How to stop the night wakings?

In article ,
cjra says...

On Mar 14, 2:49 pm, Banty wrote:
In article , Jamie Clark says...





"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article
,
cjra says...

On Mar 14, 9:12 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:
cjra wrote:
On Mar 14, 6:53 am, "deja.blues" wrote:
"cjra" wrote in message

...

On Mar 13, 5:03 pm, "lu-lu" wrote:
"cjra" wrote in message
btw - it's not that I'm making excuses, it's just that I'm trying to
not do a bunch of different things that require substantial effort
and
lifestyle change in the hope that _one_ works. Many things we have
tried, and now I'll just take it one by one and see how it goes.
???????
It sounds like great change and effort is exactly what you need to
do.

I mean like going to the effort of moving the large awkward difficult
to move bed into another room temporarily in the hopes that it will
make a difference.

Any possibility of making the other bed more comfortable?
A better mattress or mattress topper or some such thing?

Sure. We could lay out the cash for a new bed instead of on
construction materials for DD's room. But as I said, I really don't
want to go to such major extremes when it's a temporary fix which very
well may not work.

A mattress or mattress topper. She suggested a mattress or mattress
topper.
Not a whole bed.

When talking about mattresses, I refer to them as beds as well. So I
understood her to mean that she couldn't afford/didn't want to spend that
much money on a new bed/mattress. A new mattress can run a few thousand
dollars, so it's not a minor thing. Even a mattress pad or topper can be a
few hundred for a really good one. And if her dh is as picky as I am, you
can't just throw a $30 pad on top of a bed that you consider to be
uncomfortable -- it just doesn't do anything.

This is where I'm beginning to think you're discarding ideas too fast,
looking
for some magic fix.

With this, you might as well just put up with it until the house remod is
done.
Because you need to be of a mind to be giving any option a chance to work,
and
how it will be when all the work is done on the house is the only way you
seem
to really be able to envision things finally working.

Sometimes muddling through is the only thing that people seem to be able
to get
to work. For whatever reason. And it *is* an option. Folks here are
trying to
come up with *better* options for you, but it is an option.

Banty

I totally understand where she is coming from. She wants to start small and
simple and work up to the bigger possible solutions. As she said, it's like
going for brain surgery for a headache, or burning down your house to kill a
rat. Yes, it might solve the problem, but so would several other less
extreme measures. Obviously you want to solve the problem with the
easiest/fastest solution if at all possible. I'm sure if she discovers that
the easy solutions don't work, she'll keep trying other things until she
gets to the more difficult ones.

OK, thats fine.

It's just that when there are sooo many limits placed on a problem, it may never
converge to a solution.

Blame the engineer in me.

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

I *have* been reading. Just not commenting as I didnt have the same issue. But
I think there is some reaching for the simple, but likely ineffective going on.
Like the failed dieter saying "i tried this; i tried that...."...


If you can't see all the messages on your newsreader, try reading
through google groups, as then you can see all the messages and you'll
find all the ones where we discussed those things I'm about to try. If
you don't feel like reading all the messages I can't blame you, but
you must also understand that if you jump into a discussion late, you
can't draw any conclusions as you've missed a lot.

Oh thank you very much :-/, after 15 years on Usenet without you I would have
had no clue how to read a newsgroup.


Which is when I say, if everything's so hard, consider just staying the way
things are since at least when the house is done things should settle down.
There's a natural time limit to the problem, so maybe sheer endurance is the
solution.

But everything is not so hard. I never said it was. There were plenty
of suggestions that were quite simple. Others took those a step
further to offer what they felt were simple suggestions, but in our
situation were not. I simply expained why those suggestions were not
realistic at this time. I haven't rejected the simpler suggestions at
all.

Now, myself as a mom who was single from the beginning and bought a house when
my son was 18 months old, I had the house remods done a little at a time, so as
to not corner myself with this kind of grand undertaking.

Good for you.

