Help..sleep training and don't want to give in, AGAIN!!

[Melanie]

My daughter is 20 months old and has never slept through the night.  To make a VERY long story short, we are trying, yet again, to sleep train her. She usually ends up in our bed, but for the past two nights we have been strong and waited to take her out of her crib until 6am. The problem in the past has been that 1) she vomits w/in 3 minutes of crying, and 2) she cries for hours on end. We've had a sleep trainer in the past, which helped a little, but not 100%. The past two days are the longest she's stayed in her own room, however, she's been crying all night long! At least 3-4 wake ups. My question is this, each time she wakes up, should one of us be going in. As of  now we have been going in, giving her a kiss, walking right out and then she goes back to sleep, however wakes up about an hour later crying again. We try to not go in but she doesn't stop crying for what seems like forever. It's obviously so hard to listen to, as I'm sure you all know. I just don't want to create a new bad habit of her needing us to constantly go in for a minute throughout the night. So, after we get her down around 730 or so, should we not go in at all?? I of course worry that something could be wrong and I wouldn't know it if I didn't go in even for a second to check.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[aps]

I'm curious--does she nap well during the day? 

I know how painful it is to hear her cry, so I feel your pain.  Here's my two cents (I am not a sleep consultant but have read at least 4 books on child's sleep issues).  I think you should NOT go in there at all once you put her down.  I am concerned, however, about her vomiting in the past.  She hasn't done that in a while?

My son (30 months) was recently having problems going to bed and crying hysterically for an hour.  He would also be waking up crying in the middle of the night multiple times.  Now, the difference is that he has been sleeping through the night for ages.  I had a consultation with the founder of this website (which was a FANTASTIC experience), and one of the things she told me to do was create a "sleep rules" poster board.  This way, she knows what to expect.

Definitely have a bedtime routine that you follow.  For me, we give our son a bath, we then brush teeth, we read books, we have "pillow talk" (where we lay on a pillow on the floor and talk about his day and say positive things about behavior he exhibited), and we kiss him good night and leave the room.

Here's what my poster listed:

(1) We read 3 books.
(2) We do pillow talk.
(3) We put you in your crib for bed.
(4) We kiss you good night.
(5) You close your eyes and go to sleep until Mommy or Daddy comes in and tells you it's morning.

This worked like a charm.  Creating this poster was fun.  We put stickers on it of books, a crib, a moon, stars, and other things to indicate it was bedtime.  Each night, you state the rules out loud as you are doing them.  "Now we're going to read 3 books."  "Now, we're going to put you in your crib for bedtime."  Etc.  I specifically told my son that once I left the room, I would not be back until morning.  He cried just hearing that, but he got used to it.  Deborah (the Founder) had said that at some point, our son would point to the rules and have them memorized.  He does. 

I asked Deborah about NOT going in there when he was crying in the middle of the night.  I asked, "What if something is wrong?"  She asked me how many times he had cried in his life where I had gone in there that somethign was wrong.  The answer was very very few.  My concern with your daughter is her vomiting.  As long as that has stopped, I say you avoid going in there altogether.  It will take several nights for her to stop crying, but I think she can do it.  I know how rough this will be for you.  I actually had to shut my door completely so I wouldn't hear him crying.  Otherwise, it would stress me out, and I couldn't sleep myself. 

Hang in there. 

[Founder]

Nice job Aps, hmmmmm keep this up and you might be changing jobs

[aps]

Hee hee hee  Thank you!   

[jnavidad]

Hi Melanie:  My daughter, who is now almost six, also used to vomit at the same age when we let her cry.  She had reflux as a baby and outgrew it.  However, she was always sensitive when it came to something being caught in her throat and it was a reflex --- it could be a piece of food caught in her throat or a tickle and she would automatically throw up.  It was difficult.

I brought this up because we also had to resleep train her (graduated extinction) numerous times during the toddler years.  If we left her crying for longer than three minutes, she would vomit.  I cannot tell you how many times I've had to change the crib sheets, the bumper, thrown away a rug, clean the carpet in her room, etc.  Eventually, because we knew that it wasn't a health issue (she was checked many times by our pediatrician), we would simply start putting a towel around the crib, clean up the mess (and her) with as little interaction/emotion as possible, and continue the sleep training (graduated extinction). It was one of the darkest times in my life, but we came out the other side.  And she is an amazing sleeper to this day.  I know where you're at and I wanted you to know that we were there too and survived :-)  And now I'm dealing with my 22 month old son's OTHER sleep issues...but, I digress ;-)  Hang in there.

