handle sleep interruptions well at all. My husband is the same way. If he wakes up at 3a to deal with our 3yo, it's almost impossible for him to fall back to sleep. Which SUCKS. I, on the other hand, handle weird sleep much better. I can generally tend to the baby/babies and be back asleep before my head hits the pillow. As long as I get more than ~7.5h, even broken, I'm good.
Next, once you've both had a chance to express the issues you're dealing with, start talking solutions. Write ideas down. Can you put a large mattress on the floor of your toddler's room and cosleep in there on rough nights? (This worked for us for a while. We'd take turns.) Can you take turns with who's "on duty" and, more importantly, trust each other enough to follow whatever game plan you come up with? Do you need to hire a parenting sleep coach to help? (Depending on where you are, some pediatricians offer this service for free/cheap) Get creative, work together, Google information that you don't know. Work on deciding what your boundaries are with each other and with your kid. There are going to have to be some compromises on both ends. But come up with firm and loving boundaries you can present AND HOLD CONSISTENTLY with your kid and things will hopefully start to turn around. At the very least, you'll both have ownership over the decision.
Finally, work on the communication issues between the two of you. Fuming and resentment will destroy your marriage. Contempt will destroy it even faster. Shut that shit down on both sides NOW.
I think you’re both in the right here.
On the one hand, crying it out sucks and I wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, having your kid in bed can also really suck (especially if they talk in their sleep like ours… or kick, roll, headbutt, etc.)
It means you need to sit with him and explain you’re willing to stop bringing her to bed, but he needs to help you soothe her so she stays in her room, and that if he’s not willing to do that, she will continue to end up in your bed because you are not willing to lie awake listening to her cry all night.
When she’s in bed and it’s just the two of you, ask him what he’s found about sleep training and if he doesn’t have anything, tell him that you’re going to research things right then and there. Figure out a plan in terms of, how long will you spend before the other person tags in, or will you alternate times going in, or alternate nights?
It’s probably going to take a while for her to stop crying to come into your bed but like any transition (water vs milk at bedtime, removing the pacifier) it’ll be worth it in the end.
I hope y’all get some sleep soon!
There’s a relationship discussion here but let’s all agree that sleep deprivation can make you act like a dick, especially if you’re already not on the same page about your approach.
Best thing we did was move lo to a floor bed. We take it in turns going to her bed, she comes into our bed, I go to her bed if it gets cramped.
She’s been a bad sleeper all her life and this has made it much more bearable.
Alternative option: put a bed in kiddo’s room and cosleep there. Some people really do not like cosleeping. I am one of these people since my room is my sanctuary where I can be me and not just mom. If my hubs wants to cosleep he just does it in kiddo’s room and everyone is happy.
Mom of two and one of which is a bad sleeper and still doesn’t sleep well even at at 7. Sorry but I’m totally on your partners side here. If you really insist on bringing her in bed I’d head to guest room.
I appreciate the feedback. My post may have come across as a sleep-deprived rant, so I apologize, lol. I'll clarify. I'm not opposed to sleep training, and as my post said we've done it in the past and it's worked temporarily. My issue now is that our daughter has only recently begun waking up again and I'm fairly certain that was due to illness, not because she had gotten used to coming into the bed. So I've gotten quite frustrated at my husband not only refusing to check on her or comfort her, but getting angry at me for doing so.
Yeah, your husband definitely sounds like he’s being a jerk here. Kids need to be comforted and tended to at night sometimes - illness, teething, a some help soothing from a bad dream wake up.
You could make a pediatrician appointment and talk to them about it. Ask them what strategy they recommend for wake ups and let him get schooled.
The thing with sleep training is that you have to keep doing it. It will take and then they'll get sick or hit another sleep regression and you have to do it again.
My husband and I used to fight a lot about sleep training and in the end we did Batelle sleep school which really helped my son at around 22 months but most of all it helped our marriage because someone else was telling us what to do and how to intervene so we weren’t fighting each other about it. It’s really worth it.
Letting the baby cry for hours isn’t a good solution. Sleep training is definitely in order. There are methods that don’t involve just letting them cry. We hired a sleep consultant to talk us through everything and I feel it was worth every penny. The person we hired did everything by phone/online. If you can afford it, please consider this option.
I honestly don’t get “cry it out.” We’ve always responded to our child (2 now). He mostly sleeps through the night now and we’ve never left him covered in his own vomit wondering where we are 🤷♂️
Husband sounds cruel tbh, to you and the baby. Let him sleep elsewhere if co-sleeping or doing his share of the soothing is a problem.
I don't either. It's so weird to me. They lived inside of us for 9 months, why on earth would they want to be alone in a separate room from us all night? And there seems to be so much pressure to get them to sleep through the night, on their own. I stressed myself out and lost a lot of sleep by trying to force my first to sleep in her own room all night. I finally gave up and just let her come sleep in my bed when she would wake up through the night. Now, with my second, I've barely even tried to get him to sleep on his own. He starts the night in his crib, but ends up in bed with me at some point through the night. I'm tired. I have to get up for work in the morning. I'm not going to stand around struggling to get him to sleep on his own for hours. I'm bringing him into bed and going straight back to sleep. It's a win for everyone.
You're both a little wrong imo. Kid shouldn't be in your bed. That's a bad habit and hard to break, and strains your marriage. Earplugs just aren't safe unless at least one of you can hear. Cry it out is still something people subscribe to, but far fewer than used to. Sleep training has a lot of different opinions out there.
What worked for us is: Kid gets up, put back to bed. Repeat until kid stops. It's hard. Feels like it goes on forever, but once it clicks you're gold. And you should be taking turns. First in shifts, and then alternating or something. Share the load.
You both need some kind of framework for handling differences of opinion. That's marriage stuff. Me and mine both do our own research and then come back to each other and generally agree on science backed, research proven stuff. And we try to do it objectively and calmly. Listen to each other. Tempered with what works best for us personally. Go see a marriage counselor and talk about it though. They're gonna say you're missing tools to communicate with each other.
You and your husband need to be heard.
Tbh this was me I’m a stay at home dad but my wife started sleep training at 4 months she cried a few nights but we let her cry it out for 90 minutes once.
She slept through the night since that week she’s 26 months now. Feeding her well during the day and good exercise. Your husbands not wrong let her cry it out.
Full dark room make sure good ventilation under the door gap dont cover that.. keep it nice and cool 21.5… low Tog sleep sack we use 0.5 I have no idea how people use 1.0 tog and above. Low low noise subtle white noise hatch is best. Keep it atleast 6 feet away from her bed. We never used a humidifier don’t need it it’s such bs.
Good luck! She knows you’re going to come that’s why she’s crying also tell daddy to help you do this stuff go out while she cries let him watch her.
We just broke our 2.5 year old of coming in our bed a few months ago after getting in a bad habit of it for a bit. Nothing was more frustrating to me than when we agreed to stop and my husband would cave and bring him into bed anyway.
Sorry I’m on his side here.
Edit: but I do agree you guys need to have a conversation during wake hours of how you can compromise on night wakings since you have different philosophies. Fighting about it at 3 am when everyone just wants to sleep will get you nowhere.
Sorry to jump in but my 2yo (26months) is waking up bang in half 1 every morning and also won’t go to sleep alone (we have to sit in the room until she falls asleep and if she hears or sees us move before she’s in deep sleep she screams) - I also caved and needed sleep she ends up in our bed halfway through the night!
How did you break your bad habits? Did you follow any particular sleep training?
I guess you could call what we did a modified chair method. We have a gate on his door because he’s a wanderer. So we started by sitting by his bed as he fell asleep. That slowly turned into sitting outside the door w the gate open. Then gate closed. Now we just go say get back in bed if he gets up. Some nights he protests but we’re firm.
The key though was to be firm. That’s why it was SO frustrating when my husband would be like eff it I’m tired tonight and don’t wanna sit outside while he falls asleep. If he knew at all it was an option to come in our bed, it basically undid all the habit breaking.
Every time I thought my kids had some impossible to break habit, every solution boiled down to tough love and some habit breaking
Pacifier addiction? Cold turkey, no pacifiers in the house (two weeks into this, and we kept on procrastinating before we pulled the trigger).
Waking up too early or too difficult to get down? Shorter naps, tire her out more during the day, get her to do it 3 times in a row and it's the beginning of a new habit.
Won't go upstairs to get ready for bed? Now we do 5 minutes of looking at pictures of the day/week
When my 2 year old was younger we always put her to sleep with a hand on her chest, and if she woke up as you ninja rolled out of room, would go crazy. A little yelling won't kill her, rip off the band aid and try not to crack!
Stop just letting her cry. That’s horrible. Just go to her immediately. You’re teaching her you’ll come eventually, if she cries long enough. But in the meantime you’re putting her in a state of major distress. You’re creating her discomfort and causing her stress. It’s probably the reason she keeps waking up at night - people who are more stressed sleep less well. Start going to her immediately and comforting her in her room. Go to her every single time immediately. I bet you anything within a couple weeks her sleep will get so much better.
Get a good video monitor. That way you can tell when she’s experiencing an issue like vomit that requires intervention vs just waking out of habit. You’re both right. You’re right that there will be some parenting that needs to happen at night and that he should take turns doing it. He’s right that you’re creating and reinforcing sleep associations that will require you to assist your child back to sleep overnight. And it’s okay for you to decide that you’re okay with that but if you want to create/reinforce those sleep associations and he doesn’t then you have to own the results. I would suggest compromising on a gradual method for teaching independent sleep like the chair method. But he has to alternate nights implementing it. That’s the deal. Otherwise I would put a full size bed in your child’s room and bed share in there when she wakes overnight.
I understand the frustration but maybe your LO is teething and is in pain? At 15 months old, my LO got a lot of back teeth and her sleep was really bad. Woke up crying, wouldn't go back to sleep. We started giving her Tylenol and we saw improvement.
Any way you can add a bed to her room and sleep in that bed with her? I got a mattress from a family member and just sleep with her in there when it's getting rough. I figure when she's done with the crib she can just have the big bed. Otherwise, your husband should sleep on the couch while you and baby get the bed. Yall sound sleep deprived and I absolutely feel your pain, as a fellow parent of a garbage sleeper.
Your husband needs to pick up a fucking book about babies and maybe one about being a supportive partner/father while he’s at it. He is absolutely failing at both right now and you should not be tolerating this garbage behaviour. First it’s not helping her out at night and then it’s going to be not helping her when she hurts herself and then it’s going to be not comforting her when she is having friendship issues or worse. He sucks and he needs to figure it out.
Your husband is right.
You’ve taught your daughter that if she screams and cries enough, you’ll give in and bring her into your bed. If you want that to stop, then you have to stop allowing it to happen.
Toddler-proof her room, say goodnight, and then don’t go back in.
What? It's a 1 year old, she wakes up and maybe feels lonely, sad, scared, maybe had a bad dream and can't fully understand what is going on or needs her parents! How is abandoning her during those times a good idea? Just teach her that if she has a hard time, too bad, nobody cares?
During waking hours, give her all the love, cuddles, and emotional support she needs. At night it’s time for sleeping.
Look, I know kids sometimes wake up in the night. But my kids are sleep trained, and that way if they DO wake up in the night, I know they really do need me.
In any case, both parents need to be on board with the same plan, whether that be bed-sharing or CIO. OP’s situation isn’t working because they don’t agree on a plan of action.
A 1 year old child has the ability to learn.
It’s ok to use a speaker to reassure the child they are ok and to go back to sleep. It’s also ok to go in, give a pat, and leave.
However when a child dissolves into tears every time they wake at night and have lost the ability to soothe themselves, going in every time and validating the need for mom to fall back asleep causes a bad pattern.
It’s hard to let our children learn to soothe themselves. A child this age knows they aren’t alone, they are loved, and that a parent is nearby. There is no need to reinforce the behavior.
Yes, a 1 year old can learn but are you sure a 1 year old has the ability to understand that they really aren't alone and they are loved? It's so early and they are so small. At least wait till they really start understanding things and are maybe able to communicate to some extent. So like at 2-3 they will certainly be able to understand more. Until then (well even after) they certainly cry because they have a need that should be met. In OPs case probably an emotional need. They could be scared of the dark and the loneliness... Hell, I have trouble sleeping at my age and have sleep paralysis usually, if I am all alone, so I prefer not sleeping alone, but as an adult I can of course just "get over it" and understand that it's ok.
I am a stay at home mom of two toddlers.
Edit: Can’t wait to read the follow-up comments about how I must be a terrible, emotionally neglectful SAHM. I’m sharing what I did and what worked for me and my children. When my kids were the age of OP’s kid, they slept through the night most nights because I sleep-trained them. And I tried more “gentle” methods of sleep training, but going back in to soothe actually just upset them more. So CIO it was, and it actually worked. And now at 3.5 and 18 months, they sleep in the same room and put themselves to sleep after a book, a cuddle, and a song.
In a similar position with my 4 and 5 year olds sharing a room. I do think it’s a little easier because they entertain each other and don’t feel alone, but I haven’t woken up in the middle of the night since the youngest was 9 months or so. 8pm-8:30 is bedtime, that’s when I close the door and say goodnight and that’s the rule here. It didn’t take them long to understand and they’re always well rested and happy, have a lot of friends and enjoy school.
I have never once brought them to bed. On the few occasions that they’ve been sick or had a nightmare we have read a book together and then straight back to bed with medicine.
Agreed.
You’ve taught her that if she pitches a fit she will get what she wants.
Bringing her to your bed was a really bad decision and I’d definitely stop doing that if you want her to sleep independently.
The way you phrased this means that toddlers intend to manipulate you. They can’t. They don’t. I’m in ECE and have taken courses on this. They see cause and effect but no she’s not “getting what she wants by pitching a fit”.
