Hello,
My son is 27 months old, and has only begun sleeping longer than 2-3
hours at a stretch in the past couple of months. His more settled sleep
patterns followed the emergence of his last molars. In those first 25
months or so I tried many things and interviewed every mother I could
find for ideas! Here are a few that had some effect for us:
1) Put child on double mattress on floor in his own room, nurse him to
sleep there. When he wakes, go to him there and just fall asleep again
in that room. Dad gets to stay in his own bed and mom gets to just fall
asleep again rather than stay awake till child is settled and then get
up to go back to bed. In our family I also was dealing with a dad who
felt I should be forcing the issue more than I was comfortable with. By
making it possible for him to just stay in our bed it removed a bit of
the pressure, which helped general ambiance in the household!
2) Before I tried to deny nursing at night I tried limiting during the
day (i.e. the neh nehs are busy now, they are
driving/eating/shopping/etc.) It is worth a try, it would sometimes
work at night, though it was very inconsistent, and I didn't feel it was
appropriate with my guy to really force the issue. He seemed to really
*need* that nursing at night. I suspect his teeth were pretty
uncomfortable.
3) Hard to put this in words, but the most powerful coping tool I had
was what I refer to as floating down stream. There were many periods
where my son was waking every 1.5 to 2 hours through the night. I would
reach a point where I thought I was going to lose my mind, then I would
meet a cool mom who sympathized, or go to a LLL toddler meeting and meet
a bunch of them!, or somethign would just snap in me and I would say,
"whatever, I'll just deal." Inevitably, INEVITABLY!, my son would then
enter a period of sleeping a bit better! He is an extremely sensitive
barometer of emotion in our household and I am convinced that part of
his waking was tied to my frustration with it.
4) I never really tested this, but a friend insists that the key to
making changes in night time patterns is to take baby steps towards the
goal and to give each step a minimum of 2 weeks to become habit.
I hope that the mom finds a good support group, LLL toddler meetings
have been great for me, as have various playgroups in our area. It's
really difficult to accept this (I know, I've been there!) but the most
powerful way to manage this difficult period is to try to stop seeing it
as a problem, and just accept what is until it isn't.
Good luck! Please convey the best wishes of a mom who has been there to
the mom going bonky right now!
Karen Lowell, somewhat rested mom!
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