Advice to help me with my toddler
 

ok. i would post this on babycenter.com but no one ever response to the chat boards there so i think here would be a better place. if you are a parent or know a great deal about children maybe you could help me. ever since we got back from rome about 2 weeks ago grace (14 months on sept 4) doesn't want to sleep in her crib. she usually plays in her crib while i am showering but she screams when i put her in there. i can usually distract her w/ toys and she's sometimes ok. she was today. she got sick when we got back and in general just hasn't been sleeping well. she did have to sleep w/ us while on vacation b/c at the hotel in rome for one night the babybed was broken and in venice we stayed at a mom and pop type place w/ no crib. i know this has spoiled her but i can't help it. i'm not going to not tour europe b/c she can't sleep in her crib everynight. she has been napping fine in her crib. so my ? is. do you think it would be ok to move her to her toddler bed. her crib converts into one. the reccomended age by the crib manufacturers is 16 mo. but she can already walk and knows how to get down off of the couch and our bed so i don't think she'll hurt herself. any thoughts? sorry my post is so long :)

I moved my daughter into her toddler bed at about that age. She had been walking since 9 months and was a climber, so I was worried she would climb out of the crib. Besides, I had found out that her brother was on the way so I wanted her out of the crib long before he came along so that she didn't feel like he "took her bed". I did use a rail that fit under the mattress, just to keep her from rolling out of bed. I also put pillows on the floor next to the bed, for the same reason.

I think I kept my son jadon in his crib a little longer, but he was 14 weeks premature so everything was delayed then! We moved when he was 20 months and that is when we moved to the toddler bed. My step-son was I think 16-18 months when he moved into the toddler bed and never had any major problems. Try it and see if it works. If she hasn't been feeling well that could be why she's resistent to her crib...plus a disruption to her previously regular routine can cause some problems. You're the mom - do what feels right! By the way Grace is a great name...my Grace is 9 1/2 months old now! :)

Re: Advice to help me with my toddler
 

OMG, I was just checking out babycenter.com for (basically) the exact same advice!!!!

Jake is 12 months. Ever since we got back from vacation last week, where he had a crib in the same room as we slept, he does not want to sleep in his crib alone in his room. A couple times while we were in the hotel, I brought him into the king size bed (DH went to sleep in the other bed - we had a 2 rm suite on this trip).

I don't know if Jake wants to just snuggle with ME or not sleep in his crib. We have a twin bed in his room, which will become his bed (rather than converting the crib).

He does this for both naptime & bedtime. Any advice is appreciated! :)

I would think putting her in the bed would be fine--she sounds as though she is an early developer. However, if you want to wait, be patient and give it a little more time and I think Grace will come around. My daughter is 8 months now and still sleeps in a pack n play in our room (my husband is deployed, so it is just her and I)--she doesn't really have a problem sleeping in it, but I did notice that after we spent 2 months visiting both sides of the grandparents, she was very used to being held and entertained constantly. Now that it is just her and I again, she cries as soon as I leave the room, whereas prior to the vacation she was fine. It took about 3-4 weeks before she was back to normal again. I think it just takes little ones awhile to adjust to the old schedules.
Good luck!

Re: Re: Advice to help me with my toddler
 

holy crap! that's the exact same problem i'm having! at least i'm not alone! i'll tell you what happened last night. grace woke up after sleeping only about 2.5 hours. i got her back to sleep quickly but she wouldn't let me put her back down in her crib. that was at 11:30 and i couldn't get her down until 1! she was fussy and i didn't know why. i think for some reason she's real clingy at nighttime and wakes up and sees i'm not there and freaks out. so she slept w/ me again. the funny thing is though, at naptime she's fine! i'll let you know what happens when we put her in the toddler bed

hijack/

You know, I think this was the last thread I read before bed. I had a dream I was 4 months pregnant. Thanks a lot! Lol.

/hijack

LOL! Poor Dani :D

Don't worry though, because I remember a dream I had quite some time ago that involved you getting married at St. Paul's Cathedral and something about you and Sheila running barefoot down 5th Avenue to get to the ceremony. (or something like that; it was awhile ago)

So at least you got married before you got pregnant! :)

ugh...I wouldn't want to run down 5th avenue barefoot...that's more like a nightmare!

It's never too early to give kids a good spanking.