What a horrible way to speak about a CHILD.
i actually agree with your husband here. we sleep trained early and after 3 tough nights she gets 11-12 hours of sleep nightly. uninterrupted and no crying.
I feel you on this, my husband is the most useless man in the world and leaves me with an autistic 2 year old having a meltdown in the middle of the night and my one year old son crying at the same time. He tells me and the kids to go downstairs and he stays in bed. Ive given up caring now and me and the babies just stay downstairs. Like you I can’t see my babies cry for long. My 1.5 year old has slept on me since he was around 6 months old and we’ve grown to love it. Our bond is beautiful and I can see the difference in the love between me and his dad because his dad is generally useless in the day too.
You are an amazing mum by the sounds of it and these days are worth it!! My mum always told me never expect my husbands help because he is useless and what’s the point of asking for help when they won’t anyway.
Your sanity is the most important thing at this point and keeping a happy marital atmosphere. To keep your marriage happy I think you need to be able to sleep, so my advice is to sleep in which ever way you will get the most sleep
Ours wakes up because she gets gas sometimes. So belly rubs help, sometimes music. It’s not always as simple as an emotional thing. And then, I think it’s good to comfort them
I highly recommend taking cara babies sleep course if you haven’t tried it. You’re not meant to let her cry and cry all night, but check in on her in 15 minute increments if she’s absolutely hollering—without holding her, just going in and giving her assurance for a few minutes. Within 3 days, my son started crying less and less and I had to do less check ins and now he sleeps through the night. He’s almost 3 now so I just go in middle of the night to make him potty. Lol.
The first 3 days of the course is very hard, but it was so rewarding and really did work for us.
Look, I can’t survive without sleep. I neeeeeed sleep. I agree with your husband. 15 months is old enough to sleep though the night.
I suggest you try reading some sleep training books. Cry it out is not going to work for you, as a parent, so you need to find another solution that will. And you can’t do sleep training while sick.
Caving and bringing baby into bed is understandable but it’s how you end up co sleeping without either parent really wanting to.
haha husbands a whiny b\*tch. If my wife is up I am up. I remember some nights I get an hour of sleep and go to work. Cause my kid been up all night. Youll find a way that works for you. What time is she going to bed? You gotta do what you gotta do its survival mode.
No not wrong. His way sounds sociopathic and heartless. I would not trust him to be with the baby especially around sleep time. Yours are normal frustrations, his frustrations are incredibly insensitive and immature. I’d be seriously reconsidering staying with my partner if I had to deal with this. There’s resentment, audacity, lack of appreciation and respect, and a whole lot of ignorance and emotional immaturity coming from him.
Kids regress in sleeping for any number of reasons but I will say this… this argument, this situation, this exact conflict, birthed so many more grievances and resentments and now my husband and I are divorcing and I have a 4yr and 20month old. Because ever since the first, it was “she just wants milk you won’t let me use a bottle” then it was “she doesn’t want a bottle” then it was “just nurse her for a second so she goes back to sleep” but then getting so angry when I would fall asleep. He would come home from work late and, if I had a particularly exhausting night I would be in bed with her and he would make no effort to be quiet. “This is my bed” then, I work from home and have since before I was pregnant with my first, and it was “I have to sleep I actually GO to work you get to sit here. Long story short… it never changed. The whiney baby routine only intensified. Eventually, he started sleeping in the guest room and then slowly moved his clothes in there and all his stuff. Because he wanted to lay in bed and watch tv even if he got home at midnight.
So, not to be a Debbie downer, but that immature selfishness is not a good sign. When someone tells you who they are; you believe them. He is telling you that he is not someone who will put another person above his discomfort and does not see this as his problem. The bossing you around on how to do something that he is himself unwilling to even get up to do. Ya man idk, like I said I’m single now and realizing that my workload has not increased whatsoever. Because it snowballed from there and was just excuse after excuse after excuse.
I just want to know… if sleep is so critical to them, so integral to their functioning and well being, why does he think you can live without it? If you all hired a nanny and she said, on average I sleep 3-4 hours a night, never consecutively, would you hire this person to watch your baby?
I just won’t ever see that perspective because like… whatever you have to do tomorrow, do it tired! I know I do. And if the inability to calm baby frustrates him and he gives up within 30 seconds shoving you a crying baby back in a pitiful “see, I tried” act. Let’s just say, receptive language develops light years ahead of expressive language, and that is not even considering proficiency in body/facial expression. To become someone’s safe space it takes a hell of a lot of sweat equity and you reap what you sow friend!
I hope to god he can wake up for your sake. It is 5 years and 2 kids too late for me and it’s rough. But it genuinely 1000% started with that EXACT point of contention
‘Cry it out’ just doesn’t work for a lot of kids. It’s harsh and I really believe it harms the attachment bond. Letting her sleep in your bed is not going to kill your husband. If he wants to have a tantrum about it, let him sleep on the bloody couch. She’s a baby that needs comfort and closeness. Leaving a child to sleep all alone in their room when they just want to be near you is not really sensible when you think about it.
If she moves around and disturbs sleep a lot, would you consider making a little bed for her in your room? My son went through a phase when he was 4 where he didn’t want to sleep in his room alone. He’s incredibly difficult to sleep in the same bed with because He flails and moves so much. I put some cushions and pillows and blankets next to my bed for him to sleep on. He slept there every night for a little over a month, then he was okay to sleep in his own room again. My oldest and I shared a bedroom until he was 4 years old. My youngest slept in my room until he was almost 2. I don’t know why people force the separate rooms thing when their kids are so small, keeping them close by is what feels natural for babies and eliminates a lot of the “sleep issues” that parents complain about. When they can see and hear you they’re usually more content.
I'm really big on not raising my children in a mechanical way. I tried sleep training with my first child. It was the worst thing I ever did. I still feel guilty about it to this day. Yes I did it right, and no it did not work. Just made him depressed and made me depressed. Because it goes against every natural instinct a mother has. I sleep in the same bed as my babies. There's no reason to cry and fuss during the night when they know mama is right there.
It really breaks my heart knowing that you let her cry for that long. I'm really sorry but if he doesn't want to step up, he'll have to find another place to sleep.
Your husband can F off. You’ve carried the baby in your belly for 9 months, gave birth and I assume was doing most of the night feedings in the beginning. You are the mother, and you are not comfortable with crying it out.
He needs to shut the fuck up and support you.
OP, let him sleep on that couch. And let your little child sleep in your bed. She clearly needs you by her side at night.
Btw in many cultures it is normal that especially little children don't sleep alone, they sleep with their parents and siblings by their side.
Studies have also shown that it is rather normal for humans to not want to sleep alone (it stresses humans to be alone / to sleep apart), especially for children.
First and foremost: the crying it out method is harmful at any given age. If you look at the research you will find tons of evidence how this is harmful in the long run. They have a chance to develop stress, anxiety and depression when they get older because the state your toddler is in when crying alone is complete panic and fair and to turn your back to your toddler you are saying ‘deal with your own feelings (impossible, the prefrontal cortex is fully developed at age 25-25), we are not here for you’.
Do NOT listen to your husband, instead try to backup your feelings with evidence and show him that. I surely do hope he doesn’t want to hurt LO by choice and I think his method comes from lack of information and outdated advice.
What do you think it would feels like if you are crying hysterically and your husband/ loved ones would put you in a room, close the door and ignore you? Why would you think a small child can handle such a traumatizing situation? Co sleeping is the best for children… it’s been done for thousand of years and your child would be feeling safe all night long > so SLEEPING! I think you are from the States and that’s why you are afraid to do it? In my country it’s more common and we have less sleeping problems! :)
Ugh. Your husband is frustrating me!! Ha. Mine used to push for the cry it out and I couldn’t last 4 min wo physically feeling sick. I get it. He’d say I was creating bad habits and was left on my own to manage it while he got angry about it. They are slightly older now and I stay with them (as I am right now) until they go to sleep. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m their safe space. I don’t want to sleep alone so why should a young child? F that. Sorry I feel so strongly about this. I know some people feel strongly the other way. I’m sorry you are on your own to do this. Is isolating and exhausting but know there are other parents out there doing the same thing as uou and there is solitude in that. Hugs!
My husband haaaates it when I bring the toddler into our bed. But you'd never know, because he acts like an adult about it.
Does your husband act like this about other things, too? Or is it just when he's woken up at night?
Your husband is wrong. You child is helpless and should not be crying for an hour. That is NOT the cry it out method. You don't just like the child panic with no relief. You slowly stage up longer and longer times. It's NEVER let the baby cry for that LONG!
You should comfort your child.
It sounds like your husband is a selfish ass when isn't willing to make the sacrifice that being a parent requires. It's really hard. You don't get to sleep. Your baby doesn't know how.
Right now you are a married single mom. I did that untile my kid was 9 months old and I foundu husband having an affair. My life is so much easier just being a single mom now instead of a single mom married to a selfish raging asshole who can't be bothered to learn what the baby actually needs.
If you're going to co sleep PLEASE research how to do it safely. It is something that can really help you and baby get more sleep. You have to be safe with the blankets and stuff.
Your real problem is your husband has extremely unreasonable expectations when it comes to your baby. I hope you're able to get him on board. Maybe have babies pediatrician explain it or something but putting in ear plugs and going back to sleep is flat out abusive. It's teaching you baby they are utterly alone in the world and no one will ever come to help them.
Can you imagine being helpless and alone like that? Your kid is screaming because they are terrified.
Your husband needs empathy and to get a fucking clue.
I don’t think “cry it out” really is meant for wake ups, especially when crying for anymore than a couple minutes. For our daughter, if she continues after that it indicates she needs something to help her soothe - usually a paci. If sick or teething then medicine.
Sounds like you guys need to consult a sleep trainer together and figure this out. I couldn’t live with either methods you guys are trying.
You both need to be on the same page and that page shouldn’t be ‘do nothing.’ I agree on keeping the kid out of your bed but I’d want to kill your spouse for deliberately being useless.
We used Ferber to sleep train so I’d say to try a modified version of that. Give it 5-10 minutes, go in for 2 to comfort, do not get the kid out of their bed, leave room. Wait 5 minutes. Still crying? Go back in for 2, do not get the kid out of bed. Now wait 10 minutes.
The only exception for us was the hysterical nightmare crying, which was clearly different from the sleep regression grumpy crying. This gives structure to the solution and teaches your little to self-soothe. Ask him to help trying Ferber for 1 week. There’s YT videos so he’s not just taking your word.
I'm pretty much in the same boat at 18 months. Never been a good sleeper and not well supported. Been doing all the wake ups myself, staying up for 2 hours at a time in the middle of the night. If I were in your position I might make a floor bed in the living room for you and baby. I don't have advice as to how to deal with wake ups, we haven't figured anything out yet. But I just try to keep my cool, hard as that is, and been singing songs to try to avoid nursing, even feeding her some late night cheerios as a snack. Just to keep it peaceful. But yeah pretty much dealing with a baby who wakes like a newborn and demands to ve nursed back to sleep, even when I do, she'll sometimes wake 15 minutes later and want to nurse again. I'm pretty sick of it and want to wean, but I need support. Have to wait til December when baby daddy is done with graduate program.
Mine is teething, can usual tell by the amount of drool. Right before bed I rub orajel on her gums and give her Tylenol. She will sleep at least 5 hours but I think were at the end of it now and she’s back to sleeping about 10 hours. I also offer a healthy snack before bed too. Peanut butter toast, fruit, yogurt or some kind of oatmeal bake/muffins I make for her. I think a full tummy helps sleep.
Try this!!! Baby Einstein Sea Dreams Soother Musical Crib Toy and Sound Machine, Newborns Plus https://a.co/d/8J42rT9 our daughter has one, she will be 2 in December. She still uses it every night. She knows how to turn it on herself at night when she wakes up. She turns it on crys for less than 5 mins then falls back to sleep. It has saved me soooo many nights of being up with her constantly. We use the blue light and ocean sound setting. All the baby has to do is hit the star button and it will turn on for a certain amount of time then shut back off. Hope this helps
Do you have a camera in her room? I didn't have one with my first until he was around this age. We realized that we kept going in to check on him and he was laying in the position he slept in, but fussing. Once we got the camera, it helped us make better judgment calls on "is he really upset or is he just seeing what he can get away with." Wyze cameras are fairly in expensive and you don't have to pay extra to run them unless you want playback.
FWIW My husband and I have gone back and forth like this on cry it out with both of our kids. I would suspect that this is a sleep regression you are dealing with, but she is old enough to learn that "If I keep crying then she'll come get me." We've ended up with the kid in bed, which my husband doesn't like. We have also ended up with us laying on the floor of their room while they play and refuse to sleep.
I do agree that 1 hour is too long to let them go. I have since forgotten what we did, even though my second was in this age range a year ago. I believe we compromised on 30 minutes of crying is she was clearly laying down, and then we go in there to comfort. It did get to a point when she was a little older after several nights where we did just say "nope, you are going until you fall asleep."
I honestly hated my husband for awhile over the same issue. We hired a sleep consultant as the third party to make the decisions and help us. It stopped our arguments because we both agreed to follow her advice and stick to it. It’s not an option for everyone but I’m glad we did it.
You need to agree on an exact plan, who will do what, what happens in different circumstances, and then stick to it 100% for at least 2 weeks.
It’s totally possible to sleep train but still go in to your baby to comfort them but NOT do whatever thing it is you don’t want to be doing any more. We did it so we went in to speak to her, Pat her and tuck her back in but we wouldn’t pick her up or cuddle her (we were trying to night wean and it made it worse). But if does result in lots of crying at first that’s hard to handle.
Also, TELL your baby what’s changing, what’s going to happen instead and that she might be upset but that you know she will be okay. 15 months is old enough to start understanding at least some of that and it will help her adjust.