Our house was not livable when we purchased it. We tore it down to the
studs. We rented for about 6 months, but could no longer afford to pay
a mortgage and rent and made the house livable. We are working on it
one room at a time, in the midst of having a family. There are a
variety of reasons why we chose the house we did, in the circumstances
we had. I have yet to complain about the house and am not 'blaming' it
for my daughter's sleep issues. I described it up only because the
suggestions some had didn't fit with our current housing circumstances
and it was clear from some responses that folks didn't quite
understand the type of housing situation we were in.


Well, getting a pretty much livable house, although a fixer, would have been
easier (but I'm sure you'll list your reasons why you couldn't do *that*). But
that's water under the bridge. I'm guessing you just underestimated the amount
of upheaval all the remod would be. But that's just human.

All I'm saying is.. maybe the bottom line of all this is that, between changes
you can't, or won't, do, it doesnt really in the end matter all that much which
is which, and you can maybe just hold on until the house is all done.

Banty

"cjra" wrote in message
...
On Mar 14, 2:49 pm, Banty wrote:
In article , Jamie Clark
says...

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to
various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of
limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for
the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough
latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

If you can't see all the messages on your newsreader, try reading
through google groups, as then you can see all the messages and you'll
find all the ones where we discussed those things I'm about to try. If
you don't feel like reading all the messages I can't blame you, but
you must also understand that if you jump into a discussion late, you
can't draw any conclusions as you've missed a lot.

I think the only reason options appeared to become extreme was that they
were offered to help resolve simpler situations that apparently couldn't be
used. For example, you and DH can't share a room at the moment as DD's in
there and you want to sleep.. DD can't move in to your room due to the lack
of doors. Therefore, it was suggested DH and you sleep in your room, but due
to you not wanting to move the beds at the moment, it was suggested you get
a mattress topper as a tempory solution to aid DH's back.

This isn't me saying you're rejecting all ideas, it's me trying to explain
why the ideas appeared to have escalated. At the start of the thread, no one
was saying that you should buy DH a new mattress etc, those ideas only came
about later when others were said to be unfeasable. The bigger ideas only
came about to help you acheive the simpler ones - i.e., DD sleeping in a
room of her own in a house that's not ready yet, as you said you felt like
it was teasing her to have her crib in your room. Not sleeping well until
the completion is due in september seems like a long time to be tired to me.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you all get a night's sleep soon!

Lucy x

On Mar 14, 5:03 am, "Linda" wrote:
"Anne Rogers" wrote in message

. ..



Not unless we win the lottery and can pay someone to do it. We
scheduled out every weekend based on what needs to be done, and came
up with a September end date. No other rooms are 'complete' except our
bedroom.

I think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place here, I honestly
think that to both continue nursing and cosleeping and also sleep through
the night is a VERY hard task, something that I cannot recall a single
person I've come across having done it (that could be because if it was
easy and not a problem it doesn't get mentioned). I know plenty of people
who nursed toddlers and had them sleeping through the night in a separate
room and I also know of non nursing cosleeping though the night toddlers -
I've had one of each myself!

This is what we did. DD still sleeps with us and is now just over 2. At
around 18 months or so I was sick of her waking to feed, often 2 or 3 times
a night (and we were wanting to try for another child and my period hadn't
returned yet) , so I'd suggest she just have a cuddle first, and if she
still wanted to nurse afterwards she could. She would still nurse to sleep
at that point, and I introduced it by saying let's just have a cuddle, and
then she can nurse. Then when she would wake in the night and want to nurse
I would do the same thing - the first few nights she woke, and I didn't
nurse her straight away she cried and I told her I was just going to cuddle
her first and then she could nurse - which I did. After a few days she
accepted it and it wasn't long before she woke up, cuddled and went straight
back to sleep without nursing at all. Then when she woke up after that time
I would say - "No, you don't nurse in the middle of the night!! (Like it
was a funny thing to want) - How about a cuddle, or a sip of water?" And
she would be fine, and pretty much after that time she started sleeping
through without a problem.
HTH


Yeah, I think this is part of the problem. When I first moved out of
the room, about 14 months, it took a few days but she started sleeping
longer stretched and eventually got to 9-10 hour stretches almost
consistently. She she'd stopped nursing during the night, but would
nurse when she woke up and before sleeping. All was well. I didn't
even have to go through the whole 'you don't want to nurse' thing - I
wasn't there so she didn't notice. Well, she did try to nurse DH a few
times, but she quickly learned that didn't work and fell back to
sleep.

