Help! My baby won't sleep in his crib

[wendi]

My baby is 11 mths old and since he was a baby I couldn't get him to sleep in his bassinet, swing or his crib. He likes me to hold him for his naps. The minute he leaves my body he wakes up. He also has been sleeping with us for the last 11 mths. It isnt the ideal situation that we would like but for some reason he won't sleep in his crib. He will be out cold so we will lay him in his crib but the minute we have him away from our body he wakes up. We have let him cry in his crib hoping he would get tired and fall asleep, that doesn't work. He stands up and screams/cries. We lay him back down and it starts over. Does anyone have any suggestions. When is a good age to do the toddler bed? What about putting bed gates on for safety. My husband and I just want our bed back and no matter what we try, our son always ends up back in bed with us. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

thank you

[ra11en]

I spent a week or so adjusting my daughter to her crib by letting her lay in it while I was folding laundry on her floor. She was only a few weeks old, so that might not work as well with an 11mo old. You may want to let him play in his crib though so he can get used to it, even without you in the room for a few minutes at a time.

I friend of mine never got her son into his crib, they had to go straight to a toddler bed. Unfortunately, they put the toddler bed in their room which did help him sleep in it faster, but they still cannot get him to sleep in his own room in the toddler bed.

At 11mo, it is going to be tough to change his habit, but it can be done with a lot of persistance and consistency on your part. Children so young adapt amazingly fast, its us adults that don't. :) Everytime you break down and take him back to your bed or hold him for hours on end, you are reinforcing to him how to get what he wants. You need to stand firm and work hard at getting him into a new arrangement, whatever arrangement you choose. With my stubborn daughter, when we knew she was old enough to learn to soothe herself and sleep through the night alone, I would let her cry for about 5 minutes before I went into soothe her. When I went in to soothe, I would rock her for about 7 minutes or so. And even though I knew she would wake up screaming once I put her in her crib, that is always where she went back to. After the rocking, I would usually give her another 10 minutes before I would go back in. Although, I don't remember a time she made it through the 10minutes, she always fell back asleep. I tried not going in to soothe her and she was able to bellow it out for a very long time. I never took her out of her room at night, no matter what. We put a night light in her room so it wasn't dark and I didn't need ot turn on the lights. We allowed her a sippy cup of water in the crib, and stuff animals that she particularly liked to snuggle with. It took time, but she did develop the ability to fall asleep alone and self soothe. Now, at 19mo, we go through the night night routine and she goes into her crib wide awake. We cover her with a blanket and that's that. She rolls over, gets comfy, and we don't hear a peep out of her until the morning. When she gets ill enough to require being up at night, we have to 'retrain' her into sleeping through the night.

You'll have some loooong sleepless nights, but if you really want your bed back you'll have to stand firm and remain consistent. Implement a good bed time routine (bath, story time, brushing teeth, etc) that you do the same way at the same time every night.

Good luck!