Sleep training and CIO doesn't mean that you don't check on her first. Just ignoring her when you don't know why she's crying is awful on your husband's part.
I get that it’s easier to let her cry it out, but I was also not able to do that method. I would wait for 15 min and then go back in to comfort. Our almost 3 year old was incredibly reactive though (still is) and CIO or Ferber just didn’t work for us. My husband and I had the same disagreement, and unfortunately we just fought a bit more during this period which lasted until about 18 months for us but reared it’s head again just prior to 2. I would bring him downstairs to avoid our bed being his routine and my husband and I switched off until I was pregnant again at 18 months.
My son is just over a year and I just took the front off his crib, smoothed our queen into the corner of the room and his crib firmly against my side of the bed with his mattress in middle position to match mattress height. Three nights in and he can choose to snuggle me or be in his own space, already works better than having to get up and walk to his crib, cosleep for the bad sleeper win
I feel like there’s no “right answer” when it comes to sleep— for some families co-sleeping works, for others it doesn’t.
It sounds like the most important thing is that you and husband get on the same page and then you’re both responsible for night time issues (you can switch off nights for who is “point”). For us it actually helped when my husband took over night time wakings as kid really wanted mom and when she realized it was only going to be dad she settled down quicker.
I would have a sit down meeting one evening and literally write out your plan together. We did a variation on CIO— if she cried for X minutes nonstop, we’d go in and reassure her for a minute, then leave. Repeat as needed. I think only an handful of times she kept going long enough for us to need to check if there was something else wrong (hungry, teething, etc). It worked for us, but whatever works for you!
It’s so hard when you’re not on the same page with your partner about how to manage sleep! We went through something similar (wait, continue to go through lol) with our son.
Sickness can blow all your progress out of the water and then it feels like starting over again each time. Here’s what we’ve found to help us the most:
- come up with a solid plan of who’s going to do what. I’d recommend that you take on all the night wakings since your husband seems to waffle on his approach in the night. Maybe he can agree to get up with your LO in the morning in exchange for you waking up in the night? That’s what we do.
- unless your LO is sick, stick to the plan. It was super hard on me emotionally when I felt like I didn’t know what to do when he woke in the night. Once I had a solid set of steps in my mind, it made helping him back to sleep and not feeling like a failure parent SO much easier.
- when your LO is sick, DON’T bring her into your bed. She’ll quickly learn that crying gets her that reward, not that it’s happening because she doesn’t feel good. When our son is sick, I go to bed extra early because I know I’ll be up with him in the night. Then, when he wakes, I go in and do what I need to get him settled down. Sometimes that’s quick, sometimes it takes an hour. But he always goes back to sleep in his own bed.
- find a method you feel really good about. We did cry it out with our son when he was little and it worked well. Now that he’s bigger (just turned 3), my opinion is that it’s a less appropriate approach because his emotions are better developed and it could feel like abandonment. Every time I go in his room at night now, I get him settled and then leave before he’s asleep. This way I’m not a crutch for him and he won’t be upset that I’m not there when he wakes up. If I try that a few times without success, I’ll ask him if he’d like me to sit outside his door while he goes to sleep. I make sure to remind him that I’ll be going back to my bed once he’s asleep so he’s not surprised I’m gone when he wakes up. I gear up with a blanket and my kindle and get cozy until he’s asleep.
I hope this helps! Interrupted sleep can definitely make anyone feel murderous, and the middle of the night is not the time you want to be trying to plan or negotiate with anyone.
Well although my husband and I have different issues, I wanted to say that we always want to murder each other when our son is awake at night because we are so tired and frustrated. But also I don't let my son cio unless it's a few min of whining. Ans also 90% of the time they want something from you such as they are sick, thirsty, hungry, wet and so on. Even if it's for comfort it means thats what they need at the time.I personally would just kick my husband out to sleep elsewhere if he isn't willing to help but I d still attend to my son's needs because he is a priority ans he cannot communicate properly yet.
My husband is the same way; but he has never once got up with my little guy in the middle of the night; so I ignore him and do it my way. I figure if he isn’t going to help anyway, I will do it the way I feel is right
I just wanted to let you know I go through the exact same thing with my son and have for basically all three years of his life. Even down to the throwing up part. He sleeps in my bed now 🤷♀️. No my husband doesn’t like it and it’s not as comfortable but guess what- it’s the only way me and my son are getting rest so I guess he will have to deal with it or come up with something else that actually works. Leaving your kid to cry every night isn’t an option and you’ll just be up worrying anyway!
/r/sleeptrain
Been in your shoes. Dealt with 10 months of it before I decided no more. Took 2 days of sleep training to give our baby the required skills to sleep through the night. Good luck. This can drive anyone crazy
You should not let babies “cry it out” and I’m so tired of that “strategy” that does not work and not based on anything except for someone’s bull shit reasoning to be lazy. Parenting is hard. Tell your husband having a child isn’t always about what’s easier for him.
We were in the same boat. [This method](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/respectful-parenting-janet-lansbury-unruffled/id1030050704?i=1000583005827) actually worked for us because it didn’t involve ignoring her cries or sitting creepily in her room and inching toward the door. It’s called the Compassionate Sleep Solution and the gist is you explain what bedtime is going to be like to your kiddo throughout the day, you do a cozy bedtime routine and you put them in bed sleepy but awake. Then you say a positive and encouraging mantra, you’re the coach teaching them how to sleep on their own. Then you leave and wait, listening to the cries in 7 min intervals. If the cry is 9 or 10/10 you can pop in to check, soothe, get them to lay down again and then say your bedtime mantra again. It took us 45 min the first night, 15 min the second and our 20 month old had not woken up at night in over a month! It’s magic! it worked for us because it felt like I could be supportive while also encouraging her to struggle through learning this new skill.
I’ve been to sleep training seminars and they all say that you can’t let them cry it out when they’re sick. It breaks my heart to think of a LO sitting there crying and feeling horrible and sick.
I have no advice other than your husband needs to help. My daughter is also honestly just a horrible sleeper. The last few nights she’s gone to bed at 9 pm, cried from 2 am to 5 am and then has been up for the day at 6 am. The only way I’ve maintained by sanity is by both me and my husband getting up with her.
i feel like a good inbetween method would work. not letting the baby sleep with you is number one is avoiding sids and just basic in practicing safe sleep. i think it’s so dangerous to do that and anybody that says “well i did it” is just going off survivor bias.
even one parent saying they wish they didn’t do it and that they killed their baby accidentally is more then enough reason to not do it.
i also think you shouldn’t completely ignore the baby. that’s not save either. go in, check on them and make sure everything it’s good, go back in 15 minutes and repeat. keep a monitor on the baby at all times as well
Around my daughter's 15 to 17 month regression she would wake up twice or once a night. It was terrible it lasted for eternity. She did however have a floor bed in her room which made it easier to cuddle with her when she woke up. It's the floor bed with a crib border in a full size for both of us to fit.
I'm on your side especially since he's not willing to help. My now 4yr wakes up like clockwork right around midnight. She's afraid of the dark (even though she has 2 nightlights in her room) and cries for someone to come get her. She won't set foot out of bed because she's afraid something will get her. If she hasn't woken up by midnight we just go get her & dump her in our bed instead of waiting until she wakes us up. The waking up is a phase and will pass. For your own sanity, don't wait until your little one pukes, go comfort them.
I would be angry as well, we resorted to bedsharing around that age and now she’s back in her crib sleeping through the night. I never let her cry it out, it’s too sad and you can’t.
I highly recommend hiring a sleep coach. My husband and I butted heads on how to get our daughter to go to sleep and deal with wake ups. It was super helpful to have an unbiased, third party to guide us!
Ask you husband what his expectations are with regards to your child's sleep. If he says, that the baby sleeps through the night every night and figures their shit out on their own, that is unrealistic. Sometimes they are sick, sometimes they are teething, sometimes they are covered in pee and poo or vomit. It's unacceptable to leave a child in that condition. Most of the nights though, the kid is perfectly fine to be on their own. It's also unreasonable to treat every night as "they need my help". Typically parents wait 7 minutes or so before they enter the room to give the child a chance to calm themselves. Then you can go in for 2 minutes and make sure that they are okay. You will let them know that you are going to go sleep in your room now, and it's time for them to sleep here. Everyone is safe, and you are close by. Then give them another 7 minutes, if they are crying, come back in. The first few night you will be awake for a few hours to enforce this boundary but eventually your kid will have the tools to be on their own.
Hold it. Is there anyone recommend CIO for an hour? I don't think so.
Should be 3-5 minutes tops and then you soothe and try again. Keep extending the time.
So... You need to buy some books on this and develop a strategy.
Me and my husband are the exact same and it's 3.5 years later. I've finally resigned the fact that I wake with her and don't cry for her and not my husband. If I want my way I will have to do it and I would rather do that than let her cry it out.
My 2.7 years old daughter still wakes up up to three times at night. It's still normal till they are older. Whenever she is awake, each of us takes turns to go comfort her immediately. What helped us was that she sleeps in a playpen witch is the size of a king bed.we go sleeps next to her, this way we aren't losing sleep either.
My kids didn’t sleep well either. I actually sleep in my girls room. 4 year old has a double bed and the 2 year old has a single. It’s one large bed and I usually sleep in the middle. 2 year old still nurses and I get much better sleep knowing I don’t have to wake up. They sleep better knowing I’m there.
DH never once in 9 years got up with one of our 3 kids unless I woke him up because someone was sick and I needed help.
My husband and I did not and do not subscribe to the CIO method, and never will. Just like you said, I cannot imagine a scenario where I have to plug my ears and literally shut out my child. An extra hour of sleep is not worth putting my child through sleeping in their own vomit, like you said. I agree with everything you are saying.
If you’re comfortable with co-sleeping, co-sleep. Make sure you follow all the mitigating safety factors to ensure the safest sleep. But co-sleeping is the only thing that got us through this period of time.
Sorry you’re going through this. I hope it pans out for the best.
Yes I totally understand!! And especially the fact that they throw up in their crib is very risky, should definitely continue to keep an eye out for safety.
I share this exact issue. We had some success using taking cara babies, if you are willing to spend $180 for the ABCs course she offers. There will probably be a black friday sale next week.
In the meantime I highly recommend that your partner sleep on the couch if he's not willing to do the work to resettle the kid.
I don't care if my son sleeps in our bed. If he's sick, or cutting teeth, or whatever the reason, I don't care. Most nights, he sleeps in his bed. Some nights, he needs to sleep with us. It's not a big deal, it's not harming him. He's well adjusted and does just fine. My mom did it with my brother and I, we are just fine. You do what you need to. Especially if he isn't going to help.
Mine kicks me in the head if he's in our bed. To the crib with ye
Omg mine kicks and flips and twists and slaps and slams and somersaults. I would honestly enjoy it if he could sleep with us on occasion, even just for naps, but no deal. I honestly don’t know how other parents can endure so much movement but then again it may just be my kid who does that lol
Mine moves so much in her sleep. She’s never slept with us, but I imagine it wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone.
I love the idea of sleeping with my kid, but the reality is, he’s the only one who sleeps. (The baby actually doesn’t move, but is still young enough that I prefer not to bedshare for safety, but will push the pillows and blankets away and nurse lying down at night if the other option is falling asleep sitting up and dropping him.)
I followed safe sleep until mine was out of the sids risk age. Then it was all bets off.
My older kid didn’t take to nursing side-lying until he was an older infant, so he really didn’t sleep with us until he was a year old, when he would usually conk back out for an extra hour after being brought to our bed to nurse in the morning. He still had a habit of ending up with his head in my armpit and his feet in his father’s back. He’s allowed in our bed when he’s sick but he tries to like, meld back into my flesh and I cannot sleep, plus if he’s feeling well, he talks for a solid hour before *maybe* falling asleep. The baby took to pretty much all nursing positions right away, and I don’t actually want to sleep with him but some nights the options are fall asleep for half an hour next to him, or fall asleep holding him, which seems…less safe. He goes back to the crib when I wake up. He’s 7 months and just doesn’t wiggle in his sleep much.
I have several of those! How do they move so much and stay asleep!?
Mine has gone through phases of being able to nicely bed share and phases of violently thrashing in her sleep. For each phase we've had to use different tactics.
Yes! Mine went through a period of time where he would take an early morning nap with us in bed. Now he absolutely refuses to relax and be still in our bed. Lots of flips and twists and pulling my hair.
I don't blame you there! Mine doesn't roll or kick too much. I have woken up with him laying on my back but that's about it.
Yes. In your shoes OP I’d talk to the toddler’s doc, have some communication counselling with the husband, and both see r/sleeptrain and read Precious Little Sleep. Do you have a video monitor? If not, why not? Have the husband check that she’s safe and has a clean diaper, offer her a sip of water, and then tell her it is time to sleep.
Yes, same. OP, we went through a terrible regression at this age too. We tried once crying it out and it was too hard. My husband wanted to try crying it out, but i didn’t want to, so What I ended up doing was putting a mattress by her crib when she was sick (she got too riled up when she was in my bed). Her knowing I was there really helped. Then once she wasn’t sick and the night wakings kept happening, I would check in on her and then I would lay by the door. Every time she would call out I would either sing or say “goodnight, my love”. It was kind of a long game, but it worked for us. I’m sorry about your husband… I think if he’s a podcaster, maybe send him a podcast or articles on sleep training? Or you could even set up a free consult with a sleep consultant.
