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For us, having a rigidly consistent routine helped that kinda dovetailed into bedtime. Supper at the same time, baths/teeth brushing at the same time, pajamas at the same time, etc etc.
Maybe you're already doing that, but it helped for us. Every kid is different, so obviously your milage may vary
Thanks for your advice. I don't think we've been consistent enough with routine. What are your timings roughly, if you don't mind me asking?
For me it was less about what time I start the routine, and more about what's involved (although starting around the same time is very helpful).
I always do dinner, bath, books in the rocker, then bed. I try to keep things chill by playing some jazz during dinner and bath time (there's a great playlist on Spotify called Dark Academia Jazz). You don't have to do that, of course, but avoiding anything super exciting (like tickle fights or Megadeath) is key.
Five years later and it still works like a charm
Also, it'll take some time before it works. It's new for them, you'll need loads of patience. It took me months to get where I'm with mine, but now it feels like flipping a power switch ( at the end of the entire ceremony ofc).
530 to sit down for supper, after supper a little outing like a bike ride or car ride to the store, be home by 7, yogurt at 730, then straight to teeth brushing/bath. Pjs/books (with the light already low, then crib.
Also super consistent with nap timings. If he wakes up during his nap windows, we just let him chill in the crib.
Hardest part for us was just getting everyone into the routine. Did take a few weeks.
That being said, I'll relay the best parenting advice we got, which was "every parent thinks what works for them is the objectively ideal approach. Every kid is different. Take it all with a grain of salt and figure out what works for you"
For child 1: he would take 2 hours to get to sleep and then wake up every 45 min, every night. We used the sleep training described in Precious Little Sleep, and in 3 nights he was falling asleep himself and sleeping through the night.
For child 2: same start as child 1. We tried the above, and everything else we could think of. Nothing ever worked. I finally convinced my wife to keep him in our room and he disturbs our sleep every night still; but at least one of us doesnt have to go to the other room and screaming doesn't wake the other child. He's recently turned 5 and promised he will sleep in his own room, so tonight is literally the first night we're trying to get him to sleep on his own. UPDATE: success!!
My advice is: good luck. Try whatever sounds good to you (some people find it completely unacceptable to let a child "cry it out"), but ultimately, parents aren't the ones in charge and kids do what they feel like.
I seem to remember a not very fun regression for both my kids around that time.
We used one of these from basically infant:
Sit in a comfy chair and bounce the kid until they pass out. Wait about 5 minutes to get solidly asleep, then transplant. One kid liked to have her brains scrambled with a pretty hard bounce, my son preferred a faster and shallower bounce.
We went back and forth between that and just holding kids across our lap in the rocking chair until one of the positions knocked them out.
Once they switched to toddler bed it was a simple matter of sitting by the bed and repeatedly laying them down until they got the point of bedtime. Consistency really matters though, every time you fight and fight and give in, the next time they fight even longer.
Last bit of advice where I differ from my wife:
If sleep isnt working, don't force it. You'll be an hour and a half into MAKING the kid go to sleep at 7p or 8p. Instead I prefer the same approach I used for my own sleep hygiene. If it isnt working in 20 minutes or half an hour but the time is not just an active yelling fight, go back to some quiet activities outside the bedroom for 15 or 20 mins and then try again. You can control when a kid wakes up, but you can't force them to fall asleep.
My son would only sleep if he was being held, as soon as he got horizontal for bed he'd be wide awake...It was a tough time.
We had 3 kids at that time ages about 7, 3, 1. And my eldest struggled to sleep also.
What solved it for us was putting two queen mattresses side by aide on the floor and just having the kids all sleep with us.
I understand the Western World often sees this aa a negative solution, but its common in other cultures for kids to sleep in the room as the parents.
The kids felt safe, and parents could doze a bit if the kids were awake, but at least not crying.
Once they got older we moved them back to their bedrooms.
Lie down with them and rock them to sleep in your arm.
It takes me about half an hour, and I watch videos meanwhile
That sounds heavenly from where I am! What age are they?
2 y 4 m. I do remember it being a huge pain around about the age you're struggling with though. when she was younger I'd jiggle and rock her on my legs with this as noise in the background
We also did the breastfeeding until sleep thing, but at some point it stopped working and my wife wanted to stop breastfeeding , so that went out the window. challenging times. if you have a healthcare network that offers support and advise, ask them or your pediatrician as well. If you're going to therapy, maybe your therapist has some advice; one I had, has a few specialisations, including child development, and she gave us advise from time to time.
Lets us know what works best!
I will! We're making a fresh start with bedtime routine this evening and we're also going to change the bed situation. Will post again when I have some news :)
As others mentioned, consistent routine is amazing. Any change to routine and we were messed up again for about 2 weeks of sleep deprived hell.
Bedtime routine is a process for wind down. Batch, brush teeth, bedtime story, light dimmer etc. over time those clues helped their body to know when to start winding down. So, not just consistency with timing. With bedtime story and lullabies, of purposely speak slower and softer as we progressed through. We used a smart light set to gradually dim down over the bedtime routine.
One child, I found holding and gently rocking with a lullaby worked great. The other, not so much. The difficult one, o found more vigorous rocking helped. His eyes were constantly looking around and he'd remain stimulated. Wrapping him firmly in swaddling and rocking fast enough that it was hard for him to.focus but gently enough to be calming and sleepy. (Longer arcs helped and it was more tiring but good exercise). Instead of lullabies, lots of white noise like shushing helped.
My kids are adopted and one of the rules while fostering is you can't go into their bed and they can't come into yours, so we didn't do that. We had friends who did and they struggled when they were older to get them to sleep without being there with them. What I mean by this is whatever works, do it, but he careful to allow it to be carefulky dropped when not needed.
Physical contact and a favourite lullaby did it for us. We started with a baby carrier and advanced to just putting a hand on the baby while they were lying in their bed. The noise of the door latch would wake them up, so we kept the door open for a while until they were fast asleep. It was a lot of trial and error, though.
These have worked in the past.
Holding baby upright, I would bounce-pivot left and right, and be tapping out a random set of beats on baby's leg or back.
The beats would either be 1,2 or 3 taps, trying to mimic a random-number-generator, with no recognisable pattern.
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If baby was restless, vocal, and possibly overtired (plus you were sure that feeding has occurred and baby is freshly changed), I would sometimes break through the crankiness by increasing the pivot back and forward speed greatly(and safely). Once baby quietened with the faster speed and taps, I would slow it back down.
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Other than that, try driving to sleep. Should be 10 minutes or so.
Cry it out and if that does not work after a few days consult your pediatrician about melatonin.
Oldest did cry it out in a few days and was good. Youngest kept us up for two years until we started melatonin.
Ours said no melatonin til 3 yrs. 18 months seems early, even without that in mind.
Mine are 9 and 11 now so my timeline may be off...
Does it all blend together at some point?
Yes and no specific dates and times do but you still remember all the parts of the journey.
We used the "cry it out" method and it worked really well and he's pretty well adjusted now as a 3 year old.