Then she got sick, would eat or drink *nothing* and I nursed her like
a newborn...she got better fairly quickly, at least over the worst,
and her appetite did come back, but not to quite the same level. She
developed a sinus infection around that time, which improved with
antibiotics and then we were travelling and again nursing more than
normal. This got compounded by a short hospital stay by me, and DH
started giving her milk again at night because it usually worked to
help her sleep, but eventually that turned into her waking up for it.
Since then things haven't been as consistent as they should have been.
I've gone in to nurse her a number of times, because she'll scream
like she's in pain or desperate, but I realize now it's just that
she's smart ;-)

So I think you're right in that we really need to decide no nursing at
night at all, and no milk from Papa either and just be prepared to
stick it out a lot longer this time.

What I noticed last night is that even though she's not nursing, she's
touching me. She'll doze off, I even hear snoring. I inch away (I
can't sleep that close anymore) and as soon as I move away, no matter
how gentle, she sits up and yells. Stinker.

On Mar 14, 3:20 pm, Banty wrote:

OK, thats fine.

It's just that when there are sooo many limits placed on a problem, it may never
converge to a solution.

Blame the engineer in me.

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

I *have* been reading. Just not commenting as I didnt have the same issue. But
I think there is some reaching for the simple, but likely ineffective going on.
Like the failed dieter saying "i tried this; i tried that...."...

Then you're wilfully ignoring quite a lot of responses where I
specifically said "I will try that."


Well, getting a pretty much livable house, although a fixer, would have been
easier (but I'm sure you'll list your reasons why you couldn't do *that*).

That's not the topic for discussion. We had reasons for our choice,
which as I've said are not really relevant here. We're happy with our
choice. The situation just is as it is, and it's different than it
would be for someone with a new house. Ok. It's hard for many to
picture the layout or circumstances if it's not something they've ever
experienced.

But
that's water under the bridge. I'm guessing you just underestimated the amount
of upheaval all the remod would be. But that's just human.

Yes and no. We've both done/lived in houses throughout renovations
before (my parents' house took about 15 years), and we'd looked at
about 10-15 houses over a year before settling on this one. We did
know how much work was involved, but we did underestimate the time,
and we've made some mistakes along the way with certain contractors.
We also wrongly assumed we could do much more when DD was born than
we've been able to.

All I'm saying is.. maybe the bottom line of all this is that, between changes
you can't, or won't, do, it doesnt really in the end matter all that much which
is which, and you can maybe just hold on until the house is all done.

Maybe. I liked many of the suggestions offered which can be addressed
immediately without major structural changes to our household (moving
the crib next to the bed, removing the arms of it, not nursing, for
example are all things first on the list). As I've said, too many
times to count, if these steps don't work after a reasonable amount of
time, we go to the next step.

On Mar 14, 3:25 pm, "lu-lu" wrote:
"cjra" wrote in message

...

On Mar 14, 2:49 pm, Banty wrote:
In article , Jamie Clark
says...

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to
various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of
limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for
the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough
latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

If you can't see all the messages on your newsreader, try reading
through google groups, as then you can see all the messages and you'll
find all the ones where we discussed those things I'm about to try. If
you don't feel like reading all the messages I can't blame you, but
you must also understand that if you jump into a discussion late, you
can't draw any conclusions as you've missed a lot.

I think the only reason options appeared to become extreme was that they
were offered to help resolve simpler situations that apparently couldn't be
used. For example, you and DH can't share a room at the moment as DD's in
there and you want to sleep..

