Our daughter still won't lay down by herself, she has to have human contact next to her in order to fall asleep, if we lay down with her she's asleep in 5 minutes, but if we don't it's an hour battle. it is "easier" to laydown with her but it's such a bad habit. How did you break it and have your child sleep by themselves?
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Does she wake up through the night needing someone to lay with her to fall back asleep? If not, I wouldn't say this is a "bad habit" or anything that needs to be changed or fixed.
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My daughter is 4 and we currently lay next to her until she falls asleep. I usually tell her if she doesn't fall asleep within 15 minutes, then i will just check on her in 10 minutes. It usually only takes her 5-10 minutes before she passes out. I agree that if there is no real impact to her sleep otherwise, i would be okay with it.
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@LuLu Mom: Have you tried moving slightly away from her each night? So, start off in bed, but not touching her. Then move so that you're sitting on the edge of the bed until she's comfortable with that. Then move to standing at the door. Then just outside the door...
It might not work right away, but trying that might help her if she wakes in the middle of the night and knows that you're just a room away.
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Yeah, we had this problem recently. We told her that we were switching up bedtime and from now on we would stay for 5 minutes after stories. After that, we leave. If she stays in her room, she gets money (we give her 4 pennies for staying in her room after we leave). If she didn't come into our room all night (until her clock turned green) she got 1 more penny. It's been a week now and it is working. The first night was terrrrribllllleeeee. It got much, much easier after that first night.
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We have been dealing with this with our 4.5 year old for a while and also coming into our bed in the middle of the night. However, recently he has been agreeing to go to bed with no one laying with him and we haven't changed anything other than letting him take a toy or whatever he wants to bed with him and letting him play for a little. Most often he falls asleep quickly. Things also go easier the more tired he is.
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@LuLu Mom: I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, but a lot of research shows that small children are not meant to sleep alone. Long story short, I don't think it's a bad habit to lay with her while she falls asleep, unless you can't stand it or something. American sleep culture and parenting is very extreme on one end of the spectrum so keep that in mind!
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@2PeasinaPod: if this worked I would do it, but when we lay with her she has her arm around you as a way to "not let you go" until she's fully asleep and you can escape.
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@LuLu Mom: Oh bummer. Honestly...I wouldn't see it as a bad habit. I lay with LO1 every night until he's almost asleep, then give him a kiss and tell him I'll be right downstairs. It took us a while to get there, but he's soooo tired by that point that he doesn't want to fight to keep us there. He's 3.5 and just started allowing us to do this when he turned 3.
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8 comments