Getting children off to sleep

Hard hearted.....

Kids get used to a good routine and it's good for them.

My daughter never did as a baby. She would cry and cry for hours, if you didn't lift her. Believe me, I tried. As a small child she wouldn't settle herself either. Once she grew older it wasn't a problem. Whereas my son would cry a little then settle down. What suited one, didn't suit the other. I don't think it's a simple as just let them 'squeak' a little

Grandmabatty I had one of those too, we tried everything, the only thing that worked was putting him in our bed, very unfashionable at the time but we were desperate. The second baby slept like a dream thank goodness.

My daughter was very easy to settle, but my son was a nightmare, he would cry indefinitely if we tried the good parenting techniques and tried to self settle him. The only way that actually worked was taking him out in the car at bedtime and transferring him to his cot asleep - he suffered from FOMO I think. He was a bad sleeper too, he didn’t sleep right through the night until he was three and a half.

I think I have been very lucky!

What works for one child doesn’t necessarily work for another, as I found to my shock! Despite her being my fourth, by which time you’d think I’d know all the tricks, my youngest didn’t sleep through the night until she was gone 2yo. 🤷‍♀️

Mine was really good at just going to sleep as a baby but as she got older this changed and she needed someone with her and if she woke in the night she’d come to find me. So we co-slept to get a good night’s sleep until she decided she didn’t need to anymore.

I d never leave a baby to cry or grizzle for long, they are asking for comfort or company, none of mine were very good sleepers and I spent a lot of time getting them to sleep, and they would often end up in bed with me so yes I often co slept when we didn’t have a name for it .
My eldest daughter had two poor sleepers and she said they used to play musical beds in her house

DS fell asleep uickly, but was up early. DD was very happy just lying in her cot or playing in it on her own, settling down to sleep when she was ready.

Other then me having to despatch the monster allegedly living under my youngest bed one evening - me on my knees, making defensive sounds as I chased away said monster and coming up looking very disheveled afterwards to cheers and raucous applause from both children - mine were quite good at bedtime unless they were poorly.

Our first baby slept for England- any time, anywhere - horizontal = sleep. We thought we were really good at parenting.😬

The second was our comeuppance and was awake for at least 20 hours out of 24 and wanting constant attention.

Different from the start, so we had to be too.

The first 3, all boys, would love the routine and fall asleep. Then along came DD. She hated being put down anywhere except in arms or our bed.

DH would try to get her off with what we called "head stories" and end up fast asleep himself.

I remember taking her to the health visitor's clinic to be weighed at a year and asked if she slept through the night. I said no never and HV was shocked and about to give me a lesson but resisted as that HV was new, younger than me with no children of her own yet.

I must remind DD of those days. Hers are 10 and 8 now and both are good sleepers.

One of my daughters only slept for 20 minutes at a time until she went to school. After years of normality she gave birth to two daughters who seemed to not need much sleep at all. One was six and one was seven before they ever slept through a single night.
Nobody in that house ever woke up in the bed they had gone to sleep in.
They are now teenagers and like most others they want to stay up late and not get up until noon.

We had times when they went to bed. The oldest one went half an hour after the next one and so on. They seemed to accept that. I would say we needed our time and if they couldn’t sleep they could read ( when they were able to) One of them never needed much sleep ( still the same) and we had to put her in a separate room because she disturbed her older sister. Eventually they got a bedroom each because we had more money when they were older.

I must have been hard hearted then! I just left mine to get on with it. I swear my daughter was allergic to sleep for the first two years of her life - she's been making up for it ever since though.

I’m a flexible parent/grandparent but a believer in bed time routines. It works

I know every child is different but I do strongly believe in the good bedtime routine of bath, bottle, bed when they are little dots. The bath relaxes them, the warm bottle of milk soothes and fills them (quick nappy change) then into cot, contented and warm and dry.

When our g/son was born (he's now 3) our son and DiL were told to give him his bottle, then give him a bath and then put him to bed.
Caused no end of problems that way around. The bath used to stimulate him awake and he just wouldn't go down in his cot afterwards.
Some new tangled idea from a H. Visitor.

I think it was Katharine Whitehorn who said about parenting that "it isn't about what you ought to do; it's about what you can stand."

Such a great comment Baggs!
I loved the wise words from KW.

They saying I had was that the first three months of a child's life lasts exactly three months. It just feels like 15 years.