I guess I wasn't clear enough early on. So let me clarify now:
I chose to sleep in another room because for some months that seemed
to help DD sleep. It's not now. The situation we're currently faced
with is that she must sleep in this particular room. I don't know if
DH being there is a problem or not. I know my being there is
potentially problematic. I'm trying to figure out how I can still have
her in that room, with DH, and sleep.

Some suggestions have been very helpful, and we're trying them.

I certainly haven't said all the situations suggested can't be used!

In article ,
cjra says...

On Mar 14, 3:20 pm, Banty wrote:

OK, thats fine.

It's just that when there are sooo many limits placed on a problem, it may
never
converge to a solution.

Blame the engineer in me.

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough
latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

I *have* been reading. Just not commenting as I didnt have the same issue. But
I think there is some reaching for the simple, but likely ineffective going on.
Like the failed dieter saying "i tried this; i tried that...."...

Then you're wilfully ignoring quite a lot of responses where I
specifically said "I will try that."

For all of two days...

I think that your solution will probably have to come in some combination of
conditioning her (crying it out or similar), which will take some sheer will and
consistency, and getting yourselves set up more ideally as far as bedroom
separation and doors and beds and so on. Which you don't have access to right
now. You can try moving the crib and stuff like that - it's what we call in
problem solving "low hanging fruit". But it often doesn't get at the cause -
they're the cheap things that might work on an off-chance.

Not saying you shouldn't try it first



Well, getting a pretty much livable house, although a fixer, would have been
easier (but I'm sure you'll list your reasons why you couldn't do *that*).

That's not the topic for discussion. We had reasons for our choice,
which as I've said are not really relevant here. We're happy with our
choice. The situation just is as it is, and it's different than it
would be for someone with a new house. Ok. It's hard for many to
picture the layout or circumstances if it's not something they've ever
experienced.

That's what I said (below) - it is what it is.



But
that's water under the bridge. I'm guessing you just underestimated the amount
of upheaval all the remod would be. But that's just human.

Yes and no. We've both done/lived in houses throughout renovations
before (my parents' house took about 15 years), and we'd looked at
about 10-15 houses over a year before settling on this one. We did
know how much work was involved, but we did underestimate the time,
and we've made some mistakes along the way with certain contractors.
We also wrongly assumed we could do much more when DD was born than
we've been able to.

Yep. That's all I'm saying. It's human. *Everyone* underestimates that stuff.
Yes, even those who have done it before.


All I'm saying is.. maybe the bottom line of all this is that, between changes
you can't, or won't, do, it doesnt really in the end matter all that much which
is which, and you can maybe just hold on until the house is all done.

Maybe. I liked many of the suggestions offered which can be addressed
immediately without major structural changes to our household (moving
the crib next to the bed, removing the arms of it, not nursing, for
example are all things first on the list). As I've said, too many
times to count, if these steps don't work after a reasonable amount of
time, we go to the next step.


OK.

Good luck.

Banty

Thanks to all for your helpful suggestions. After discussing various
options with DH, here's what we're going to do for at least 10 days.
Pantley claims 10 days, if at that point it's not working, we'll
reevaluate and if it looks like we're making progress, we'll try
another 10 days. If not at all, then we'll re-think it.

*keep DD in our room where she is now
*take the arms off the crib (it converts to a toddler bed)
*move the crib right next to our bed
*when she wakes, not pick her up, not nurse her, but try to soothe her
back to sleep with pats on the back. This may require me to have an
arm on her for awhile.
*if she gets to screaming stage I might sit with her or walk to calm
her down, though I'm not sure if this will throw things out of whack
or not
*make sure as much as is possible that she's well fed before dinner
(although we always try this, some nights she just won't eat)
*keep a consistent bedtime of 7:30
*keep the bath at night for now, since overall that works best - it's
not every night, more like every 3rd, but if it appears that the bath
is winding her up, we'll change that
*offer her only water if she does wake up
*On nursing to sleep, I think I will still nurse her, but do it
sitting up and then lay her down awake rather than nursing laying down
to sleep on the bed as we do now. She fights this already, but I'll be
tough.