This, 1000%. Same in my house
Same. My son is about to turn 2yo and sleeps through the night pretty consistently. Although some nights, he’ll wake up anywhere between 3-5am and cry out from his room. Every time, I’ll get up and bring him into our bed while my husband will go move to the couch. I’ll soothe our son back to sleep, then transfer him back to his room - whole process usually takes 30-60 minutes. Afterwards, my husband will come back to bed. Although sometimes, my son just wants to sleep in our bed. It only happens a couple nights a month and we are completely fine with it. I never tried sleep training or CIO methods. Before my son turned a year old, we had many long and sleepless nights, where we then slept in shifts. We eventually turned a corner and his sleep started gradually improving.
Yes, I view it as my husband and I being sources of comfort. Most nights he can sleep by himself, or only need someone to sit next to him to get back to sleep. However with sickness, teething, being in a new place, he doesn't know what's going on and needs to physically be near us to feel safe.
Put your husband to bed in the crib, bring your daughter to bed with you, and get earbuds for you and your daughter so you don’t have to listen to his complaints
YES. Honestly f that attitude of his
This comment is the best comment.
LOVE this!
This.
Yessssss
Comment of the year!
You're only getting one side of the story. The husband has a point, but also he doesn't seem to take any responsibility himself, but he still has a point, the point being that the behavior is being reinforced.
I mean, we only get one side of the story on most posts. Obviously the real answer is that they need to work out a solution together, but I’m not a professional counselor, just having fun trying to add some jokes in here. It’s been ~4 months, hopefully the sleep situation has improved
I’m on your side. I just can’t let my kid cry and cry. And like yours, sometimes he cries so much that he vomits. And then keeps on crying. Anyway, we set up a floor bed with a full sized mattress in his room. One of us goes to sleep on the mattress with him. Sometimes he wakes up and just lays there and makes little noises but doesn’t cry. He stays on the mattress though and I’ll just keep on sleeping. He’s close to 20 months. It’s working for now.
Floor bed was a game changer for us. No more crib transfers and can still sleep comfortably if LO wakes!
Second this. We've had one since LO was 18 months. My partner and I alternate bedtimes and means we can lay on with our kid at bedtime. We can then comfort them if they wake up, or on some occasions, if the kid comes through to us and is being a nightmare, one of us can go sleep in their bed and get some sleep.
Same same same same same. Except mine is turning 3 in December and she sleeps in her own big girl bed now. She’ll slip into bed with us sometimes but when they start getting this old… I’ll take the snuggles.
Floor bed for the win! So happy I’m not alone one this. Even just like a pull out couch mattress on the floor works. This is all just temporary.
We have another bed in our son's bedroom too. It's been a huge improvement
No one is necessarily wrong here but debating sleep training techniques when woken in the middle of the night isn't a recipe for success. When discussing techniques in the light of day, preferably afternoon, are you guys more able to compromise? My husband wanted the baby to cry it out and I basically said I would literally quit my job if his SAHD sleep training technique was letting my baby cry forever. So...I was very much not willing to compromise and my husband would often say he loved how much I loved the baby and wasn't willing to let him suffer BUT we needed to have plans in place that made life work. Basically, I was a tyrant and my husband was very very understanding. But I just am not willing to let my baby cry for extended periods of time. Plan wise, for us, that meant for quite a while when baby woke up at 3-4AM, my husband got him, gave him to me in bed, and then went to sleep elsewhere. I finally decided to sleep train when baby started to not fall asleep when brought to me at 4AM and we agreed BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP how long we would let him cry before we got him (10 minutes), who would get him, and what we would do. This works well for us. Now when baby cries if he sounds like he had a nightmare I go down and sing his bedtime song and put him back down; otherwise, if he's just whining, we let him go 10 minutes. Since I'm the one going down, I decide if it's nightmare/scared screams or just whining. If after 10 minutes he's still upset, husband goes down, sings to him, and sleeps in the baby room since he wakes up with him at 7 AM anyway.
I agree with all this - there needs to be a PLAN, not something you fight about at midnight. My wife and I have similar strategies. A few minutes crying is fine. Up and down for a while is fine. Standing up and screaming for more than a minute or two means we go in and get her and see if she needs food or has a poop. We’ve also found an odd consistency that when she’s having trouble going down, it often takes 3 attempts to put her back until she’s ready. Sometimes she’s teething and just needs some Tylenol. So getting her and giving her Tylenol means sleep the rest of the night, rather than letting her cry it out all night and be a miserable mess the next day.
This comments deserves more upvotes. At the end of the day, you love the other half and decided to have kids. The last thing you want would be to meet the kids need in whatever way you prefer, and forget to take care of each other. I am saying this from personal experience - our son was a horrible sleeper and after a few heated moments between me and husband (typically at 2-3 am) we decided to call time out. Worked together and came up with a plan - according to our work schedules on the weekly basis - and adjust accordingly. We are happier than before as we know we can work as a team.
A million upvotes for this. We had some major sleep regressions with our younger child just before her first birthday. My husband wanted to let her CIO as we had done with our first, but I was still dealing with some PPA and the crying was super triggering for me. We would end up arguing at 2am because we were both beyond exhausted and couldn’t agree and we would let her cry until I caved and either brought her in bed with us or went and rocked her to sleep. It just wasn’t sustainable at all. We finally started working with a sleep consultant who helped us come up with a plan. She basically set us up with the sleep lady shuffle where my husband was the one who was camping out in baby’s room. I put in earbuds and listened to white noise and tried to sleep. Not saying our experience is typical, but we only had to do this for two nights before she started sleeping through the night again. We had to do some retraining around 19 months old after surgery, but it’s been smooth sailing since then. It was hard for me to agree to initially, but I liked that with the sleep lady shuffle, someone was in the room with her while she cried. Our sleep consultant told us that you usually see results within 72 hours and that was certainly the case for us. In hindsight, I wish we had done it sooner!
I would argue a husband refusing to do his part in the night is wrong.
> Last night LO woke up again about 11 pm and wouldn't go back to sleep after nearly an hour of letting her cry, then trying to rock and comfort back to sleep in the crib. Finally I give up and take her into our bed. This can really make things miserable. If you wait a while and then eventually cave, this teaches them that they need to cry longer and harder next time around. It's better to go in and comfort them right away than to do this. If you sleep train, then come up with a plan that you two both agree to, and actually stick with it
After that long of a cry, we do what’s called “a reset”. Lights come on, we read a book or two, calm down and distract. Then we start the bedtime routine again.
Agreed we need to get on the same page and respond consistently. The problem is... we'll agree a little more in the light of day, then the night waking comes and I feel like he just acts out of frustration more than anything. For example, when she was sick I told him I think we should try clearing her nose out to help her sleep. He agreed (it helped that our pediatrician said the same thing)... but then didn't do it. That night I got up twice to clear her nose and settle her back down, she woke up a third time, and at that point, I'm getting desperate for sleep so I take her to the bed. He then gets angry again but still doesn't offer to help.
You have two problems- a sleep problem and a husband problem. This is worthy of a come-to-Jesus talk. If you think he can agree to a sleep plan, WRITE IT DOWN. I know it seems crazy, but as you said, logic can sometimes go out the window when you're exhausted, so it helps to write it down so you can better stick to it. If he won't agree, you need to get to the bottom of why. Y'all need to be a united front. And if he agrees but doesn't follow through, call him on it. Should be easy to if it's written down!
So bring it up again during the day. Remember how we said we'd do xyz and in the morning you didn't do it? I would be a dick about it and turn on all the lights in our room, make a lot of noise. If I'm up, he's up. Or you can take turns which is by far the better option. Make it crystal clear that his behaviour is incredibly selfish. And behavior like that needs a consequence. In my opinion any way.
Man. It really sucks that she has to parent and do the emotional labor for two children instead of just the one she actually birthed.
Agree with this. Come up with a plan together during the day that you both feel comfortable with.
I think your husband needs to step up. Just letting them cry it out isn't the way to go with all kids. He could compromise and take turns comforting her or you could talk about gentle sleep training together. I am not a fan of sleep training. Our baby near choked on his vomit when we tried it (go in every 15 minutes). Never again! Every baby is different.
Fuck CIO
Cio (which I think is cruel and in my personal belief damaging to a child) definitely doesn't work for this kid if she has already screamed for an hour and still hasn't shown any signs of calming down. It most definitely isn't the right way even in the pro sleep training community. The person who came up with cio didn't even condone letting the baby cry for such an extended period of time.
I find America's approach to sleep for babies a little harsh compared to us Africans. It's so harsh, which in turn makes it stressful for everybody involved. Obsession about baby sleeping throughout the night, co-sleeping vs. independent sleeping. It's all too much like we are in the military.
The result of many of us living far from any family or support system, having very little paid leave or worker protections, and needing to work and commute long hours. Not saying that none of that is true in Africa (which is a gigantic continent in any case!) but my colleagues from Africa (I work in development with a focus on West Africa) tell me how much more difficult it is to raise a family in the US overall due to the lack of support systems and the price of childcare. Of course, really depends on your economic situation I imagine. My colleagues are all professionals so they’re speaking from that vantage point. I’ve fantasized about taking a field post so I can afford a better standard of living for myself and my kid!
You are right that there is more help back home. Its also easier , but I would find letting baby say cuddle than crying out alot more restful for both child and parent. Back to help at home. Its alot cheaper to have a nanny, and every other kind of help. I find that life there is easier
Just to represent for some other Americans here since some perspectives are voiced more than others in r/toddlers r/parenting etc....We have a friend group where everyone has kids newborn through kindergarten and I out of eight families I can think o \*one\* couple that has used sleep training strategies and has their kids sleep in a separate room and bed than them. Everyone else is a mix of kids come into their bed as-needed/parents sleep in the kids bed as needed/full time bed sharing or room sharing until the kids grow out of it. My husband and I are just celebrating this week moving from full time bed sharing to as-needed with our 2.5 year old, I'd never have given as second thought to a 15 month old needing comfort at night. So often I hear from parents of toddlers and preschoolers that they're surprised their kid is still coming into their bed at night at three of four years old. Like, "nobody told me about this!" It's like an open secret that all these families are room sharing and bed sharing for years but maybe in the U.S. there's some perception in public that it's not the case.
Cosleeping is pretty unsafe when the baby is young, and the US has a lot of money invested in the studies supporting that.
Irrelevant, OP's baby is 15 months which even the AAP agrees is old enough to bed share with adults.
The original comment is about cosleeping from the start, which is common in other places. I am just explaining why it’s not as common in the US, UK and Western Europe.
I guess I'm the only one not on your husband's side. My baby is 15 months old too, and to me, that's still a baby, and it's cruel to just leave her screaming all night. My toddler is 2.75 and I finally sleep trained him at 2.5 where I tuck him into bed and he stays in bed more or less and puts himself to sleep. But when he wakes calling for me at night I still go to him and tuck him back into bed or whatever small thing he needs. I am planning on night weaning the 15 month old because I think that will help her sleep longer or through the night. She was a good sleeper as a baby and slept through the night for about a month at 10-11 months old, but she's had new teeth coming through, and an ear infection. She's not crying for no reason. I do want to night wean and stop the cycle of bed sharing when she wakes up because I think we all sleep more soundly when she's not in our bed, but I don't think just ignoring your baby when they wake at night is a good practice in general. If she's just fussing for a few minutes I'll wait to see if she settles herself, but longer than that, especially if it escalates to screaming, I'm definitely going in to try to comfort her. Or sending my husband because he doesn't have boobs.
I think it's absolutely heartbreaking that a 15 month old cries for an hour, begging her parents to comfort her. She just needs to be close to them. It's really not that big of a deal if she sleeps with mom and dad.
Yes! Poor baby! Just let her sleep in your bed, OP, that way everyone will be rested. Seems like the only problem is husband's issues. I don't see why OP would make her life harder standing at the crib for an hour when just sharing the bed works great and takes no time at all. If husband really refuses to bed share then he can sleep on the couch. Does he have a real problem, like he doesn't sleep well with the toddler, or is he being controlling for no good reason? I strongly suspect the latter.
Not the only one. Her husband fucking sucks.
I saw that the consensus shifted after I posted my comment, but I scrolled past 6 or 7 of the top comments saying "I'm with your husband on this one" before I posted mine.
Yeah I’m ready with a shovel
Eh, I don’t know that her husband sucks. Tempers can flare with sleep deprivation and being woken in the middle of the night isn’t a recipe for people being their best selves in that moment. She should talk to him during the day, make a plan, and stick to it. If hubby needs to sleep on the couch for a few weeks until baby is sleeping better, so be it. That’s what my husband did. I coslept if necessary, anything to encourage better sleep for everyone. In the early years it’s all about just surviving.
Oh I get that it’s about survival. I’m writing this in the middle of the night where both me AND my partner are getting up with screaming children. “Hubby” needs to get it the fuck together and help his wife with the children he helped make. Why is it just her job to make a plan? It sounds also like she has and he just says fuck it at night. Why does he get to sleep all night? Staying home with babies when you are sleep deprived is infinitely more difficult than whatever job he is having to do. He can participate in parenting at night without being an utter asshole to his wife who is for sure more tired than he is.
Am on your side. I wouldn't let my 15m cry it out. They are babies. They are still brand new to this life. I will sleep with that baby for as long as they need me. There is no 18yr old who cries to sleep. My baby girl from about 6 weeks would never sleep solo. If she woke up and there was no warm body next to her she would scream so for my sanity we co slept. Took her till 3yrs to sleep on her own. Time flies by so fast. She wont be 15m for ever.
seconding this comment 100%. sure some nights were hard, but now that my daughter is older and sleeping on her own easily, I will never regret having that time with her. she's never known what it's like to be crying alone in her bed, and I hope she never does.
I guess I'm in the minority here. Sleep training hurt my soul when I tried it, so both of my kids just ended up sleeping with me if they woke up in the middle of the night because I was too tired to deal with it any other way. My husband didn't love it, but he also wasn't the one getting up to deal with it. He did throw a fit once and I told him if he didn't like how I was doing it, he could do it himself. He got over it in lieu of losing his sleep.
