Q&A: baby keeping herself awake to fall asleep with her father

New magazine The Father Life is out now, and looks pretty testosterone-intense.

Jesse writes:

"Our baby girl is almost 14 months.  For the past week we have been trying to put her to bed in her crib, which is next to our bed.  She has coslept with us 90% of the time since birth.  She is desperately tired, especially as time wears on, of course.  We started this course of action after a year or more of sleep regressions, difficult sleep, night nursing, etc-- she has never been a great sleeper.  We have always rocked and nursed her to sleep.  After the i love to walk regression and the 11 month regression and the xmas cheer regression and the i got a new toy at 4 pm today and i am stoked regression, with a few days of easy sleep inbtween, we were at the end of our rope with trying to nurse and rock her to sleep.  The nursing and rocking, and then me in the family bed nursing her some more has in the past two months NOT been working anymore, unless it is 60-90-even sometimes 120 minutes of continuous rocking or nursing until the clock strikes about 10:30 when her body is so tired she finally falls asleep out of exhaustion.  No fun.  So we decided to try putting her in the crib after about 30 -45 minutes of her usual rocking/nursing at about 8:30, then coming up every so often to comfort (and gradually tapering that off) her until it was time for bed for the adults, who bring her into the bed with them.  Well, actually, I night weaned around xmas, and that has gone ok-- but i am afraid to come back into the family bed from the extra bedroom, because i love my sleep SO MUCH, after a year of not having it.  So E goes to bed with her dad at the moment.

 

The thing is, she is getting into a routine of just sitting there, clutching her bear, in relative silence (with an occasionaly yelp of protest) after pissed off crying for about the first 5-10 minutes, for up to 2 HOURS until her Dad comes up to bed.  He and I both work, and he loves this cuddle/sleep time with her, and they have really gotten in sync since I have been downstairs.  Since I have the almighty breast, it is a special bond and special time for them to have the sleeping together.  I don't want to suggest that he not take her into the bed, but I am afraid she is training herself to tough it out and stay awake and wait it out for Daddy.  I can't even go back to rocking and nursing because it wasn't working (in the true sense of putting her to sleep at a reasonable hour) anymore.   She is simply not getting enough sleep for a 13 months--10 or 11 pm til 6 or 7 am is NOT enough.   

I am out of ideas.   Any thoughts???"

So now we know that there's no guarantee that a child will actually fall asleep if you leave the child alone in the crib, contrary to what your MIL might say. Two hours? That's some serious determination to stay awake and wait.

I don't think it's uncommon for nursing kids to stop falling asleep on the breast by 11 months. Neither of mine would nurse to sleep by that point, and I've heard it from other moms that the babies wanted the other parent to go to sleep by then. So that part doesn't sound at all unusual, and it sounds nice that you get to sleep all night and your daughter and husband get to snuggle.

I think if you could figure out why she's staying awake you might be able to fix things. Is she afraid that  she's missing something if she goes to sleep? Is she afraid that if she goes to sleep she won't get to go in with your husband?

Maybe a little reinforcement during the day and right before bed will help. During the day, you can talk about how she's a girl who falls asleep in her crib but then sleeps the rest of the night with Daddy. While you're getting her pajamas on, talk about how she'll go to sleep in her crib and then Daddy will bring her in to sleep with him. The more you rehearse it with her, the more she'll understand that first she goes to sleep in the crib, and then Daddy will get her, so she can let herself fall asleep and not risk missing out on sleeping with Daddy.

I'm not sure what else to suggest. It seems clear that she's keeping herself awake on purpose, not because of any physical issue or spurt. Identifying and assuaging the fear that's keeping her up is probably the only thing that will resolve this situation.

Anyone else have this problem? What did you do about it?

Comments

[Nancy]

I don't know if this will help, but we went through a phase with our older daughter (when she was under 2) where she didn't want to go to bed. Namely, she didn't want to miss out on being with her folks. One of us would lay with her on the floor of her room until she fell asleep, and we'd move her to the bed.

Could something like this maybe work for you? Have Dad put her to bed and lay with her as she's falling asleep (in his bed, if that's preferred) then get up when she's asleep, and return to bed when it's his bedtime? Then she has the security of falling asleep with Dad -- which she seems to want -- but Dad's not a slave to bedtime.

I don't know if this could make the eventual transition-to-own-bed more difficult, but it did work for us, and our daughter (now 5) has gone to bed on her own like a champ for over 2 years.

[Sara]

I was going to suggest something similar. At about 14 months our daughter learned how to climb down from our bed and was generally staying to the middle of it without rolling off, so I was never (too) concerned about leaving her alone in our bed. Of course, I've relied on this to the point where she only naps in our bed at 19 months. I think she's convinced the crib is only for nights.

