Getting Your Toddler to Sleep at Bedtime

Getting your one-year-old to go to bed is no easy task. Few self-respecting toddlers will go to bed without a fuss or a fight. Your child just has too much that she wants to do to welcome rest, no matter how reinvigorating it might prove. What's going on elsewhere around the house? Where are mommy and daddy? What am I missing? Such questions—even if not articulated—consume your toddler's feverish mind. That's why it's not at all uncommon for parents to use every trick in the book to try to get their toddler to go to sleep: rocking, cuddling, nursing, feeding, reading, singing, stories, sitting with, leaving, and punishing. And that's just in the first hour. Many parents then concede defeat, giving up until later. Of course, they'll just have to start all over then, again trying anything they can think of.

The younger you start encouraging your child to go to sleep by himself, the easier it will be. But when you finally decide that your child needs to learn how to go to sleep by himself, you may wonder about the best way to do it. Do you need to shut out your toddler entirely? Or should you stay with him every waking moment until he finally drops off to sleep?

Try to picture each of these scenarios from your toddler's point of view. Up until now, everything's been fine. Whenever he got tired, you would rock him, sing to him, feed him, and off he went. If he later woke up, you just came back to go through the same routine again. Then, suddenly—at least to your child, no matter how gradually it actually took you to come to this resolve—you decide that you've had enough of this routine. It's high time that your child learned how to go to sleep without you.

So what happens? One night, out of the blue, you nurse your baby or give him his bottle, say "good night," place him in his crib, and disappear. Naturally, your child will object. He may cry and cry, but you stick in the earplugs and remain firm in your commitment to let him "cry himself to sleep," no matter how long it takes.

Is this really fair to your child? Without warning, you've abandoned your toddler totally to his own devices. Do you think that it will be easier the next night if only you can stick to your guns tonight? It won't: Sleep will come to be something dangerous and frightening for your child. From the moment that you say, "good night" and stand up to put him in his crib, your baby will start screaming and clinging desperately to you. Will you entirely abandon your child again? Or will your resolve crumble on the second night—or if not, then on the fifth or twelfth?

The alternative extreme is almost as bad. Again, everything's fine until the night when you "suddenly" decide to put your child in his crib before he's fallen asleep. Because you don't want your child to be scared, you decide to stay with him until he falls asleep. Though your toddler may not be as scared as he would be if you left, he certainly won't like it either.

For your one-year-old, it must be torture for you to stay visible but out of reach: to be able to see you, but have you refuse his pleas to pick him up. You may not have "abandoned" your child, but all the same you have "rejected" him. If you let your toddler's crying sway you, if you decide to pick him up again—or maybe even give up for now and try again later—he now knows from experience that if he cries long and hard enough, he will get the relief he wants from you. Is this helping either one of you at all?

The Sleep Solution

The ultimate solution to the problem of getting your toddler to go to sleep on her own involves a compromise between these two extremes. Leave the room, but come back periodically. You're not abandoning or rejecting your child (though she may still feel you are). You're simply leaving for a while, but are available to come back if really needed. When your baby cries (you know that she will), come back, perhaps settle her back down in her crib, say "good night" again, and then leave immediately. Keep contact short and avoid cuddling, rocking, or any of the comforts you once used to get your child to sleep.

You need to send a clear and firm message that playtime is over and rest time has begun. If your child continues to cry—as she no doubt will for at least several nights—return every few minutes just to reassure her that you're still within earshot. Or promise your toddler that you'll check on her every five (or seven or ten) minutes until she falls asleep. If you do, make sure to keep your promise. Your child needs the security of knowing that you are close by and that she can depend on you. But she really doesn't need you to pick her up to receive that reassurance. Again, just say "good night" and leave. Don't try to joke your baby out of her tears. Don't pick her up to comfort her either (unless she becomes so hysterical that she has difficulty breathing—and even then, first try to pat her back and calm her without picking her up). Be a bore: Do the same thing in the same way every time you come back into your child's room.

When you leave your toddler's room, try not to maintain total silence to "help" her get to sleep. This may actually do your child a disservice, making her hypersensitive to any things that go bump in the night. More important in terms of the goal at hand, if your child hears you cleaning up or walking around in a nearby room, she will be comforted by knowing exactly where you are as she drifts into unconsciousness, however unwillingly. (It may help to let your child know where you are going and what you will be doing when you leave the room.)

If you decide to try this compromise method, keep these suggested guidelines in mind:

• Never stay away for more than five minutes if your toddler is still crying. Indeed, if your child is very upset, visit as frequently as once a minute.
• Never stay for more than the minute it takes to resettle your child and repeat that quick "good night." Ignore her if she pops back up to her feet again.
• If your child is used to going to sleep in the dark, try to avoid turning the lights on when you go into her room. Don't do anything to disturb the monotony of your routine.
• Never take your child back out of the crib unless her diaper is dirty, she has vomited, or the bed is on fire.

If you maintain your resolve, bedtime should become much more peaceful for both of you within a week or two. Until this becomes the established bedtime routine, however, you can ruin it in a single night. If you leave your child to cry for too long or pick her up and then try again later, you'll have to start the "weaning" process all over again from the beginning.

Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Parenting a Preschooler and Toddler, Too © 1997 by Keith M. Boyd, M.D., and Kevin Osborn. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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