15 Month Who Will Not Sleep Thru the Night or by Herself?

If she is wet, you might try changing her diaper, particularly if she goes to sleep with a bottle. The other possibility is she might be hungry....try a little snack and then a bottle before she goes to bed....

Consider Co-Sleeping. It has been a life saver for me. My son now sleeps though the night (next to me or my husband).

Here's webiste with a lot of links to articles
http://www.cosleeping.org/

Have you heard of the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, M.D.? This book really works. I have three kids and didn't use his suggestions with the first but when I did with my second life changed. The first thing you will have you do is put the child to bed without the bottle. She will cry a lot. Eventually she will figure out how to sooth herself (blanket, bear, sucking on hand...). When she can put herself back to sleep, her sleep will become less broken. Secondly, my four year old goes to bed at 7PM. Start putting the child to bed earlier by 15 min. She will still sleep until the same time. It sounds crazy but it works. It is hard but it really works!
Mom of 3

Your daughter needs you and that need doesn't turn off according to your schedule. Bring her to bed with you. Let her sleep with you. This will solve soooooooooooooo many problems. You'll sleep better, she'll sleep better and there will be soooooooooo much less stress in your life.

Trust me...it works!

Best,
E.

You have already received quite a bit of advice. As others have mentioned, I am not a fan of cry it out. Yes, it works. But I think it works for the wrong reasons. Imagine: you need something, you ask your husband for help, he ignores you. Wouldn't you be furious? That is what you are doing to your child with cry it out.

My biggest recommendation is to stick to your guns on what ever method you choose. Your consistency will help your child learn.
I would highly recommend the book Good Night Sleep Tight by Kim West. She gives some solid recommendations on gentle sleep solutions that may involve tears from your childs part but will not involve you leaving them to cry alone. (Your child will simply not be happy with the new rules). The book is written with the sleep-deprived parent in mind. She repeats things throughout the book and has it organized by the age of the child as there are different things that work most effectively with certain age groups.
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Night-Sleep-Tight-Helping/dp/1...

Good luck!

How about doing the Sleep lady Shuffle? Google it. You need to change her habits and break her of her needing you to sleep. She is more than old enough to comfort herself, or have "friends," i.e. transitional objects, that comfort her. You might want to look at the "no cry sleep solution" book too.

When my daughter wakes and calls for me in the middle of the night (she's 19months), I always go in, ask her what she needs, and if she just wants company, I tell her "it's night, night time, mommy is sleeping, go back to sleep sweetie." I then just leave the room. She put up a fight a few times, but usually she just wakes startled, wants to know I'm there, and is then willing to roll back over. If she is really wide awake, I'll offer her some water, but I never, ever take her out of the crib.

I have a few ideas. Mind you, I've not read through the other responses either.

1) Only put water in her bed time bottle. This will save her teeth in the future.

2) Instead of picking her up to comfort her, simply lay her back down, say "good night" and leave the room. Let her cry it out. Easier said than done ... but it works.

3) Take control of your home now rather than later. She doesn't know it yet, but she's in charge. She won't get hurt by crying. Listen to the important sounds (ie: things breaking, bodies hitting the floor, the scream that says something is hurting) but otherwise just let her cry. You will be there in the morning to comfort her.

4) When the new baby is born, make sure to make time for her while the baby is sleeping during the day. Let her "help" with the baby and let her know how big she is that she gets to help with her baby sibling.

Good luck!

J. - Mom, Dental Assistant, Aunt

she is most likely teething and needing to be comforted. please reconsider cry it out as that is what most people are going to tell you to do it. research a little on that first. Your kid will learn to self soothe, she isnt going to need you at 15 to come rock her back to bed. She is in pain and wants her mother. My daughter does the same when she is teething, which at this age is almost daily. I understand you are tired, boy do I understand, but your child will learn to sleep through the night and also will learn mommy is there when she needs her!

Your daughter needs to sleep through the night. Establish a nighttime routine -bath, book, bed. Put her in the crib without her bottle and tough it out. Don't go to her in the middle of the night. It may take some time, but she will go back to sleep. She'll never learn to fall back asleep if you keep holding and comforting her. Good luck.

Lots of good (if conflicting) advice here already, so I'll just add that you're not alone. My daughter (now 19 months old) didn't sleep through the night until she was 15 months. We did finally end up letting her cry it out, but I understand and support anyone who says that's not for them. In the end, I followed the one piece of advice from Dr. Sears that does seem to apply to all parenting situations: if you resent it, change it.

