A lady has a nineteen months old daughter who is not a good sleeper and pushes the parents into exhaustion. This is usually a scenario when kids are nor good sleepers and parents have to go a through a tough time. The toddler may hit the bed at 7.3 PM and may wake near midnight. At times the kid may wake up at 3.3 AM when the kid is fed and again put back to sleep, with again waking up at 5 AM. The parents want a solution to this as it is tough to manage the child in the middle of night. As an advice the mother may have to skip night feedings as at that age the toddler may not need them anymore and may have just become sleep crutch for night waking. Once this is stopped those night wakings may also stop that has been messing with the sleep cycles, making the baby wake up so early and so grumpy and in need of those few hours of sleep. It is better to avoid feeding her in the night to reset sleep cycle when the kid may start hitting deep sleep portion of the cycle. Most of us drift in and out of different stages of sleep and may even wake up once or twice, we are able to get back to sleep quickly enough that there is a feeling of full rest.
Sleep deprivation usually begets sleep problems. For toddlers, simply being overtired is enough to result in huge sleep disturbance. The more tired the baby, the less capable she’ll be of settling down and getting the full rest, hence the super early, super grumpy wake-up time. At nineteen months the physical need for a full uninterrupted night’s sleep trumps over any need for middle
in the night milk feeding. Also, while it may seem easy to just nurse and pop the baby back down to sleep at mid night, this is what results in the restless mornings for the mother. Also, while the baby wakes up at 2 AM, she has to put herself back to sleep without presence of mother. In perfect world, she’ll need nothing but her own desire to sleep. For some toddlers, it can be as simple as rolling over in bed, while others might seek out a special bedtime blanket or thumb or some pacifier. On whichever thing the toddler settles, it’s going to be mother’s duty to provide sleep training to let the child know about the bedtime. If the toddler is verbal it will be good to let him know that nursing won’t be happening at night time anymore.
There may also be attempts made to try sleep training methods, in case tried they may have not turned out well the first time around as is clear from frequent wake up cycles in the night. At times mothers are proponent of the gradual extinction methods, with them still going into kid’s room when he wakes up. It is simple to go in and tell the baby that it’s time to sleep, pat the back couple of time and then leave. If the baby protests, you can decide how long to wait before going back in. Even during the second time if you go back in again when the child wakes up, it will be good to tell firmly that it is time to sleep. Wait for the baby to lie down, pat the back and then leave. Repeat this as needed, with longer stretches of time in between each check. Sleep training can work wonders, but it is certainly not fun when the mother is in the thick of it. But in case you are consistent and do not give in, baby will eventually figure out that nursing really is not coming and there is a need to go back to sleep. Once the nursing sleep crutch is really gone, it is time that the baby will start sleeping better and so would be the mother.
