Sleep Success!!!

For all of you battling with sleep issues, I want to tell you that there is hope!!!

At 21 mo, Weapon X has been an all night nurser until a few weeks ago when he just stopped waking up at night. I had been sleeping with him on a futon matress on the floor in his room. because there just wasn't room for the 3 of us in our double bed!

The first step to getting him to sleep through the night was to leave after I nursed him. I found that he slept for longer stretches when I wasn't right there next to him. One morning I woke up at 6 and he had slept the whole night by himself!!!

The next step was getting him to go to sleep without the crazy crying fit! I knew it was time to really work on this when nursing was not enough to put him to sleep anymore.

We have been reading the “No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers” and it has helped a lot. X has gone to sleep himself, with no crying and for the past 2 nights!!! And he slept until 6:30 too!!! Amazing! I’m so proud of him!!!

You can get a lot of good information from articles on the website .

The big things that have been helping us are:

•Earlier bedtime. She suggests between 6:30 and 7:30 for the time they actually go to sleep.

•Making sure he is getting between 13 and 14 hours of sleep per day, including nap. She has a chart that lists sleep needs at different ages.

•Making room for wind down time before sleep. After jammies and potty time we go into his room and instead of me trying to get him to sleep right away I close the door and we read a few books. And then I touch his toes and talk about how his toes worked so hard for him today. They walked and ran and now they are tired. They need to go to sleep. I go through each body part. The second time I ask him to say “night night” to each part after I say how tired it is. Then I ask him for a kiss and tell him I’m going to be right out side his room. I give him a board book (The napping house) I turn off the light and leave. He complains for 30 seconds and then he is OUT! Amazing. I never thought it would happen!!!

•I put blackout fabric (very cheap at Jo Ann's Fabric) on his window because it is just too bright outside at 7pm!

She has a little chart that lists things that kids say when they are asked, “what do you do to try to go to sleep, and does it work?” All the kids had different answers like, “I stare at the ceiling” and all of them said their methods didn’t work. The bottom line is that kids have no clue how to go to sleep!

Good luck!