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Any sleep advice? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 week ago by oeuf@slrpnk.net to c/parenting@lemmy.world

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Can anyone offer some advice on getting an 18-month-old to sleep at night?

Until now the three techniques we've had are 1) feeding to sleep on the boob, 2) walking to sleep in the sling and 3) falling asleep in the car. Number 3 is only good for naps in the daytime, number 2 is getting difficult as our kid is getting big and heavy (and is a PITA at night anyway, and number 1 is starting to become less reliable/effective.

What have you learnt about getting kids (particularly this age, if relevant) to sleep?

Many thanks!

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[–] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 3 points 1 week ago

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.