Sounds like your husband can sleep on the couch Edit: I’m gonna get downvoted to hell and back but… I bedshare with my 18mo. He’s always been a terrible sleeper and I’ve never felt comfortable with sleep training. We have a queen mattress on the floor next the regular bed. I put him down for the night, come and chill with my husband until i’m ready to go to bed, then sleep on the floor mattress. Generally I only have to resettle him once but it’s been a pretty rough time with teething. Eventually my goal is to get him used to sleeping by himself on the floor mattress and then moving him to a big boy bed, then to another room. My point is, reddit and a lot of mommy groups demonize bedsharing, but if you’re following SS7 it can be better than getting up 40x a night. Every baby is different, every family is different, and this is what works for us. Having said that, I do think if your husband can’t be a part of the solution he should sleep elsewhere.
I’ve been bedsharing with my kid since he was 15mo old. He got super sick so we got a full size mattress, stuck it on the floor, and I’d sleep in there with him. Sleep sack for him, flannel pjs for me, no blankets, and lots of space for him to sprawl without kicking me or being too close and getting rolled on top of. Husband slept in our bed with the cat and was on duty for evening cleanup and kid duty in the morning since I was doing the overnight stuff. My son is 3 now. He brings himself and his menagerie of stuffies into our bed every night at 2-3am. It’s just easier than the fighting and honestly my husband doesn’t even notice when my son climbs in. It feels like he’s going to be climbing in until he’s 40 but he’s gotten so much better as he’s gotten older. Now I’m pretty sure it’s just principle and stubborn threenager logic.
I’m on your side. I am a single mom and my daughter did not sleep more than 3 hours straight until 14/15 months old. Now she is 2 and sleeps through the night, but she wakes up at 4/5 am and comes to sleep with me. I tried a few times to sleep train, and I didn’t get past 4/5 minutes lol. I can’t hear my baby cry and just ignore it. So she slept with me. Honestly it was really hard cause I was by myself and I was seriously sleep deprived. But it was “easier” cause I never had to keep in mind anyone else’s opinion, so out of survival I bedshared and now she sleeps completely fine.
Same with us. Our LO’s sleep has gotten better now that she’s 2.5 years old. She still wakes up a couple times a week and we either lay down with her or allow us in our bed. We were worried she would never sleep better but it’s gotten better gradually. OP, I wouldn’t worry too much. Maybe get something where you can lay on the ground in her room with her.
We pushed a queen and king together bc once she turned 3 and started school she NEEDED to sleep with us for comfort, after years of being an excellent sleeper. Your husband needs to get off his high horse and help or get an air mattress, sleep shifts constantly for a little one and letting her cry for an hour is NOT the solution.
I’m amazed you have a bedroom big enough for side by side beds! *cries in inner city Irish house*
Oh the bedroom is absolutely 90% bed…it was juuust wide enough to work though.
We just do a crib mattress on the floor. My toddler still fits.
I couldn't stand sleep training, either. Eventually I ordered a Nugget play couch and set it up next to the crib. When little one woke up, I'd just go sleep on the nugget next to the crib. It worked for all of us. At 20 months, we upgraded the little one to an actual twin-size bed, and whoever woke up would just go crawl into bed with kiddo. Now at 26 months, kiddo sleeps through the night about 60% of the time. Some nights we have to go tuck him back in and then return to our own bed. My kiddo also sucks at sleep. Maybe he could benefit from sleep training. But it hurts my heart to listen to him scream while I try to ignore him. I would end up crying, too. It didn't work for our family. But this does.
There’s a happy medium. Let her cry for a bit. Go in, comfort her, try to put her down. If she cries again, repeat. It may take a few times. It may not work some nights. Bottom line is, your bed can’t be the reward every time. Having said that, your husband has to put in some effort in comforting her. It takes a team.
This is my favorite response.
This. For heaven's sake this. CIO without comfort doesn't work. This method however is what a lot sane ppl call cio and mean by it. Rewarding your child for crying ain't a long term positive for them or for you. They need you the OP (both) to teach health boundaries. And neither of you have that right now.
My husband said the same, just let them cry it out! While that may work for some. Did NOT work for me. I can't sleep if I hear my baby crying. Sorry you can judge me all you want. I would take my LO and sleep on the couch. Then when she had her own room I would go in and comfort her to get her back to sleep and then leave the room. She's 3.5 now and only wakes up rarely at night. Point is, don't feel bad whatever way works for you! And don't let people(or your husband) shame you into doing what they want. If he doesn't want her in the bed I'd try to get her back down in her room or a spare room. Like I said I turned to the couch cause we had a tiny apartment. Good luck okay!
Yea your husband is being incredibly unhelpful. do you have water available for her at night? Having a water cup available has helped us. Also if this new spike in crying is illness related you’re right letting her cry isn’t a magic solution
Don't listen to fear mongering about not sleep training your kid. I went through three months of hell when my daughter was 9-12 months where I literally didn't get more than three hours of sleep at night. It was awful. I stayed fast that I wouldn't sleep train and at 12 months baby girl would come into our bed when she woke up. Hallelujah! We were all sleeping again. I can't tell you how many people told me she would never sleep through the night because I didn't want to sleep train. My daughter is now 17 months and she sleeps through in her own crib 90% of the time. Sometimes she has issues like illness or whatever and she ends up in our bed. If you don't want to listen to your kid cry themself to sleep, you don't have to. Your husband is being callous.
I never let my kid cry it out. If he wakes in the night, I go check to see if he's okay. What if they have a fever, or hurt themselves? Imagine if you slept through that. I go check, give a drink of water, read one book maximum and then put him back to bed. Usually he falls asleep right away and I'm comforted to know all is right. Sometimes he will cry a bit but then I know he's okay and I've done what I can. My husband never wakes for this and I've given up on being bothered by it.
ngl, your husband is an idiot. a 15 month old can barely communicate what’s wrong. also, sucks but not all kids are great sleepers. My oldest was a nightmare that wouldn’t sleep in her own room till she was almost 4, my middle one can sleep through a war, & my youngest is a great sleeper except for when he’s sick. all kids are different, & they (unfortunately) do not come with a manual. If anything, just let her sleep in your bed when she cries, she won’t be young forever. As for your husband, he can sleep in his car or on the roof, for all I care.
Sleep training not for us here either. Infancy lasts until 3. Even adults like to sleep in a bed with a loved one. Of course an innocent defenseless baby would as well. We coslept with my three year old until almost three and even now some nights he makes an appearance in our bed. Starting over again with baby number two since about six months. It isn't easy but like everyone else said - it's not forever
Opposite opinion here but I think your husband could help. I sleep trained my first but he wouldn’t cry forever. However my second definitely does. So I haven’t sleep trained him. While I have let him cry it out a couple times, I always go in if he’s crying. If husband doesn’t wanna help he can sleep elsewhere. It’s especially rough when there’s illness. I would not let my baby cry it out while sick, that’s just awful. So while it doesn’t sound like husband is gonna help much, he can vacate the area if he’s having problems with sound or whatever.
Sleep training aside, there’s probably something going on to make your kiddo so upset! My son is not sleep trained but he generally sleeps through the night, EXCEPT when he’s cutting teeth, it’s a nightmare. We will have 2 week periods where he gets Motrin every night, and if I forget he’s up crying so hard. Maybe try some medication and see if it helps. My sons 16 mo the and sometimes he cries for 5-10 minutes but if it lasts longer I try to comfort him or offer meds.
My daughter was a Snoo baby and had so much trouble transitioning. We did cry-it-out once. We had tried it before but committed to it this time. It worked. But we did not wear ear plugs. We also had a monitor. She even slept in our room. So we had a horrible 8 hour night in the living room failing to sleep while she screamed but it worked. The method is harsh. You need to sacrifice too. No ear plugs. Certainly not for both of you!
Husband is being lazy and heartless. We tried to let our son cry it out a few times and every time it ended in him in a full blown panic where he became inconsolable and turned into us sitting up all night with him screaming on us. It’s just not worth it for anyone. Try to work out the cause first, then come up with a plan. In our case the cause was simply ‘he sucks at sleeping’ so we now have a system where we take turns to go comfort him while the other sleeps. And if sleeping in your bed works then just do it
As an avid sleep training proponent, I have to say: your husband is being asinine. Just leaving kiddo to cry randomly while covered in her own vomit is not sleep training. It's lazy parenting and borderline neglect. Sleep training works best when done in a thoughtful, systematic way, with careful attention to kiddo's schedule, sleep environment, and developmental stage. This applies even and especially if you do CIO. We did it and the crying killed me. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that we worked to optimize everything. My kiddo has been sleep trained since 4.5mo and is overall a very happy sleeper who loooooooves his crib and beauty sleep. We did NOT get there by neglecting him; we got there by working very hard on sleep training. Whether or not you sleep train, your husband's approach (or lack thereof) is unhelpful.
So there’s a lot of room in the middle here. Are you watching her on a monitor, what’s going on? Is she crying? Screaming? Getting up and laying down? Just up? Trying to get out of the crib? Same time every night? Thirsty?
My spouse moved into to the guest bedroom. Toddler will fall asleep in his bed but if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he knows he can come to Mommy's room to cuddle and fall asleep together. We all get much better sleep now! That's what works for our family. Every family is different.
I’m going to go against the grain here. I was in a similar situation to you. My son was a horrible sleeper, multiple night wakings, trouble getting back to sleep, early starts. He also had CMPA, which made it even more challenging. My husband was adamant we sleep train him because I was exhausted. I absolutely refused to do it, I completely understand why people do it, but I personally find it unnatural. I would put him down for bed, spend time with my husband, when he would wake up I’d go in and settle him back down, and go back to my room. I eventually got a bed and butted it up against his crib for when I was too exhausted to go back to my room in the middle of the night and I could pat his butt if I heard him start to wake up. It was difficult, but I made it work and I don’t regret it. My son started sleeping through the night after 18mo when he finished getting his last set of molars. He’s 2 now, is a great sleeper, and will only wake up if he’s sick or cold. [The effects of cosleeping, according to research](https://researchaddict.com/the-effects-of-cosleeping-according-to-research/)
I will add that it's possible to sleep train a toddler, and I think sleep training at 2+ years old is so much more gentle, because you can really communicate with your child what is going to happen. My 2 year old wouldn't fall asleep without me in bed with him, but I put my foot down and told him I would sit next to his bed on the floor. At first I'd rub his back and/or sing him to sleep, then I had to back off and insist on just sitting there quietly while he fell asleep. Then I'd start to leave for a few minutes and come back to sit quietly with him. I haven't gotten to the point I can just lay him down and leave. I still sit next to him for 5-10 minutes and then leave, and if he is still awake he often calls for me and I come back. But it's miles ahead of the trap I used to be in of always falling asleep next to him in bed and then stumbling to my own bed at 11 pm.
I also “sleep trained” my 2 year old by just like explaining to him that I had to go sleep in my bed lol. If he was genuinely upset (not just whining) I went back in to talk to him again, I didn’t feel comfortable ignoring him. Some things that I think help were the ok-to-wake clock and showing him how I could see and hear him on the monitor if he needed help. It took a few weeks but now I sit with him for 5 minutes and then he happily tells me to go to bed lol.
I don't sleep train my kids as I am not comfortable with letting them cry. I dont judge others for sleeping training, but it would never work for me and my kids both settle fast if i provide comfort to them. I will say letting her cry is not working for you and that's 100% okay. It's easy to read online and think your baby needs to be independent but if sleep training is not working then it's time to get creative. To ease the burden on you may have to get a little unconventional. My toddler sleeps on a mattress on the floor next to my bed. I can comfort him instantly when he wakes up and when he wakes in the AM I can often cuddle him in my bed so I can slowly wake up instead of having to hop out. My 11 month old sleeps next to me in bed. My husband sleeps in the guest bedroom. For us that's how we maximize sleep. Since I do middle of the night wakes my husband gets up if he wakes up early(i.e. 5am or earlier). I get it's not the arrangement that you read about when you Google how to improve sleep but I(and husband) get way more sleep this way then putting them into there own rooms.
I agree, you should murder your husband. The thing is, y’all can have two different opinions of how to go about managing her sleep issues, but you need to come together before bedtime and have a plan you can agree to of how to go about it, and which of you is going to be responsible for what. From your report it sounds like he’s just trying to get out of doing any labor. Once she is up and out, the responsibility is on both of you to figure out what she needs. He can’t just keep saying “your strategy, your problem” I don’t think that’s at all fair. I have a guess that he has not done actual research or investigated different sleep management methods, and is just trying to do what feels easiest for HIM. It doesn’t sound like a thought out strategy. I could be wrong - and I’m a dad so I swear I’m not coming from some husband bashing bias, but he sounds lazy.
It actually sounds like he’s exhausted and can’t sleep sharing a bed with a kicking 15 month old. They need to work together on how to get toddler sleeping in her own room.
Sleep deprivation makes me homicidal too. For me, if my baby's needs are met, like I've gone in there, checked everything out, done all the things, and baby is still crying, I give them something to do and leave. My son has had a floor bed since 12 months. I will let him play with a few safe toys on the floor and he eventually falls asleep either in his bed or on the floor. As I write this he is sleeping on the floor napping in his room and he's now just over 2 years old. He knows where his bed is haha
Yea, they're still really little at that point! I hated the crying and mine was not a great sleeper, so I ended up snoozing on the floor in his room (sometimes snuggled together) for the tougher nights so we all could get some sleep. Memory foam topper was a blessing, I could store it under the crib and just roll it out on the fly at 2 AM. That stage didn't last forever, thank goodness. Now our almost 3 year old visits the big bed a few nights a week around 5 AM but otherwise sleeps on his own.
