Sleep Nightmare

There are some strange ideas on here about 'control' and 'pestering their parents for attention'

Tough love? Be firm? None of that has to include leaving a child to scream or cry themselves sick. I wouldn't do that to a puppy let alone a child I loved with all my heart.

If you raise your baby from the start to learn to settle, then it would never get to the point of leaving them to scream and vomit.

If a child continues to wake and wants to sleep in your bed, when you don't want the child there, then this can be rectified.

I would never advocate leaving a child to scream and scream. I would always go into a crying child but not immediately. Sometimes a child will settle after a short cry. Other times the crying might not stop so easily.

The thing to do is go in, so the child knows they haven't been abandoned but do not reward them in any way for waking and crying. Have a set phrase like, it's sleep time, night, night and then leave the room. That way the child has had reassurance that the parent is around but they haven't been rewarded for the unwanted behaviour.

If parents are unhappy with the child disrupting their sleep then it's necessary to take steps to rectify the situation. It's nothing to do with tough love or being firm, it's about changing an undesirable situation so everyone can get some much needed sleep.

Trouble is [imo] if you look on us as animals our natural way to sleep would be as a family all cuddled up for warmth and security. Not sure when we decided that we all needed to be in separate beds/rooms etc. but babies and toddlers probably just use their natural instinct which is to want to cuddle someone.

I completely agree with you Tegan and that's the way I brought up my children. As I said in my earlier post, I recognise it's not for everyone, but it's our society that's out of step, not children.

I don't think there's a 'one size fits all' way to bring up children. But neither do I see it as a battle for control.

I had a cheap and cheerful sofa bed that opened out onto the floor (so no falling out of it). I breastfed at bedtime and left each one asleep (there were three all told) and if/when they woke, I joined them in bed till they settled and left them again. A stair gate prevented them leaving the room when they progressed to crawling and toddling. Once they were big enough, they went into a single bed with a bed guard so they couldn't fall out. I still got in with them to settle them and also if they woke in the night. So they always had their own bed. It meant that my sleep was disturbed minimally and my husband's hardly at all. They had regular bedtime routine with bath, supper, teeth cleaning, story and cuddle as they got older. It wasn't hard but I stayed at home to care for them rather than working to pay someone else.

The thought of locking a child in his room I find horrific. Yesterday morning post I think.

I cringed when I read that too Mumofmadboys .