I'm holding off on the white noise for now as DH is unwilling to move
beds at the moment and that's not yet a battle I feel I need to fight.
If we're making no progress with all of the above, I may insist upon
it for at least a few nights and try a fan in the room (and he can
either move rooms or tolerate the fan. He is getting to desperation
stage but he's not quite there yet).

If after a month or so we're nowhere near close to sleeping longer
stretches, I'll see if it seems our presence is the problem, and then
we'll move to another room and I'll fight the battle with DH on the
bed. I won't be buying a new mattress. We won't be buying a new house
with lots of rooms ;-) I'm also not inclined to do a lot of work on
another room as a temporary solution since every weekend doing that is
a weekend away from working on DD's room, which is the priority (we
have too much experience of starting our priority project, only to
have another project come up requiring our immediate attention and
then everything else gets pushed back another month).

I've decided we'll tolerate the night wakings or resort to CIO at that
point if we have to.

Thanks again for all your suggestions. I really appreciate the help.
I've decided for my next child, I'm ordering a sleeper, with a really
calm personality ;-)

On Mar 14, 4:03 pm, Banty wrote:
In article ,
cjra says...





On Mar 14, 3:20 pm, Banty wrote:

OK, thats fine.

It's just that when there are sooo many limits placed on a problem, it may
never
converge to a solution.

Blame the engineer in me.

Not only are there things about the people involved being sensitive to various
things (not criticizing) that limit the options, theres all kinds of limits on
cost, effort, 'consumerism', etc. etc. I understand wanting to go for the
simplest effective solution. But one needs to give the problem enough
latitude
to actually be able to *have* an effective solution at all!

I'm guessing you missed the first 20-30 or so posts in this thread,
where a number of solutions were offered and discussed, and I said I
was going to try some of them for a certain length of time to see how
they worked. Some I've already tried and they didn't work, so I'm on
to the next step. or they worked for awhile but now no longer.

I rejected other solutions as not feasible or just simply more extreme
than I felt was warranted initially. Those rejected solutions are what
led to more extreme options. The perfectly feasible and realistic
options are in the works. I think that's sufficient latitude.

I *have* been reading. Just not commenting as I didnt have the same issue. But
I think there is some reaching for the simple, but likely ineffective going on.
Like the failed dieter saying "i tried this; i tried that...."...

Then you're wilfully ignoring quite a lot of responses where I
specifically said "I will try that."

For all of two days...

???I said I was only going to try these solutions for two days? If so,
that's not what I meant. I was originally thinking a week. Ann and Sue
both discussed 21 days as optimum. Elizabeth Pantley says 10 days.
We'll start there and see where we are then.

I'm not following.

Thanks for this reassurance, everyone always blames co-sleeping, but
we would not have survived the first year if we didn't co-sleep.She
reverse cycled at 12 weeks, and that was that.

And there are certainly people who co-sleep with non-nursing
older kids without much trouble.

I've always struggled with having a child in the bed, so cosleeping
never meant getting more sleep, though it may have suited DS. He weaned
when I fell pregnant, we then moved to Korea, he had never been a good
sleeper, but at home had been mostly in his own bed in his own room. It
ended up that the vast majority of the time he shared a bed with dad and
slept through whilst I slept by myself. Co sleeping was what made him
sleep through, not the opposite, if DH didn't go and join him when he
went to bed, DS would wake up in the middle of the night and end up in
our bed. We discovered that this was entirely normal in that culture.
One time, I had to go the the ER and a friend came to take DS once it
got late and I wasn't going anywhere, he took DS to bed with him - in
the UK or the US we'd freak about paedaphilia, but it didn't occur to
this chap that it was even worth attempting to do anything different.

Anne

On Mar 13, 7:59 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:
cjra wrote:
On Mar 12, 10:12 pm, "Nikki" wrote:
We start bedtime at 7pm. If it's bath night that adds in another 15
minutes or so. This may be another issue, but I'm not sure as it's not
consistent. bath time = play time for her. She goes nuts in the bath,
it's not really relaxing. However it doesn't seem to have an effect
either way on the falling to sleep.