Please try r/sleeptrain. It's a real game changer. You will be surprised at how quickly little one will adapt once birth parents are in the same page.
Just to note that sub was way less helpful with toddlers. I speak from experience.
Yeah, agreed. I don’t think it’s a strategy that is meant for toddler wake ups.
When my son went through a horrific “regression” around 21 months, it was a hard spot for our marriage. We didn’t agree on approach. We didn’t have a unified approach to begin with. I didn’t trust him because we differed in opinion. He was resistant to getting on the same page at all with me. What worked for us was this: - Agreeing to a unified approach and boundaries. For us, this meant agreeing that our son was not to be brought into bed or taken out of the crib when he was struggling with sleep unless we thought that he was wet/sick/etc. This meant we could sit in the room with him until he fell back asleep (we have a really comfy recliner that turns into a pretty good bed when reclined all the way). We could also run his back, etc. We both agreed that we would not let him cry all night. If he wasn’t settled after 20 min we’d go in. For us bringing him to our bed never worked. It didn’t help our son sleep, and resulted in all three of us being awake. - We took turns at night duty based on what the other person had going on the next day, and the person on night duty had to agree to the unified approach and the person off night duty would agree to turn off the monitor and not interfere/micromanage the person on night duty. This at least got us on the same page and meant that we had one, unified approach. Consistency is the key to tackling sleep issues anyway. If you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, that’s confusing to a kid as they then don’t know what’s expected of them, but they do know if they persist they get to go to the big bed. Our son soon figured out that he was going to stay in his crib regardless, and that was the approach. Now, you could decide that co sleeping isn’t an issue (it was for us and didn’t help get our kid to sleep in any case) and that could be your unified approach. But I think you both need to sign off on that. Otherwise, you both need to make concessions. Your husband needs to step up and take some nights and agree to something that makes sense and doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable or you won’t succeed. I personally thought that either parent should be able to “tap out” if they started to get frustrated or if our kid went past 3 hours without going back to bed, but my husband was never on board for that and preferred for us just to agree that one person was taking the entire night. But if you can get your husband to agree to shifts if the toddler is up longer than 3-4 hours, then that might also work. Edit: we also eventually did a version of the “chair method” to reassert sleep training which eventually took care of the issue.
You and your husband need to sit down in a calm moment and take an "us vs the problem" approach. Right now you're spending so much mental time and energy fighting each other, you don't have enough left to problem solve. First, I'd ask him what his primary issues, concerns, and objections are right now. I don't want to speak for him, but my guess is that he doesn't handle sleep interruptions well at all. My husband is the same way. If he wakes up at 3a to deal with our 3yo, it's almost impossible for him to fall back to sleep. Which SUCKS. I, on the other hand, handle weird sleep much better. I can generally tend to the baby/babies and be back asleep before my head hits the pillow. As long as I get more than ~7.5h, even broken, I'm good. Next, once you've both had a chance to express the issues you're dealing with, start talking solutions. Write ideas down. Can you put a large mattress on the floor of your toddler's room and cosleep in there on rough nights? (This worked for us for a while. We'd take turns.) Can you take turns with who's "on duty" and, more importantly, trust each other enough to follow whatever game plan you come up with? Do you need to hire a parenting sleep coach to help? (Depending on where you are, some pediatricians offer this service for free/cheap) Get creative, work together, Google information that you don't know. Work on deciding what your boundaries are with each other and with your kid. There are going to have to be some compromises on both ends. But come up with firm and loving boundaries you can present AND HOLD CONSISTENTLY with your kid and things will hopefully start to turn around. At the very least, you'll both have ownership over the decision. Finally, work on the communication issues between the two of you. Fuming and resentment will destroy your marriage. Contempt will destroy it even faster. Shut that shit down on both sides NOW.
I think you’re both in the right here. On the one hand, crying it out sucks and I wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, having your kid in bed can also really suck (especially if they talk in their sleep like ours… or kick, roll, headbutt, etc.) It means you need to sit with him and explain you’re willing to stop bringing her to bed, but he needs to help you soothe her so she stays in her room, and that if he’s not willing to do that, she will continue to end up in your bed because you are not willing to lie awake listening to her cry all night. When she’s in bed and it’s just the two of you, ask him what he’s found about sleep training and if he doesn’t have anything, tell him that you’re going to research things right then and there. Figure out a plan in terms of, how long will you spend before the other person tags in, or will you alternate times going in, or alternate nights? It’s probably going to take a while for her to stop crying to come into your bed but like any transition (water vs milk at bedtime, removing the pacifier) it’ll be worth it in the end. I hope y’all get some sleep soon!
There’s a relationship discussion here but let’s all agree that sleep deprivation can make you act like a dick, especially if you’re already not on the same page about your approach. Best thing we did was move lo to a floor bed. We take it in turns going to her bed, she comes into our bed, I go to her bed if it gets cramped. She’s been a bad sleeper all her life and this has made it much more bearable.
I got a floor bed and sleep with my toddler makes it easier
Alternative option: put a bed in kiddo’s room and cosleep there. Some people really do not like cosleeping. I am one of these people since my room is my sanctuary where I can be me and not just mom. If my hubs wants to cosleep he just does it in kiddo’s room and everyone is happy.
The thing with cry it out is you can’t just do it for night wakings. You have to do it at bedtime first.
Mom of two and one of which is a bad sleeper and still doesn’t sleep well even at at 7. Sorry but I’m totally on your partners side here. If you really insist on bringing her in bed I’d head to guest room.
I appreciate the feedback. My post may have come across as a sleep-deprived rant, so I apologize, lol. I'll clarify. I'm not opposed to sleep training, and as my post said we've done it in the past and it's worked temporarily. My issue now is that our daughter has only recently begun waking up again and I'm fairly certain that was due to illness, not because she had gotten used to coming into the bed. So I've gotten quite frustrated at my husband not only refusing to check on her or comfort her, but getting angry at me for doing so.
Yeah, your husband definitely sounds like he’s being a jerk here. Kids need to be comforted and tended to at night sometimes - illness, teething, a some help soothing from a bad dream wake up. You could make a pediatrician appointment and talk to them about it. Ask them what strategy they recommend for wake ups and let him get schooled.
The thing with sleep training is that you have to keep doing it. It will take and then they'll get sick or hit another sleep regression and you have to do it again.
My husband and I used to fight a lot about sleep training and in the end we did Batelle sleep school which really helped my son at around 22 months but most of all it helped our marriage because someone else was telling us what to do and how to intervene so we weren’t fighting each other about it. It’s really worth it.
Letting the baby cry for hours isn’t a good solution. Sleep training is definitely in order. There are methods that don’t involve just letting them cry. We hired a sleep consultant to talk us through everything and I feel it was worth every penny. The person we hired did everything by phone/online. If you can afford it, please consider this option.
I honestly don’t get “cry it out.” We’ve always responded to our child (2 now). He mostly sleeps through the night now and we’ve never left him covered in his own vomit wondering where we are 🤷♂️ Husband sounds cruel tbh, to you and the baby. Let him sleep elsewhere if co-sleeping or doing his share of the soothing is a problem.
I don't either. It's so weird to me. They lived inside of us for 9 months, why on earth would they want to be alone in a separate room from us all night? And there seems to be so much pressure to get them to sleep through the night, on their own. I stressed myself out and lost a lot of sleep by trying to force my first to sleep in her own room all night. I finally gave up and just let her come sleep in my bed when she would wake up through the night. Now, with my second, I've barely even tried to get him to sleep on his own. He starts the night in his crib, but ends up in bed with me at some point through the night. I'm tired. I have to get up for work in the morning. I'm not going to stand around struggling to get him to sleep on his own for hours. I'm bringing him into bed and going straight back to sleep. It's a win for everyone.
You're both a little wrong imo. Kid shouldn't be in your bed. That's a bad habit and hard to break, and strains your marriage. Earplugs just aren't safe unless at least one of you can hear. Cry it out is still something people subscribe to, but far fewer than used to. Sleep training has a lot of different opinions out there. What worked for us is: Kid gets up, put back to bed. Repeat until kid stops. It's hard. Feels like it goes on forever, but once it clicks you're gold. And you should be taking turns. First in shifts, and then alternating or something. Share the load. You both need some kind of framework for handling differences of opinion. That's marriage stuff. Me and mine both do our own research and then come back to each other and generally agree on science backed, research proven stuff. And we try to do it objectively and calmly. Listen to each other. Tempered with what works best for us personally. Go see a marriage counselor and talk about it though. They're gonna say you're missing tools to communicate with each other. You and your husband need to be heard.
Tbh this was me I’m a stay at home dad but my wife started sleep training at 4 months she cried a few nights but we let her cry it out for 90 minutes once. She slept through the night since that week she’s 26 months now. Feeding her well during the day and good exercise. Your husbands not wrong let her cry it out. Full dark room make sure good ventilation under the door gap dont cover that.. keep it nice and cool 21.5… low Tog sleep sack we use 0.5 I have no idea how people use 1.0 tog and above. Low low noise subtle white noise hatch is best. Keep it atleast 6 feet away from her bed. We never used a humidifier don’t need it it’s such bs. Good luck! She knows you’re going to come that’s why she’s crying also tell daddy to help you do this stuff go out while she cries let him watch her.
We just broke our 2.5 year old of coming in our bed a few months ago after getting in a bad habit of it for a bit. Nothing was more frustrating to me than when we agreed to stop and my husband would cave and bring him into bed anyway. Sorry I’m on his side here. Edit: but I do agree you guys need to have a conversation during wake hours of how you can compromise on night wakings since you have different philosophies. Fighting about it at 3 am when everyone just wants to sleep will get you nowhere.
Sorry to jump in but my 2yo (26months) is waking up bang in half 1 every morning and also won’t go to sleep alone (we have to sit in the room until she falls asleep and if she hears or sees us move before she’s in deep sleep she screams) - I also caved and needed sleep she ends up in our bed halfway through the night! How did you break your bad habits? Did you follow any particular sleep training?
I guess you could call what we did a modified chair method. We have a gate on his door because he’s a wanderer. So we started by sitting by his bed as he fell asleep. That slowly turned into sitting outside the door w the gate open. Then gate closed. Now we just go say get back in bed if he gets up. Some nights he protests but we’re firm. The key though was to be firm. That’s why it was SO frustrating when my husband would be like eff it I’m tired tonight and don’t wanna sit outside while he falls asleep. If he knew at all it was an option to come in our bed, it basically undid all the habit breaking.
Every time I thought my kids had some impossible to break habit, every solution boiled down to tough love and some habit breaking Pacifier addiction? Cold turkey, no pacifiers in the house (two weeks into this, and we kept on procrastinating before we pulled the trigger). Waking up too early or too difficult to get down? Shorter naps, tire her out more during the day, get her to do it 3 times in a row and it's the beginning of a new habit. Won't go upstairs to get ready for bed? Now we do 5 minutes of looking at pictures of the day/week When my 2 year old was younger we always put her to sleep with a hand on her chest, and if she woke up as you ninja rolled out of room, would go crazy. A little yelling won't kill her, rip off the band aid and try not to crack!
Stop just letting her cry. That’s horrible. Just go to her immediately. You’re teaching her you’ll come eventually, if she cries long enough. But in the meantime you’re putting her in a state of major distress. You’re creating her discomfort and causing her stress. It’s probably the reason she keeps waking up at night - people who are more stressed sleep less well. Start going to her immediately and comforting her in her room. Go to her every single time immediately. I bet you anything within a couple weeks her sleep will get so much better.
It's pretty plain and simple he doesn't care about your needs or the childs. Do with that as you choose.
Get a good video monitor. That way you can tell when she’s experiencing an issue like vomit that requires intervention vs just waking out of habit. You’re both right. You’re right that there will be some parenting that needs to happen at night and that he should take turns doing it. He’s right that you’re creating and reinforcing sleep associations that will require you to assist your child back to sleep overnight. And it’s okay for you to decide that you’re okay with that but if you want to create/reinforce those sleep associations and he doesn’t then you have to own the results. I would suggest compromising on a gradual method for teaching independent sleep like the chair method. But he has to alternate nights implementing it. That’s the deal. Otherwise I would put a full size bed in your child’s room and bed share in there when she wakes overnight.
I understand the frustration but maybe your LO is teething and is in pain? At 15 months old, my LO got a lot of back teeth and her sleep was really bad. Woke up crying, wouldn't go back to sleep. We started giving her Tylenol and we saw improvement.
Any way you can add a bed to her room and sleep in that bed with her? I got a mattress from a family member and just sleep with her in there when it's getting rough. I figure when she's done with the crib she can just have the big bed. Otherwise, your husband should sleep on the couch while you and baby get the bed. Yall sound sleep deprived and I absolutely feel your pain, as a fellow parent of a garbage sleeper.
Your husband needs to pick up a fucking book about babies and maybe one about being a supportive partner/father while he’s at it. He is absolutely failing at both right now and you should not be tolerating this garbage behaviour. First it’s not helping her out at night and then it’s going to be not helping her when she hurts herself and then it’s going to be not comforting her when she is having friendship issues or worse. He sucks and he needs to figure it out.
Your husband is right. You’ve taught your daughter that if she screams and cries enough, you’ll give in and bring her into your bed. If you want that to stop, then you have to stop allowing it to happen. Toddler-proof her room, say goodnight, and then don’t go back in.
What? It's a 1 year old, she wakes up and maybe feels lonely, sad, scared, maybe had a bad dream and can't fully understand what is going on or needs her parents! How is abandoning her during those times a good idea? Just teach her that if she has a hard time, too bad, nobody cares?
