Crying at Bedtime - Tucson,AZ

I think that this is her way of fighting the end of your sleep routine. She wants you to stay. She will continue to do this until you put your foot down.

I would not act ilke you are worried about her fears. Instead, you tell her that it's time to sleep and that's it. Walk out. When she cries, let her cry. You've got light on in the hallway, the door open, and you're outside of her room. It's not like you are across the street. The only way she is going to stop this is by making her perfectly aware that you won't continue to enable her fighting bedtime like this.

I'd really do this, even though it's hard.

Good luck,
Dawn

There is no right or wrong to how you handle this. You'll have to decide what you feel is right for your daughter. With our daughter, her father or I laid down with her every night, read her stories, and stayed until she was asleep. She moved out of her crib at 14 months, so was either in her bed or ours, making this possible. That's how we handled bedtime, and there were no tears. Some nights we may not have felt like doing that, but in a blink of an eye, she's turning 11 this week. They grow up so fast.

Crying will not hurt her. She may have some pent up energy from the day and crying helps her go to sleep. However, if she does this every night I also agree with Dawn. She likes the bedtime routine and wants it to last.

You could handle this by being firm in a kind voice, telling her it's time for sleep. Sympathize with her for a minute or so and then leave. If you don't let her know 5-10 minutes ahead of time that the time is coming up for sleep add that to your routine. Don't spend much time in giving the tears attention. She wants more time with you and she's getting it now.

Or, you could stay with her until she falls asleep. She will outgrow this. My daughter always was the firm one and left the room. I was the softy and stayed in the room. Both ways worked.

Ditto Dawn, she said exactly what I was going to.