[Founder]

I appreciate you supporting your fellow moms it's so important .

[Melanie]

Thank you all so much for your support and great advice. We had a major set back w a double ear infection so I just read these for the first time, but we've started up "AGAIN". I think you are right, we can't go in at all. She's not vomiting and not even putting up a fight when she goes to sleep, so that's great. She is however waking up numerous times during the night and I (and my husband) keep going in and I think it's just encouraging the behavior. I'm really going to try tonight to not go in until 6am.  And the poster is a great idea!!
Again thanks, it really helps to know that other people have gone through this. I'll keep you posted.

[Melanie]

Thanks again everyone. Things have been going pretty well at night. Last night she slept until 5:40am without any crying at all! I'm of course worried about regression, since we usually always seem to go backwards. Usually tomorrow morning will be 5am, and it gets earlier each day, and then she ends up back in our bed. So I'm hoping we can stay strong and consistent, that seems to be the hardest part for us.

My question now is her naps. She takes one nap a day, around noon or so. Sleeps for 40 minutes, and wakes up in the middle (always) needing to be put back to sleep (sometimes by taking her onto the bed in her room, or just by giving her a kiss and she goes back down in her crib). We've tried letting her cry when she wakes up, but the problem is always the same, she cries almost 40 minutes and then doesn't get much of a nap at all.  To me it seems better to just go in for a minute so that she gets the sleep during the day that she needs. I just don't want to encourage this at night.  Any ideas?

Thanks again.

[Founder]

Day sleep is very different from night sleep so if you go in there during the nap and all it takes is a shush and she goes back to sleep, that's fine.  If it takes more than that then I would leave her for a 1/2 hour or so and if she doesn't go back to sleep then just get her up and put her down extra early for bedtime maybe around 6pm.  You mentioned in your first post that you used a sleep trainer, how was that experience for you? 

[Melanie]

Thanks that makes sense. Thanks! Yes we had a sleep trainer when my daughter was 11 months or so.  It was somewhat helpful, and certainly helped get us to a new and better place, but I don't think at the time my husband and I were ready to have her out of our bed, or to listen to all the crying. It seems a bit more tolerable now that she's older and understands, and there is less vomiting.
She did better last night, woke up a few times but put herself back to sleep. The hardest time seems to be around 5am when she wakes up, she doesn't stop crying. We take her out around 6 and then she ends up falling back to sleep with us for an hour or so after she's had a bottle. I'm sure that's not the best thing to do, but we like it, and we are exhausted so the extra sleep is helpful. Any advice on establishing a wake up time in a more efficient way would be greatly appreciated. It's not easy listening to her cry for an hour at 5am!

[kadavis]

I just read this thread and found it very helpful!!  My son, who turned 2 in November, started sleeping through the night just then, and 2 1/2 months later he became very ill and hasn't been able to return to his good sleeping habits.  He wakes several times during the night crying, and just recently he's been waking every hour all night long.  So I'm exhausted and due to have our second child in 2 months and really really want this to end soon.  I actually took him to our pediatrician today to make sure nothing was wrong and she suggested trying a sleep rules poster, so I think we'll give that a try.  Glad to know that others are experiencing the same issues.  Bedtime is a challenge, but he usually goes to sleep on his own after either playing or crying.  It's tending to him during the night which is our weakness.   

[aps]

I cannot express enough how great the sleep poster I did worked for us.  Give it a shot.

Now, I would say to my son as I would kiss him goodnight and leave his room something like this:

I love you.  If you wake up crying in the middle of the night, I won't come in here.  I'm going to have to let you cry it out because you need to sleep and I need to sleep.  I love you.  Daddy will come in in the morning and get you.  But it's time to go to sleep.

He did not cry for us the entire night.  Prior to this, he was waking up more and more and crying for us, and I would come running to see him.