You might try moving bath time to another time, then. That
may be tricky with your schedules, but maybe there's another time
that would suit.

We've considered trying the bath as soon as we get home. Maybe a
solution, though now it's so nice out she's enjoying running around
outside when we get home!


Generally we're in bed by 7:30 almost every night, and sometimes
she'll fall to sleep in 10 minutes (~6 songs on the night time CD) and
sometimes it'll take an hour.

See, that seems a bit wonky to me. If she's well into
a routine, I just wouldn't expect to see that much variation in
how long it takes her to get to sleep. I'm not sure if that's
being overtired, being overstimulated, having you nearby, or
what.

It's not that often that it takes so long, or it wasn't. Lately it has
been more of a problem. I really don't know why, there's nothing
consistent in either the stimulation or the sleep patterns. Now, that
said there were some nights DH was playing with her too much and
getting her wound up. I've finally convinced him to stop that I think.

SHe's good with her naps at daycare 'cause all the other kids sleep.
One the weekends it's another story, kind of hit or miss.

Having two days a week where her daytime sleep is
messed up can keep the chaos alive with her nighttime sleep
during the week.

I know. This has been a consistent problem all her life. I assumed
early on it was just that she wanted to maximize her Mama and Papa
time. There are many weekends I've spent the better part of the day
trying to get her to nap.

I really don't like the concept of CIO. The couple of times I've let
her cry have been out of sheer desperation. It's hard for me to do it
in a planned manner, although I'm getting there. I'd prefer to find
something gentler. I really don't care about everyone else telling me
she should be STTN by now. Until recently I was tolerating it ok, but
it's really taking its toll on both DH and myself and I think her too.

I am also not a big fan of CIO, but I do also believe there
are some personalities that will take you for a ride if you are not
willing to be firm. With those kids, it is not kind to be wishy
washy on boundaries, because it puts them on a roller coaster where
nothing is to be depended upon. It also makes life difficult for
you. Your daughter is not an infant anymore, so you are not dealing
with infant issues and needs, so you should not frame them that way
to yourself.

Good point. It's hard to make that transition, although as she gets
more stubborn it's a little easier to see her as a child and not a
baby ;-). I agree I think that's been the problem. Though we have a
routine, the sleeping situation isn't as consistent as it should be,
with sometimes nursing at night.

I think you have to make some distinctions here. If you
are nearby and she is screaming at night, one of two things is
most likely happening (assuming she's not sick): she's hungry
or she just wants to play with you. The ultimate solution to
the former is more food during the day. You can work that issue
on the positive side (trying to get more in during the day), the
negative side (refusing to further the habit of eating at night
so she'll be hungrier during the day), or both.

We've been working the positive side a lot, but how do you get a kid
to eat more? I am sure I said this elsewhere in this thread, but I
think part of it is that she does eat a lot during the day at daycare,
so at 6pm she's not so hungry. The few nights she hasn't fallen asleep
and it's 8pm, I give her food and she gobbles it down. So I'm not sure
if we should try to cut back on food during the day. I think she eats
a little less during the day at home on the weekends just because
we're doing other stuff more, so she tends to eat more at night, but
doesn't necessarily sleep better.

If she wants play
time (whether that's active play time or cuddle time), you cannot
afford to feed that habit if you want any of you to get a good
night's sleep. Some kids are very flexible, but it sounds like
your daughter is much more determined than that, so if you give
in once, that's good for a month's worth of effort to break the
habit again.

I think you know my daughter ;-). Yeah, she's determined, so this is
clear where we need to stop this habit. She has often been middle of
the night party girl. We keep everything quiet and calm, but she'd do
things like push the button on the gloworm and start dancing to the
music.

You've also got the added wrinkle of wanting to change
the habit of having her sleep with you. That will also require
a change process.

I want to change it only because I think it's part of the problem. I'm
not opposed to her continuing to sleep in our bed if she actually
*sleeps*.


