Hi
my 19 month old boy is not sleeping threw the night.
He will wake up at 2 or 5am and want to be held, and so I hold him and take him to the couch and we both fall asleep there.
Then I wake up and put him back into his crib.
Is there anything I can do to make him sleep threw the night, so we can get a good night sleep?
We give him a snack and milk before he goes to be and his room is dark.
Help please............
We have tried not going in there, but he will still cry and he wont give up.
Have you given him time to see if he is just stirring for a little while and is going to fall back asleep on his own. How soon do you go in when you hear him? Maybe consider not going in right away and waiting. Sounds like it might be a bad habit starting to form.
Why would he put himself back to sleep when you come in and love on him? You started something to keep the house quiet for everyone else, and now you have to break the habit you created. If you don't want to let him cry it out, go to him, lay him back down, soothe him, but DON'T pick him up. When he's quiet, leave the room. If he starts again, repeat the process. It will take a few nights for him to learn that night-time snuggles are over, so you may want to wait til the weekend.
He keeps waking at this time because it's a habit to wake up at this time. If you quit picking him up and taking him out to the couch, you may be able to break the habit. Instead of getting him up, go into his room without turning on any lights, don't speak to him or get him up, don't even change his diaper. Just quietly pat him on the back and help him to self-soothe himself back to sleep. Again, he's waking up because he's in the habit of waking up and you just have to break the habit.
When he wakes up at those times, is it waking up crying? or just talking?
It's possible he's hungry, scared, uncomfortable, etc.
But at the same time at this point it might just be routine for him. He now knows that if he wakes up you will come right in there and hold him.
I'm not a HUGE fan of the "Cry it out" method or anything, but sometimes I think it comes down to having to break a habit. Have you tried Not going in there?
I really think he is just testing you. I could see if it was once or twice because he didn't feel well or he was scared but I would say that he knows you will come get him whenever he wants. We were having a hard time getting my daughter to start sleeping through the night and our doctor said that we need to first make sure that we were not rocking her to sleep and putting her down while she was sleeping because then she would decide that every time she woke up she needed us to put her back to sleep. Second, the doctor told us that if she woke up we should go in there and tell her it is ok but don't pick her up. We ere just supposed consol her by rubbing her back and not talking and then just leave again. Sometimes she had to cry it out but after about a week she was sleeping though the night and we haven't had a problem since. I think the worst thing you can do if you child wakes up during the night is take them out of their room. They need to know that it is night time and time to sleep not time to get up. Good luck!!!