[caro]

Will she fall asleep in the crib if your husband is in the room with her? I know you want to get her to falling asleep independently, but maybe having dad in the room, though not snuggling in bed, would be a good transitional step?

[caro]

Oops - posted at same time as Nancy & Sara.

[Mary]

I'm not sure if our story is helpful, but here is it. Our first kid was a good sleeper and transitioned fairly easily out of our bed and into a crib at six months, coming back into our bed early in the morning for some nursing and a little more sleep. Kid two has been a terrible sleeper and, at 20 months, has probably never slept more than an hour in a crib on a handful of occasions. We can't move her once she falls asleep, either. It wakes her up and she won't go back to sleep.

I slept alone with her from when she was about six months until she was more than a year because our bed was small, she was nursing often at night, and I could not get any sleep with three people in the small bed. When kid two continued to resist transitioning out of our bed, we bought a king sized bed so that my husband and I could at least sleep together. This actually helped with night weaning. At about 17 or 18 months, I would nurse her to sleep on one side of the bed (we have guard rails), and then I would move to the other end with my husband in the middle. Without me right next to her, she didn't wake up as often, and I wasn't semi-consciously offering milk at her slightest whimper. This method was fairly effective at getting her to sleep for six or seven hours without waking most nights, but not all. She still often wakes up very early in the morning and then nurses back to sleep for a few more hours.

However, this did not address her night owl ways. I remember being up with her at 3am her first few weeks of life. And that wasn't her waking in the middle of the night, it was her never really going to bed at night at a "normal" hour. Then she would sleep in to 11:00 am. People suggested that her days and nights were mixed up, however, with some improvements, she has always been a night owl. She often stays up to 11:00 pm or later. She sleeps in to 9:00 am a few days a week, but sometimes wakes up at 7:30. If she isn't tired, it's practically impossible to get her to sleep at a reasonable time at night, or for a nap. So I stopped trying. It's easier for me to stay up with her until she's sleepy than struggle to get her to bed at a reasonable time.

Many days she sleeps about two hours less than babies her age are supposed to. We have one or two good days a week when she goes to bed early, say, 9:30, and might also take a long nap, adding up to a more normal amount of sleep for a baby her age. The lack of sleep only makes her cranky if it's even less than normal for her, which also happens once or twice a week.

Can you tell that this kid resists a schedule? She does not have a set nap time or bed time and we just gave up on trying for a schedule. We have recently been able to have her go to sleep, with me nursing her, or lying in the dark next to her, in our old double bed, and then I leave and my husband and I sleep alone in the king sized bed. Sometimes we're alone almost all night. Other nights, like last night, well, she woke up at 3:30 and never really seemed to fall back asleep.

I typed out this looooong example to suggest that maybe your kid is like mine, a night owl who doesn't need as much sleep as most babies. My only other suggestion, besides giving up like we did, is, as other people suggested, to try having her father put her to sleep in your bed at her bed time.

And, maddeningly, this could all change in a month. Or a week. Good luck!

[Charisse]

Jesse, your baby sounds a bit like my Mouse...mine's not quite on par with Mary's baby, but she's always needed a bit less sleep that the books said she should, and she's run on a later schedule than all her friends by at least 1 1/2 hours. Couple thoughts:

-is she still taking 2 naps? If she's taking a mid-afternoon nap, that could enhance her ability to stay up. If you can stretch her out to 1 midday nap, she will have had more awake hours by a reasonable bedtime and may be more ready to fall asleep. (Every sleep book on the planet, not to mention most of the moms you know, will tell you that more naps means more sleep. It appears that this is true for most children, but it isn't universal. I think the deal is, the *right amount* of naps means better sleep--too much is just as bad as not enough, and some kids are more susceptible to too much. Something to consider.)

-could she possibly be teething? I ask because another way she sounds like my kid is sleeping OK when all is well but having any little thing (new toy, xmas, etc.) wreck her sleep. If she's in the early stage of getting those dang first molars, that could definitely be contributing even if she's not really in actual pain yet.

-any chance she's talking in there? That's another big developmental exciting thing, obviously, and some kids secretly practice their words before they debut them in public. (Things you learn getting a Linguistics degree.) Anyway, not a lot you can do about that, but if you put the baby monitor on high and hear her practicing it would at least give you some information.

-what's the family schedule like? And is she raring to go at 6/7AM, or might she go back to sleep then? We've never treated 6AM as morning at our house (night owls ourselves, I suppose the late schedule baby was predictable)...maybe you can get her a little less exhausted with an extra hour in the morning...and maybe that would get her to that 12/1:00 nap that would then have her nice and sleepy at 8pm.

Anyway, it sounds like you're doing a great job--it's not easy, but it will get better! Hang in there.