I will reinforce what a few others have said about the value of earlier bedtimes (7:00 seems to be the magic number for mine), transitional objects or lovies, and a very regular bedtime routine. Reading books, saying goodnight to all her toys and animals and all of her friends and family members, then hanging on to her stuffed zebra seem to help a lot, even now.

Again, you're not alone. You're doing what's best for you and your family, so good for you! And good luck.

My daughter and son did the same thing. It is hard when you are pregnant with the next one. I just let her stay in with me once she wandered in. It was easier than getting up and dealing with a fit back in her bed. She'll outgrow it. You need your rest, so get it however you can.

She'll outgrown the bottle too. Its ok that she still has one now. She's still very young. Good luck to you

Hi Karuna,

I would recommend an earlier bedtime (7 or so) to start with. This really helped my daughter. You might want to move her bedtime gradually -- 15 min earlier each day.

Also, I think she's probably old enough to sleep on her own. There are a couple ways to encourage her to do so. You could comfort her for less time each night. You could comfort her without holding her. Or you could choose to ignore her for one of the times she wakes up and let her cry herself back to sleep (I wouldn't ignore her for all the times she wakes up to start with).

Sleep can be affected by all sorts of things -- teething, being on the verge of achieving a new (physical or mental) developmental milestone, or disruptions in your lives. Try to do what you can to stay relaxed yourself -- it's surprising how much babies and toddlers pick up on our own stress! I know that's probably going to be a challenge with the new baby on the way, but just do your best.

How is her daytime sleep, by the way? And how long has this been going on?

Basically, just do what you're comfortable with to get everyone the most sleep possible. Hang in there -- you're doing great! Keep up the good work.

All the best,
R.

You need to quickly to go to sleep by herself or you may end up with the same problem my sister did. He son would not go to bed on his own and someone ended up sleeping with him until he went to junior high. It was a nightmare for them. Needless to say they do not have any other children. How could they, they never got anytime alone.
I say a little tough love is called for. You say you lay her in her crib alone and she will never fall asleep. That is not true because she will fall asleep when she finally gets really tired. you have to let her cry a little and may be fuss but it is better to do it now because it will not happen once they transition to a toddler bed because then they can get up and leave the room.
Check out this http://www.easybabylife.com/18-month-old-wont-go-to-sleep...

Good Luck

The most reliable way to fix this is to let her cry. It will be hard for the first 2 days and then she will fall straight back to sleep and everyone will be happy. Once a child is over 6 months old, cry it out won't hurt them and it only takes a few days to do. I don't think there is any other reliably effective way to let your child learn how to fall to sleep by herself. You will be doing her a big favor as learning to sleep well is really important for health. Resist bringing her to bed with you as then neither of you will sleep well (voice of experience here). Once a child gets used to being in your bed, you will have years of interrupted sleep. Good luck.

Do you have a bedtime routine with her that has her actually falling asleep in her bed alone? I am not a fan of cry it out. My daughter co-slept with us until 14 mos. Her transition was tough on me, but it did not involve her crying it out. It did involve laying her back down -repeatedly- and telling her it was time for bed. Yes, she did cry, but I never left her room to let her cry herself to sleep. She would finally lay down and go to sleep. In any event, I had taken away nursing to sleep prior to that. We would read a book, sing songs and then nurse to sleep. I moved nursing up to the first thing we did. That way, it gave her the opportunity to learn to fall asleep on her own. I don't remember when we made that transition. Maybe try moving her bottle to the beginning of the nighttime routine and go from there. Good luck, mama!

There is a book called healthy sleep habits for babies/kids. I do not remember the exact title. But she should be going down on her own and close to sleeping through the night. My son has always been put in his crib awake and he falls asleep on his own. Get the book, it tells you how to do it from the different ages. Also, the more sleep they get the easier it is and more restful sleep they get. Good Luck.

First I'd make sure that there isn't a medical problem waking her up (acid reflux?). If not, then I'm a huge fan of cry it out... the key is that you have to stick to the plan 100%, otherwise it's just plain cruel to the child to let the cry and cry until you finally go in and "save" them. Just let her cry it out completely for a couple of nights and you'll see that she stops waking up. Also, in my experience, that bedtime is way too late... on nights when my one year old is up that late, I can guarantee that she will be up throughout the night, or wake up really early. She goes to bed between 6 and 7 every night, and wakes up between 7 and 8 in the morning.