Sleep training your kids in Brooklyn

Reading an essay about your situation, though, would way more interesting than this Times piece.

 

'All the experts were wrong.'

Most likely, the experts were right but you waited until the girl was 7 before trying their advice.

 

Hmmm.

 

Write one! Hell, I'll edit it if you think it would help. I'm sure we could get it published on Slate as sort of a "The Times is wrong; here is a real sleep training issue" take.

 

Drop off the little fuckers here.

 

This was my reaction as well. My wife is similar to this woman in that she can't stand to hear our kids cry. So while she was out of town on business, I handled the sleep training. It took two or three nights for my daughter. But she was six months old. Now, we give her some milk, carry her downstairs, put her in the crib and walk out. She settles right in and sleeps from 6:30 or 7 p.m. until 7 or 8 a.m.

My son is more difficult to get to sleep. He wants us to read him books and sing songs and talk about his day, etc. It usually takes 20-45 minutes. Sometimes an hour, which can be tough. He used to be better, in that we could set a time to leave, even if he was awake and he'd fall off to sleep. We had to lock him in his room once he moved out of the crib because our bedroom is on a different floor and we didn't want him roaming around in the middle of the night. He could climb over the child gate, so that didn't work. It took awhile, but we were eventually able to stop locking his door (he's now 4, we probably haven't locked it in about a year).

Putting him to bed got a bit more difficult once our daughter came because we couldn't walk out and allow him to cry without waking her up. Now, he usually falls asleep before we leave the room. But, realistically, I'd spend 20 minutes with him reading stories, etc., anyway, so I'm not too worried about it. Most nights he sleeps through the night. Occasionally he wakes up and comes into our bed, but I usually just bring him back to his own and he's fine.

Every kid is different. But I'm willing to bet 99 percent of kids aren't going to understand why you are suddenly locking their door after seven years of being able to sleep in your room.

 

We have twin boys going to turn 1 year later this month.
We were spoiled because they slept through the night early and easily.

But we had a major sleep regression at 10 months. I was acting like a crazy person trying to soothe and stop one from waking the other.
They were also awake too late because we hadn't phased out the 9 p.m. feeding.
After about two weeks, I did some more research. I decided they just had to go through it together. Looked at 14-day window when I would be home every evening to work on this with them.
Now they eat at 6 p.m. followed by bath, into pajamas and the crib, read to them and lights out/door closed at 7 p.m.
They might whine or even cry a little, some times just babbling, for about 10 minutes and then they're asleep. The longest they ever went was about 40 minutes the first night.

It has been great progress and fairly quickly.

They still seem to wake about 60 to 30 minutes earlier then we'd like them to wake.

And one of them wakes several times a night, cries or whines weakly for about 3 minutes and then falls asleep. That still creates a problem for me because I am a very light sleeper and it takes me a lot longer to fall back asleep than it does for him.

Their mother could sleep through an air raid.

Overall, we on a good path for sleeping.

 

Nice job, Buck. A buddy of mine has twin girls and he seems to think that having both of them in the same room and the same age was ultimately a blessing. If one wakes the other, they occupy each other for a few minutes until they both fall back asleep, rather than getting out of bed looking for comfort. He said he sends them to bed and off they go, maybe chitter chat for 10 minutes and they fall right to sleep. Both are 4.

There have been mornings my 4-year-old woke up at 4:30 a.m. and decided to go see how his baby sister was doing. Long days, those.

 

We've been prepping the 4-year-old to go back to a sleep time, at which we'll leave even if he's awake. The key is going to be whether we can accomplish this without him getting so upset he wakes his sister. Hopefully, we'll get it done quickly (and soon).

 

I would give my right arm to have my son talk about his day.

 

Buck were they teething at 10 months? That can temporarily wreck their sleep patterns.

 

When we were young parents there was what was referred to as "Ferberizing"; a Dr. Ferber who was a pediatrician and gave a pathway to getting the kid to stay in their bed. Our boy was 6-8 mos. old and after putting him down for the night, he would wake up a few hours later and cry for mommy (anyone).

Ferber said let him cry for 10 mins, then reassure but DO NOT PICK UP, wait 20 mins next, then keep extending for 10 mins (I think).

Hardest night of our lives, mom and I are crying hearing our boy struggle, but after I believe the third phase, he went to sleep.

Later, he was about 2 he would climb out of his crib/bed (I think it was converted to small bed) and leave his room. We were told to put up the gate so he couldn't leave his room. After some crying, I recall he then said "Okay, I'm going to bed now."

Not the smoothest but I knew early on had to be hard line and draw the line otherwise wifey and I would never have a life.

My advice is routine is everything and you have to stick to it. Even when it was summer, 8:30 pm (sun still out), bed time.

Sorry for this lady's problem but IMHO by never drawing the line and holding it, she got run over.