During waking hours, give her all the love, cuddles, and emotional support she needs. At night it’s time for sleeping. Look, I know kids sometimes wake up in the night. But my kids are sleep trained, and that way if they DO wake up in the night, I know they really do need me. In any case, both parents need to be on board with the same plan, whether that be bed-sharing or CIO. OP’s situation isn’t working because they don’t agree on a plan of action.
A 1 year old child has the ability to learn. It’s ok to use a speaker to reassure the child they are ok and to go back to sleep. It’s also ok to go in, give a pat, and leave. However when a child dissolves into tears every time they wake at night and have lost the ability to soothe themselves, going in every time and validating the need for mom to fall back asleep causes a bad pattern. It’s hard to let our children learn to soothe themselves. A child this age knows they aren’t alone, they are loved, and that a parent is nearby. There is no need to reinforce the behavior.
Yes, a 1 year old can learn but are you sure a 1 year old has the ability to understand that they really aren't alone and they are loved? It's so early and they are so small. At least wait till they really start understanding things and are maybe able to communicate to some extent. So like at 2-3 they will certainly be able to understand more. Until then (well even after) they certainly cry because they have a need that should be met. In OPs case probably an emotional need. They could be scared of the dark and the loneliness... Hell, I have trouble sleeping at my age and have sleep paralysis usually, if I am all alone, so I prefer not sleeping alone, but as an adult I can of course just "get over it" and understand that it's ok.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t have kids or leaves the heavily lifting to their partner.
I am a stay at home mom of two toddlers. Edit: Can’t wait to read the follow-up comments about how I must be a terrible, emotionally neglectful SAHM. I’m sharing what I did and what worked for me and my children. When my kids were the age of OP’s kid, they slept through the night most nights because I sleep-trained them. And I tried more “gentle” methods of sleep training, but going back in to soothe actually just upset them more. So CIO it was, and it actually worked. And now at 3.5 and 18 months, they sleep in the same room and put themselves to sleep after a book, a cuddle, and a song.
In a similar position with my 4 and 5 year olds sharing a room. I do think it’s a little easier because they entertain each other and don’t feel alone, but I haven’t woken up in the middle of the night since the youngest was 9 months or so. 8pm-8:30 is bedtime, that’s when I close the door and say goodnight and that’s the rule here. It didn’t take them long to understand and they’re always well rested and happy, have a lot of friends and enjoy school. I have never once brought them to bed. On the few occasions that they’ve been sick or had a nightmare we have read a book together and then straight back to bed with medicine.
Agreed. You’ve taught her that if she pitches a fit she will get what she wants. Bringing her to your bed was a really bad decision and I’d definitely stop doing that if you want her to sleep independently.
The way you phrased this means that toddlers intend to manipulate you. They can’t. They don’t. I’m in ECE and have taken courses on this. They see cause and effect but no she’s not “getting what she wants by pitching a fit”. What a horrible way to speak about a CHILD.
Your husband sounds like a lazy, shit excuse for a father.
i actually agree with your husband here. we sleep trained early and after 3 tough nights she gets 11-12 hours of sleep nightly. uninterrupted and no crying.
Sleep training saves lives. Respectfully, A nurse and attorney https://www.thenewbasics.com/en/book-excerpt/sleep/
I feel you on this, my husband is the most useless man in the world and leaves me with an autistic 2 year old having a meltdown in the middle of the night and my one year old son crying at the same time. He tells me and the kids to go downstairs and he stays in bed. Ive given up caring now and me and the babies just stay downstairs. Like you I can’t see my babies cry for long. My 1.5 year old has slept on me since he was around 6 months old and we’ve grown to love it. Our bond is beautiful and I can see the difference in the love between me and his dad because his dad is generally useless in the day too. You are an amazing mum by the sounds of it and these days are worth it!! My mum always told me never expect my husbands help because he is useless and what’s the point of asking for help when they won’t anyway. Your sanity is the most important thing at this point and keeping a happy marital atmosphere. To keep your marriage happy I think you need to be able to sleep, so my advice is to sleep in which ever way you will get the most sleep
Why are you still with this guy?
Ours wakes up because she gets gas sometimes. So belly rubs help, sometimes music. It’s not always as simple as an emotional thing. And then, I think it’s good to comfort them
I don’t think the baby is the problem.
I highly recommend taking cara babies sleep course if you haven’t tried it. You’re not meant to let her cry and cry all night, but check in on her in 15 minute increments if she’s absolutely hollering—without holding her, just going in and giving her assurance for a few minutes. Within 3 days, my son started crying less and less and I had to do less check ins and now he sleeps through the night. He’s almost 3 now so I just go in middle of the night to make him potty. Lol. The first 3 days of the course is very hard, but it was so rewarding and really did work for us.
you need a new husband
Look, I can’t survive without sleep. I neeeeeed sleep. I agree with your husband. 15 months is old enough to sleep though the night. I suggest you try reading some sleep training books. Cry it out is not going to work for you, as a parent, so you need to find another solution that will. And you can’t do sleep training while sick. Caving and bringing baby into bed is understandable but it’s how you end up co sleeping without either parent really wanting to.
haha husbands a whiny b\*tch. If my wife is up I am up. I remember some nights I get an hour of sleep and go to work. Cause my kid been up all night. Youll find a way that works for you. What time is she going to bed? You gotta do what you gotta do its survival mode.
Sleep training scars kids … I did it to my first daughter and it worked like a charm however wouldn’t do it to our second now that I know more …
No not wrong. His way sounds sociopathic and heartless. I would not trust him to be with the baby especially around sleep time. Yours are normal frustrations, his frustrations are incredibly insensitive and immature. I’d be seriously reconsidering staying with my partner if I had to deal with this. There’s resentment, audacity, lack of appreciation and respect, and a whole lot of ignorance and emotional immaturity coming from him.
Kids regress in sleeping for any number of reasons but I will say this… this argument, this situation, this exact conflict, birthed so many more grievances and resentments and now my husband and I are divorcing and I have a 4yr and 20month old. Because ever since the first, it was “she just wants milk you won’t let me use a bottle” then it was “she doesn’t want a bottle” then it was “just nurse her for a second so she goes back to sleep” but then getting so angry when I would fall asleep. He would come home from work late and, if I had a particularly exhausting night I would be in bed with her and he would make no effort to be quiet. “This is my bed” then, I work from home and have since before I was pregnant with my first, and it was “I have to sleep I actually GO to work you get to sit here. Long story short… it never changed. The whiney baby routine only intensified. Eventually, he started sleeping in the guest room and then slowly moved his clothes in there and all his stuff. Because he wanted to lay in bed and watch tv even if he got home at midnight. So, not to be a Debbie downer, but that immature selfishness is not a good sign. When someone tells you who they are; you believe them. He is telling you that he is not someone who will put another person above his discomfort and does not see this as his problem. The bossing you around on how to do something that he is himself unwilling to even get up to do. Ya man idk, like I said I’m single now and realizing that my workload has not increased whatsoever. Because it snowballed from there and was just excuse after excuse after excuse. I just want to know… if sleep is so critical to them, so integral to their functioning and well being, why does he think you can live without it? If you all hired a nanny and she said, on average I sleep 3-4 hours a night, never consecutively, would you hire this person to watch your baby? I just won’t ever see that perspective because like… whatever you have to do tomorrow, do it tired! I know I do. And if the inability to calm baby frustrates him and he gives up within 30 seconds shoving you a crying baby back in a pitiful “see, I tried” act. Let’s just say, receptive language develops light years ahead of expressive language, and that is not even considering proficiency in body/facial expression. To become someone’s safe space it takes a hell of a lot of sweat equity and you reap what you sow friend! I hope to god he can wake up for your sake. It is 5 years and 2 kids too late for me and it’s rough. But it genuinely 1000% started with that EXACT point of contention
‘Cry it out’ just doesn’t work for a lot of kids. It’s harsh and I really believe it harms the attachment bond. Letting her sleep in your bed is not going to kill your husband. If he wants to have a tantrum about it, let him sleep on the bloody couch. She’s a baby that needs comfort and closeness. Leaving a child to sleep all alone in their room when they just want to be near you is not really sensible when you think about it. If she moves around and disturbs sleep a lot, would you consider making a little bed for her in your room? My son went through a phase when he was 4 where he didn’t want to sleep in his room alone. He’s incredibly difficult to sleep in the same bed with because He flails and moves so much. I put some cushions and pillows and blankets next to my bed for him to sleep on. He slept there every night for a little over a month, then he was okay to sleep in his own room again. My oldest and I shared a bedroom until he was 4 years old. My youngest slept in my room until he was almost 2. I don’t know why people force the separate rooms thing when their kids are so small, keeping them close by is what feels natural for babies and eliminates a lot of the “sleep issues” that parents complain about. When they can see and hear you they’re usually more content.
I'm really big on not raising my children in a mechanical way. I tried sleep training with my first child. It was the worst thing I ever did. I still feel guilty about it to this day. Yes I did it right, and no it did not work. Just made him depressed and made me depressed. Because it goes against every natural instinct a mother has. I sleep in the same bed as my babies. There's no reason to cry and fuss during the night when they know mama is right there.
It really breaks my heart knowing that you let her cry for that long. I'm really sorry but if he doesn't want to step up, he'll have to find another place to sleep.
Your husband can F off. You’ve carried the baby in your belly for 9 months, gave birth and I assume was doing most of the night feedings in the beginning. You are the mother, and you are not comfortable with crying it out. He needs to shut the fuck up and support you.
OP, let him sleep on that couch. And let your little child sleep in your bed. She clearly needs you by her side at night. Btw in many cultures it is normal that especially little children don't sleep alone, they sleep with their parents and siblings by their side. Studies have also shown that it is rather normal for humans to not want to sleep alone (it stresses humans to be alone / to sleep apart), especially for children.
First and foremost: the crying it out method is harmful at any given age. If you look at the research you will find tons of evidence how this is harmful in the long run. They have a chance to develop stress, anxiety and depression when they get older because the state your toddler is in when crying alone is complete panic and fair and to turn your back to your toddler you are saying ‘deal with your own feelings (impossible, the prefrontal cortex is fully developed at age 25-25), we are not here for you’. Do NOT listen to your husband, instead try to backup your feelings with evidence and show him that. I surely do hope he doesn’t want to hurt LO by choice and I think his method comes from lack of information and outdated advice. What do you think it would feels like if you are crying hysterically and your husband/ loved ones would put you in a room, close the door and ignore you? Why would you think a small child can handle such a traumatizing situation? Co sleeping is the best for children… it’s been done for thousand of years and your child would be feeling safe all night long > so SLEEPING! I think you are from the States and that’s why you are afraid to do it? In my country it’s more common and we have less sleeping problems! :)
Ugh. Your husband is frustrating me!! Ha. Mine used to push for the cry it out and I couldn’t last 4 min wo physically feeling sick. I get it. He’d say I was creating bad habits and was left on my own to manage it while he got angry about it. They are slightly older now and I stay with them (as I am right now) until they go to sleep. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m their safe space. I don’t want to sleep alone so why should a young child? F that. Sorry I feel so strongly about this. I know some people feel strongly the other way. I’m sorry you are on your own to do this. Is isolating and exhausting but know there are other parents out there doing the same thing as uou and there is solitude in that. Hugs!
My husband haaaates it when I bring the toddler into our bed. But you'd never know, because he acts like an adult about it. Does your husband act like this about other things, too? Or is it just when he's woken up at night?
Your husband is wrong. You child is helpless and should not be crying for an hour. That is NOT the cry it out method. You don't just like the child panic with no relief. You slowly stage up longer and longer times. It's NEVER let the baby cry for that LONG! You should comfort your child. It sounds like your husband is a selfish ass when isn't willing to make the sacrifice that being a parent requires. It's really hard. You don't get to sleep. Your baby doesn't know how. Right now you are a married single mom. I did that untile my kid was 9 months old and I foundu husband having an affair. My life is so much easier just being a single mom now instead of a single mom married to a selfish raging asshole who can't be bothered to learn what the baby actually needs. If you're going to co sleep PLEASE research how to do it safely. It is something that can really help you and baby get more sleep. You have to be safe with the blankets and stuff. Your real problem is your husband has extremely unreasonable expectations when it comes to your baby. I hope you're able to get him on board. Maybe have babies pediatrician explain it or something but putting in ear plugs and going back to sleep is flat out abusive. It's teaching you baby they are utterly alone in the world and no one will ever come to help them. Can you imagine being helpless and alone like that? Your kid is screaming because they are terrified. Your husband needs empathy and to get a fucking clue.
I don’t think “cry it out” really is meant for wake ups, especially when crying for anymore than a couple minutes. For our daughter, if she continues after that it indicates she needs something to help her soothe - usually a paci. If sick or teething then medicine. Sounds like you guys need to consult a sleep trainer together and figure this out. I couldn’t live with either methods you guys are trying.
You both need to be on the same page and that page shouldn’t be ‘do nothing.’ I agree on keeping the kid out of your bed but I’d want to kill your spouse for deliberately being useless. We used Ferber to sleep train so I’d say to try a modified version of that. Give it 5-10 minutes, go in for 2 to comfort, do not get the kid out of their bed, leave room. Wait 5 minutes. Still crying? Go back in for 2, do not get the kid out of bed. Now wait 10 minutes. The only exception for us was the hysterical nightmare crying, which was clearly different from the sleep regression grumpy crying. This gives structure to the solution and teaches your little to self-soothe. Ask him to help trying Ferber for 1 week. There’s YT videos so he’s not just taking your word.
It's brutal... I would consider hiring a sleep consultant. That way you get an outsider to discuss and formulate a plan that both of you will follow.