So, you've got three habits to change. Often it's easier
to change a habit by substituting something else for it, rather
than just eliminating it. I'd pick one habit at a time to change
rather than trying to do them all at once. If I felt I needed to
do it all at once, I'd do something radical like go on vacation
somewhere, have a day or two where you *totally* mess up the
schedule, and then take several more days to settle into the
schedule you want, and then try to transition the new schedule
home. That can be tough to arrange, though.

Well......we did have a major vacation late December which made the
problem worse I think. However we had more fluctuations when we
returned with the surgery and all, so everything was out of whack. She
slept at our neighbor's the night I went in (as DH was still out of
the country), and they said that with their 2.5 yr old, DD slept like
an angel, waking up briefly once and falling back to sleep. Ditto
their own daughter, who usually is up often. I wish I could give her a
kid to share the bed ;-)

To change the play time, I think you're only option is
to completely refuse to give in unless she's sick or something.
If she's in the crib, you can rub or pat her back or something,
but don't pick her up or take her out of the crib. She will
likely pitch a huge fit over this, but the thing to keep in
mind is that you're right there when she's doing it. She's not
hungry (either deal with the food issue before attempting to
deal with the play issue, or feed her before trying to resettle
her), she's not in pain or anything like that, so this is just
the two of you having a disagreement over appropriate nighttime
activities. She can pitch a tantrum over that. If you're there
patting her back or whatever, she's clearly not scared or anything
like that. This is a simple clashing of wills. Sounds like you've
been blessed with one of those kids who are very strong willed.
That has its benefits, but you can't afford to be a pushover.
You can be judicious about the things you take a stand on, but
you can't fold on the things that are important or you do her
a terrific disservice. It is very hard on strong-willed children
to have weak willed parents. It forces them to shoulder the
responsibility for making decisions too early because they know
they can browbeat you into caving. It makes the world a much
scarier place because they don't know that they can count on you
to keep them safe.

Very good point. What's funny is that in everything else in life, she
has very strong-willed parents. She just turned out to be stronger! I
never worried about being a weak willed parent before since it's so
totally opposite of my personality, but this little one figured out
how to work us....


Now, the tricky bit with this is that especially with
some strong-willed children, having you standing there patting her
on the back may actually prolong the crying because it keeps giving
her hope that you'll cave. That's something you just have to decide
for yourself. I know it's awful to walk away with them crying,
but it's also awful to stand there with them crying. And, of
course, it's awful to continue a habit that's detrimental to
both of you. No easy answers. Personally, I'd likely tackle this
issue last and hope tackling the others magically solves it ;-)

Well, that's my hope. But as time goes by and I get more desperate,
I'm more able to walk away from her screaming.


The other thing that may be a factor is that she might
be trying to get her Mommy time at night since you're at work
during the day. That can make it hard to make a commitment to
insisting on no play/cuddle time at night because of all the
feelings involved with that. However, if you think that's part
of the issue, then maybe you need to look at ways to address it.
Could you jiggle schedules in such a way as to allow a little
extra Mommy time somewhere else? Could you stop by for lunch at
daycare? Could you do something different in the mornings? Could
you make some of the evening Mommy time more salient somehow?

That was definitely an issue early on with the reverse cycling. I'm
not sure how much of an issue it is now. She loves her play time at
daycare so much, she doesn't seem to miss us, but maybe that's
possible. My work schedule is not flexible at all,unfortunately. Back
when I worked near her daycare I used to go for lunch every day.
However 1) we moved daycares almost a year ago and after a few times
going, the babysitter felt it was disrupting her because she wasn't
settling back in well, so I stopped going then and 2)now I work quite
far away and it takes too long to get there. We've considered changing
daycares to a closer one, but nixed that because 1)she's really really
happy where she is, as are we and 2)I often have days where I'm not
at the office but work off-site, and with traffic would be *really*
inconvenient for DH to go so far out of his way to get her, they'd get
home much later.

Now with better weather we're spending more time outside in the
evenings playing, and I'm with her all evening til she sleeps, and
then all day on the weekends (which is why it's so hard to work on our
house!).