Sleeping - please help me

[caz_hills]

Hi all
I’m sorry but I need help. My two and a half year old has never been a great sleeper. She is a strong minded girl. She sleeps when she wants to!
She naps in the day but I think we need to drop it. She doesn’t really need it anymore.
But at night it takes me about 2 hours to get her to sleep. We have what I think is a text book bedtime routine. Bath, milk with a bit of TV (ok maybe we could drop that), then teeth and toilet, two books, two songs and we leave her. She is fine for a bit then cries. Shouts for us. We go in, cuddle, pick up put down. But again, and again, and again. Then she needs a wee (she doesn’t but we take her once and she doesn’t go but knows it’s a reason to get up). And eventually I end up sitting next to the crib (not touching or patting her) and she sleeps in five minutes. I don’t want to create a rod for my own back but it’s the only way.
It’s so hard. My husband is often away with work and I spend over two hours trying to get her to sleep then I have to work late into the night. So tonight it was 2230 before she is asleep. I have started getting frustrated with her which is upsetting me now.
Please help me. I live abroad but I have no family where I live to help me and my husband is often away and so it’s me on my own with both kids. I just dream of a peaceful relaxing bedtime routine. My 7 year old sleeps like a dream.
Thank you so much

 

[noon_child]

If you stayed by her bed right at the start, rather than leaving her to it, would she be asleep in 5 minutes or does she only go to sleep so quickly because she really isn't tired till 22:30?
I understand that you don't want to create a situation where she is dependant on you for sleep but the reality is, as a toddler, she's already dependant on you - she doesn't feel comfortable without you just yet. So it seems to me you have a choice between a quick bedtime or a slow one, both of which end up with you staying with her till she's asleep anyway.
Staying in the room with my toddler was the only way to get her to sleep and we slowly (very slowly) withdrew to being further and further away, then popping in and out of the room, then being just outside the room, and eventually she didn't need us. I thought it was normal as when I had been a babysitter in my teens, one of the boys I babysat who had just turned 4yrs old needed me to sit in a chair in his room so he could sleep and the parents told me that's what I'd have to do as it's what they did.

PS - If when staying with her it still takes a long time for her to fall asleep you could try shortening the bedtime routine. The sleepiness induced by a bath doesn't last that long so it might be she has woken up again after TV, milk, teeth, two books and two songs. My bet is that the security of having you there is still a really big part of it though.

 

[HLx]

My daughter got like this at 2! In the end I'd put her to bed, she would call me or cry so I'd go back up but not pick her up or anything just pop my head around the door and reassure her and leave once she was happy I would get called a few more times but left the time in between rushing upstairs get longer and longer, she would some nights get upset but she was safe and along as she wasnt hysterical I'd leave her it broke my heart hearing her little voice call me, but it damn well worked!! As she got older at about 3 or 4 we then let her have a TV and would watch a DVD in bed and drift off on her own. She is now 7 and takes her phone to bed and just drop off naturally

Hope it gets easier for you hun, sometimes not rushing to be by their side helps some situations, some parents don't like this way though but it worked for me

 

[noon_child]

How are things now?