-Rudey
--Use the belt

could it be that she has not readjusted to the time?maybe her body clock is still on roman time.

children are so impressionable-it only takes doing something different once, and they want it that way forever. she very well may have decided it was fun to have roommates and would like to continue what was begun on vacation. if you get up with her everytime she awakens during the night and help her to get back to sleep, she will have a hard time getting herself settled on her own. she will expect someone to come in and be with her everytime she awakens. trust me, i speak from experience!

our daughter was 19 months olds when our son was born, and they temporarily shared a room while we added a master bedroom upstairs. i was scared to death that everytime the baby woke up and started to cry, that he would wake up his sister, so at the first little noise, i would rush in & get him up. after the room addition was completed, both kids had their own room, but by that time the baby had been programmed by me to expect my arrival if he so much as sneezed. he was still not sleeping thru the night at 9 months(because of my programming). at his well child visit, the pediatrician asked about his sleeping habits and then explained that i would have to "deprogram" the baby so that he could learn to sleep thru. we basically had to respond when he cried out by going in to the room, making sure he was alright, laying him back down, rubbing his back and telling him,"nite nite." of course, it became a battle of wills, with him wailing, and me crying too, because he did sound so pitiful, but after a couple of nights of this, he adapted and slept thru the night. it was hard, because i had to let him cry himself to sleep, and i am by nature a nurturer, but it was what the doctor ordered, and it did work. the amazing thing is our daughter slept thru the whole thing!!

by the way, we did the same thing agdee did. we wanted our daughter in a bed before the new baby came, so we bought her a bed when she was approximately 16 months. we really talked the "big" bed up and she was so excited to get it when it arrived. she loved it!best wishes.

We got back from our Alaska trip almost 3 weeks ago and Avner is still having sleep issues. This is normal - she's out of her sleep schedule, her bodyclock is out of whack.

I think that switching her into a toddler bed right now would make the situation worse, not better - it's adding another change to her life right now.

I think the best thing is to be consistent with bath & bedtime. If she wakes, go to her, calm her and tell her that it's time to sleep and place her back in the bed. We sit on the footstool next to Avner's bed (he is in a twin already, he's 2 1/2) and hold his hand and maybe sing a few lullabys while he relaxes. Then we ask him if we can go downstairs and come back and check on him in a few minutes. He usually says OK, rolls over and goes to sleep on his own. We have never allowed him to 'cry it out' and we coslept until he was about 19 months.

Although popular media wants you to believe that babies and children should be sleeping through the night and in their own beds before they are 12 months old, reality and scientific studies have shown that's rarely the case. Developmental spurts and other issues wreak havoc with sleep patterns and most kids don't settle into a consistent sleep pattern until after the age of 3.

There are some very good resources here: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070100.asp

this is wonderful advice! thank you! i'm so glad i'm not alone in my problems. she isn't still on roman time b/c there was no time change. we live in germany. she did have to endure a 10 hour car ride but we broke it up on the way home by spending a couple of days in venice. i did go ahead and convert her crib to a toddler bed. for this simple reason. my goal is not to pick her up when she wakes up at night but i find it nearly impossible w/ her being in a crib and the height difference. w/ her in a toddler bed i can be at eye level w/ her. she does know how to fall asleep on her own although i am in the room. no rocking or nursing. i know that's a biggie w/ all the peds also letting them cry it out. we used to do that when she was falling asleep at night. it worked for a few nights then after about 30 min she would wake back up and i just couldn't bare to repeat the process. hopefully things will go better tonight!

ETA: we have a consistent bedtime routine. best i can tell i'm doing everything right! now, why isn't it working! that's the ? maybe i have the next einstein on my hands :p

It isn't working because she doesn't want it to, lol. Things will often change like this - it's a normal developmental process. Just stay the course, try to stay calm and things will rotate in and out of 'normalcy'.

Avner will go weeks falling asleep on his own and sleeping through the night. Then we'll hit a few days where he wakes a lot at night or has problems falling asleep. Right now we're dealing with his refusal to nap at school. It's all a part of the process. We find that things like these are usually tied to growth spurts or changes at school (new teacher, new kids, etc.).

It's only my opinion, but any ped. or book that says cry it out (cio) is OK for sleep training should be chucked in the dumpster.

Study after reputable study has shown that CIO doesn't work - it never really has. All it does is train your child to realize that you don't come with they call and that they are not worthy of their parent's attention. They fall asleep because they are tired of crying, not because they've 'learned to fall asleep'.

If sleep issues continue, I would recommend Elizabeth Pantley's book, The No-Cry Sleep Solution.

Barb

Every kid and every parent is different and I'm a great believer in trusting your "Mommy Instinct" to do what is best for your family. My advice is that when you switch her to a bed, make sure there is a child gate or something either in her doorway or block off the kitchen somehow. One morning when my daughter was a toddler, I found a bunch of typing paper in her bed along with some sticky notes and pens. So I know she got into our computer room while we were asleep. Yikes! That's how I found out she could open door knobs!