[Kate]

I have nothing helpful to offer, but I just wanted to say that my son, who is almost 2 and 1/2 sounds pretty similar. Since we first attempted to transfer him from his crib to a toddler bed (clearly, we did this prematurely, but he was climbing out on a consistent basis as soon as we put him in his crib and I was worried about falls), it takes hours to get him to fall asleep and he frequently manages to hold out until my husband and my bedtime to do it. At that point, it's 11 PM, he's exhausted, and, with my husband and I on either side of him, he falls asleep quite quickly :) This is a low-level nightmare for our family, what with the loss of 100% of my personal time (i.e. the period after my son falls asleep and before I go to bed), the exhaustion that dogs my son all day, pathetic-looking dark undereye circles being the most obvious sign, the drop off in couple time from minimally adequate before to zero now, etcetera, etcetera. So, I feel your pain and am reading the responses with interest!

[Jan]

I wonder what would happen if Dad didn't come in at 10:30 and take her to bed with him?

It sounds to me like you have a stubborn little girl on your hands. I have one of those, too, and it can be rough.

If you left her in there, eventually one of two things would happen: (1) she would fall asleep; or (2) she would start to cry for real. It might be worth a try. (I'm not sure I'm understanding why Dad is taking her into the family bed with him, so maybe I've missed a piece of it.)

FWIW, I think 8:30 is pretty late to be putting her down, if she's waking at 6, so too late a bedtime could be a culprit too. You could try putting her to bed a little earlier (which, I know, seems counter-intuitive, but my 14-month-old is definitely awake longer in his bed if we miss bedtime than if we get him down a little earlier).

I dunno, unless you're committed to the family bed for some reason OTHER than thinking it's the only way to get her to sleep, I'd go with a few nights of leaving her in there and seeing what she does. Even if she falls asleep at 2 a.m. the first night, it might go much more quickly after that.

Sleep stuff is so hard, and once it starts to go bad it's so hard to get it back on track. You have my sympathy!

[ellen landrum]

I second the mid-day nap idea, if she's not already down to one. My daughter, same age, naps like a dream for 2 hrs in the middle of the day. She's always been a persistent nightwaker, but the one-nap plan has helped her go down by 6:30 or 7 every night, and that way she wakes rested, no matter the struggles at night. The earlier bedtime makes for a saner mom too. I also like the suggestion of dad lying with her. We are/were family bed people and tried to transition Sophie to a crib at a year. I finally gave up on it, it was adding so much stress and trauma to our already exponential sleep issues. She and I now sleep on a mattress on the floor, so that her hard-working dad can sleep (and his snoring doesn't wake her). It seems easier for her to accept the same bed for naps/evening/night, and she stays down easier if I'm able to lie and snuggle her in the evening when she wakes. Just a thought! And we feel your frustration- a smart stubborn daughter is what we have too!

[Edmund Farrow]

My eldest wouldn't go to sleep unless he was holding onto the hem of my t-shirt sleeve. (And yes, I had to be wearing it). I spent months in the spare bed with him while my wife got some sleep. The only way to overcome it (at around 20 months) was to leave him to cry in the cot for hours (5 the first night, 3 the second). Checking on him only made him worse so I went in every half an hour. It was horrible but after that he went to bed and slept no problem.

My youngest (of 3) wouldn't go to bed on her own either. Unfortunately, she threw up almost instantly when left to cry. I eventually figured out I had to stay in the same room while she cried in the cot. I pretended to sleep and occasionally told her to calm down. Again, it was horrible but she got the message after a couple of nights as well

[jesse]

I am at work and will pour over your thoughts ASAP but in advance: Many thanks to all of you for your great suggestions and for giving me the feeling that I am not alone with my sleep challenged lovely-- my non co-sleeping friends think I am mad to continue to do family bed but they don't know the pure joy,love and connection of being close to your babe after a long day without them!

[hedra]

Jesse, not sure if I'll be much help, but here goes...

Brendan doesn't go to bed without daddy if daddy is home. Period. He's five. He's still like that. He'll stay awake if he knows daddy is on his way home, too. Even if it is going to be hours. The only choice is to not know IF daddy will be here at X point, or to not have daddy be in the house if daddy isn't going to bed at the same time, or daddy comes to bed.

That's it. So, we've been all going to bed at 8:30 or so, daddy included, for quite a while now. Nice side effect of this... if it is one of the rough nights, we can sleep in, in the morning, and still not be late for work. If it is a good night, he can get up at 4:30 and do the 'evening stuff' in the morning.

Just one more way to look at it. Brendan NEEDS us both there to be happy. Okay, so why is that bad? Does the 'one on one grownup time' have to be in the evening? Why not over coffee in the morning? Dishes get done, kitchen cleaned, laundry started, all in the morning. :shrug: It seemed odd at first, but it works. And I can't tell you how often I've been glad to be able to sleep another half-hour (or more) after a rough night...

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