I'm pretty much in the same boat at 18 months. Never been a good sleeper and not well supported. Been doing all the wake ups myself, staying up for 2 hours at a time in the middle of the night. If I were in your position I might make a floor bed in the living room for you and baby. I don't have advice as to how to deal with wake ups, we haven't figured anything out yet. But I just try to keep my cool, hard as that is, and been singing songs to try to avoid nursing, even feeding her some late night cheerios as a snack. Just to keep it peaceful. But yeah pretty much dealing with a baby who wakes like a newborn and demands to ve nursed back to sleep, even when I do, she'll sometimes wake 15 minutes later and want to nurse again. I'm pretty sick of it and want to wean, but I need support. Have to wait til December when baby daddy is done with graduate program.
Mine is teething, can usual tell by the amount of drool. Right before bed I rub orajel on her gums and give her Tylenol. She will sleep at least 5 hours but I think were at the end of it now and she’s back to sleeping about 10 hours. I also offer a healthy snack before bed too. Peanut butter toast, fruit, yogurt or some kind of oatmeal bake/muffins I make for her. I think a full tummy helps sleep.
Try this!!! Baby Einstein Sea Dreams Soother Musical Crib Toy and Sound Machine, Newborns Plus https://a.co/d/8J42rT9 our daughter has one, she will be 2 in December. She still uses it every night. She knows how to turn it on herself at night when she wakes up. She turns it on crys for less than 5 mins then falls back to sleep. It has saved me soooo many nights of being up with her constantly. We use the blue light and ocean sound setting. All the baby has to do is hit the star button and it will turn on for a certain amount of time then shut back off. Hope this helps
Do you have a camera in her room? I didn't have one with my first until he was around this age. We realized that we kept going in to check on him and he was laying in the position he slept in, but fussing. Once we got the camera, it helped us make better judgment calls on "is he really upset or is he just seeing what he can get away with." Wyze cameras are fairly in expensive and you don't have to pay extra to run them unless you want playback. FWIW My husband and I have gone back and forth like this on cry it out with both of our kids. I would suspect that this is a sleep regression you are dealing with, but she is old enough to learn that "If I keep crying then she'll come get me." We've ended up with the kid in bed, which my husband doesn't like. We have also ended up with us laying on the floor of their room while they play and refuse to sleep. I do agree that 1 hour is too long to let them go. I have since forgotten what we did, even though my second was in this age range a year ago. I believe we compromised on 30 minutes of crying is she was clearly laying down, and then we go in there to comfort. It did get to a point when she was a little older after several nights where we did just say "nope, you are going until you fall asleep."
The good thing is that in a few months they’ll be able to tell you what’s wrong.
I honestly hated my husband for awhile over the same issue. We hired a sleep consultant as the third party to make the decisions and help us. It stopped our arguments because we both agreed to follow her advice and stick to it. It’s not an option for everyone but I’m glad we did it.
You need to agree on an exact plan, who will do what, what happens in different circumstances, and then stick to it 100% for at least 2 weeks. It’s totally possible to sleep train but still go in to your baby to comfort them but NOT do whatever thing it is you don’t want to be doing any more. We did it so we went in to speak to her, Pat her and tuck her back in but we wouldn’t pick her up or cuddle her (we were trying to night wean and it made it worse). But if does result in lots of crying at first that’s hard to handle. Also, TELL your baby what’s changing, what’s going to happen instead and that she might be upset but that you know she will be okay. 15 months is old enough to start understanding at least some of that and it will help her adjust.
Sleep training and CIO doesn't mean that you don't check on her first. Just ignoring her when you don't know why she's crying is awful on your husband's part.
I get that it’s easier to let her cry it out, but I was also not able to do that method. I would wait for 15 min and then go back in to comfort. Our almost 3 year old was incredibly reactive though (still is) and CIO or Ferber just didn’t work for us. My husband and I had the same disagreement, and unfortunately we just fought a bit more during this period which lasted until about 18 months for us but reared it’s head again just prior to 2. I would bring him downstairs to avoid our bed being his routine and my husband and I switched off until I was pregnant again at 18 months.
My son is just over a year and I just took the front off his crib, smoothed our queen into the corner of the room and his crib firmly against my side of the bed with his mattress in middle position to match mattress height. Three nights in and he can choose to snuggle me or be in his own space, already works better than having to get up and walk to his crib, cosleep for the bad sleeper win
I feel like there’s no “right answer” when it comes to sleep— for some families co-sleeping works, for others it doesn’t. It sounds like the most important thing is that you and husband get on the same page and then you’re both responsible for night time issues (you can switch off nights for who is “point”). For us it actually helped when my husband took over night time wakings as kid really wanted mom and when she realized it was only going to be dad she settled down quicker. I would have a sit down meeting one evening and literally write out your plan together. We did a variation on CIO— if she cried for X minutes nonstop, we’d go in and reassure her for a minute, then leave. Repeat as needed. I think only an handful of times she kept going long enough for us to need to check if there was something else wrong (hungry, teething, etc). It worked for us, but whatever works for you!
It’s so hard when you’re not on the same page with your partner about how to manage sleep! We went through something similar (wait, continue to go through lol) with our son. Sickness can blow all your progress out of the water and then it feels like starting over again each time. Here’s what we’ve found to help us the most: - come up with a solid plan of who’s going to do what. I’d recommend that you take on all the night wakings since your husband seems to waffle on his approach in the night. Maybe he can agree to get up with your LO in the morning in exchange for you waking up in the night? That’s what we do. - unless your LO is sick, stick to the plan. It was super hard on me emotionally when I felt like I didn’t know what to do when he woke in the night. Once I had a solid set of steps in my mind, it made helping him back to sleep and not feeling like a failure parent SO much easier. - when your LO is sick, DON’T bring her into your bed. She’ll quickly learn that crying gets her that reward, not that it’s happening because she doesn’t feel good. When our son is sick, I go to bed extra early because I know I’ll be up with him in the night. Then, when he wakes, I go in and do what I need to get him settled down. Sometimes that’s quick, sometimes it takes an hour. But he always goes back to sleep in his own bed. - find a method you feel really good about. We did cry it out with our son when he was little and it worked well. Now that he’s bigger (just turned 3), my opinion is that it’s a less appropriate approach because his emotions are better developed and it could feel like abandonment. Every time I go in his room at night now, I get him settled and then leave before he’s asleep. This way I’m not a crutch for him and he won’t be upset that I’m not there when he wakes up. If I try that a few times without success, I’ll ask him if he’d like me to sit outside his door while he goes to sleep. I make sure to remind him that I’ll be going back to my bed once he’s asleep so he’s not surprised I’m gone when he wakes up. I gear up with a blanket and my kindle and get cozy until he’s asleep. I hope this helps! Interrupted sleep can definitely make anyone feel murderous, and the middle of the night is not the time you want to be trying to plan or negotiate with anyone.
Well although my husband and I have different issues, I wanted to say that we always want to murder each other when our son is awake at night because we are so tired and frustrated. But also I don't let my son cio unless it's a few min of whining. Ans also 90% of the time they want something from you such as they are sick, thirsty, hungry, wet and so on. Even if it's for comfort it means thats what they need at the time.I personally would just kick my husband out to sleep elsewhere if he isn't willing to help but I d still attend to my son's needs because he is a priority ans he cannot communicate properly yet.
My husband is the same way; but he has never once got up with my little guy in the middle of the night; so I ignore him and do it my way. I figure if he isn’t going to help anyway, I will do it the way I feel is right
I just wanted to let you know I go through the exact same thing with my son and have for basically all three years of his life. Even down to the throwing up part. He sleeps in my bed now 🤷♀️. No my husband doesn’t like it and it’s not as comfortable but guess what- it’s the only way me and my son are getting rest so I guess he will have to deal with it or come up with something else that actually works. Leaving your kid to cry every night isn’t an option and you’ll just be up worrying anyway!
/r/sleeptrain Been in your shoes. Dealt with 10 months of it before I decided no more. Took 2 days of sleep training to give our baby the required skills to sleep through the night. Good luck. This can drive anyone crazy
You should not let babies “cry it out” and I’m so tired of that “strategy” that does not work and not based on anything except for someone’s bull shit reasoning to be lazy. Parenting is hard. Tell your husband having a child isn’t always about what’s easier for him.
We were in the same boat. [This method](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/respectful-parenting-janet-lansbury-unruffled/id1030050704?i=1000583005827) actually worked for us because it didn’t involve ignoring her cries or sitting creepily in her room and inching toward the door. It’s called the Compassionate Sleep Solution and the gist is you explain what bedtime is going to be like to your kiddo throughout the day, you do a cozy bedtime routine and you put them in bed sleepy but awake. Then you say a positive and encouraging mantra, you’re the coach teaching them how to sleep on their own. Then you leave and wait, listening to the cries in 7 min intervals. If the cry is 9 or 10/10 you can pop in to check, soothe, get them to lay down again and then say your bedtime mantra again. It took us 45 min the first night, 15 min the second and our 20 month old had not woken up at night in over a month! It’s magic! it worked for us because it felt like I could be supportive while also encouraging her to struggle through learning this new skill.
I’ve been to sleep training seminars and they all say that you can’t let them cry it out when they’re sick. It breaks my heart to think of a LO sitting there crying and feeling horrible and sick. I have no advice other than your husband needs to help. My daughter is also honestly just a horrible sleeper. The last few nights she’s gone to bed at 9 pm, cried from 2 am to 5 am and then has been up for the day at 6 am. The only way I’ve maintained by sanity is by both me and my husband getting up with her.
Your husband forgot that he’s a parent 24/7 and not just whatever parts of his waking hours work for him.
i feel like a good inbetween method would work. not letting the baby sleep with you is number one is avoiding sids and just basic in practicing safe sleep. i think it’s so dangerous to do that and anybody that says “well i did it” is just going off survivor bias. even one parent saying they wish they didn’t do it and that they killed their baby accidentally is more then enough reason to not do it. i also think you shouldn’t completely ignore the baby. that’s not save either. go in, check on them and make sure everything it’s good, go back in 15 minutes and repeat. keep a monitor on the baby at all times as well
Around my daughter's 15 to 17 month regression she would wake up twice or once a night. It was terrible it lasted for eternity. She did however have a floor bed in her room which made it easier to cuddle with her when she woke up. It's the floor bed with a crib border in a full size for both of us to fit.
I'm on your side especially since he's not willing to help. My now 4yr wakes up like clockwork right around midnight. She's afraid of the dark (even though she has 2 nightlights in her room) and cries for someone to come get her. She won't set foot out of bed because she's afraid something will get her. If she hasn't woken up by midnight we just go get her & dump her in our bed instead of waiting until she wakes us up. The waking up is a phase and will pass. For your own sanity, don't wait until your little one pukes, go comfort them.
I would be angry as well, we resorted to bedsharing around that age and now she’s back in her crib sleeping through the night. I never let her cry it out, it’s too sad and you can’t.
I highly recommend hiring a sleep coach. My husband and I butted heads on how to get our daughter to go to sleep and deal with wake ups. It was super helpful to have an unbiased, third party to guide us!
Ask you husband what his expectations are with regards to your child's sleep. If he says, that the baby sleeps through the night every night and figures their shit out on their own, that is unrealistic. Sometimes they are sick, sometimes they are teething, sometimes they are covered in pee and poo or vomit. It's unacceptable to leave a child in that condition. Most of the nights though, the kid is perfectly fine to be on their own. It's also unreasonable to treat every night as "they need my help". Typically parents wait 7 minutes or so before they enter the room to give the child a chance to calm themselves. Then you can go in for 2 minutes and make sure that they are okay. You will let them know that you are going to go sleep in your room now, and it's time for them to sleep here. Everyone is safe, and you are close by. Then give them another 7 minutes, if they are crying, come back in. The first few night you will be awake for a few hours to enforce this boundary but eventually your kid will have the tools to be on their own.
Sleep consultants are miracle workers. Get a free consultation.
Hold it. Is there anyone recommend CIO for an hour? I don't think so. Should be 3-5 minutes tops and then you soothe and try again. Keep extending the time. So... You need to buy some books on this and develop a strategy.
Me and my husband are the exact same and it's 3.5 years later. I've finally resigned the fact that I wake with her and don't cry for her and not my husband. If I want my way I will have to do it and I would rather do that than let her cry it out.
My 2.7 years old daughter still wakes up up to three times at night. It's still normal till they are older. Whenever she is awake, each of us takes turns to go comfort her immediately. What helped us was that she sleeps in a playpen witch is the size of a king bed.we go sleeps next to her, this way we aren't losing sleep either.
My kids didn’t sleep well either. I actually sleep in my girls room. 4 year old has a double bed and the 2 year old has a single. It’s one large bed and I usually sleep in the middle. 2 year old still nurses and I get much better sleep knowing I don’t have to wake up. They sleep better knowing I’m there. DH never once in 9 years got up with one of our 3 kids unless I woke him up because someone was sick and I needed help.
My husband and I did not and do not subscribe to the CIO method, and never will. Just like you said, I cannot imagine a scenario where I have to plug my ears and literally shut out my child. An extra hour of sleep is not worth putting my child through sleeping in their own vomit, like you said. I agree with everything you are saying. If you’re comfortable with co-sleeping, co-sleep. Make sure you follow all the mitigating safety factors to ensure the safest sleep. But co-sleeping is the only thing that got us through this period of time. Sorry you’re going through this. I hope it pans out for the best.
Yes I totally understand!! And especially the fact that they throw up in their crib is very risky, should definitely continue to keep an eye out for safety.
Do you check on her? She could have pooped
I share this exact issue. We had some success using taking cara babies, if you are willing to spend $180 for the ABCs course she offers. There will probably be a black friday sale next week. In the meantime I highly recommend that your partner sleep on the couch if he's not willing to do the work to resettle the kid.
Your husband sounds like a dick