My daughter is almost two years old. I still nurse her to sleep in the sling.Once in the afternoon for a nap and once in the evening.This process takes at least 30 minutes if I’m very lucky,if not more than that. When she falls into deep sleep,I transfer her to the bed.
If you had told me this when I was a mom of a 3 month old,I wouldn’t believe it.Back then I didn’t know that most of the babies need some kind of parenting to sleep.
My daughter has never been an easy sleeper. She still wakes up at least 3-4 times during the night.
While she was growing, I have learned that it is perfectly normal and healthy for them to wake up during the night.
I have seen babies who easily drift off to sleep and I have seen babies who gave their parents difficult times and as a result were unfortunately sleep trained.I wholeheartedly believe that sleep training is harmful for babies.
While I don’t feel resentful for helping my daughter going to sleep, I’d like to gently encourage her to sleep on her own, if it’s possible at all? And, yes, we do have a sleep routine, bath, stories, etc. But they only seem to help her wind down and accept that it’s bed time.
I wonder how is it going at other AP practising homes? When did your little ones begin to sleep for longer periods? How do you put them to sleep? When did they stop nursing to sleep? Are they happy to roll over without breastfeeding?
Isil writes about attachment parenting and vegan cooking at Veggie Way.
5 responses so far ↓
1 When Does a Toddler Stop Napping Completely? | Babylicious // Dec 1, 2008 at 1:24 pm
[...] Although I don’t usually mind the rocking, sometimes, I can’t help wondering as Isil does of her own child - when will Gavin be able to fall asleep without needing to be rocked or [...]
2 Shen-Li // Dec 1, 2008 at 1:30 pm
My son 22 months and he also needs help getting to sleep - rocking and being nursed. Unfortunately, he refuses to get into a sling so I have to carry him.
What I’ve noticed recently is that it’s been gettin harder and harder to get him to sleep and I suspect maybe he is trying to drop his afternoon nap. I know it seems a bit early but I’ve been checking up some forums and plenty of other Mums have toddlers who stopped napping by two.
On days when I drop the afternoon nap, he sleeps earlier at night and it is a LOT easier to get him to sleep. I don’t have to rock him or nurse him for ages like I normally do (yes, like your case - half an hour is very lucky).
3 Cristy // Dec 1, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I commented over at your site Isil, but thought that I should join in here too. I recently night-weaned Lily (who is almost 21 months old) and it was so much easier than I had expected. However, I did wait until she seemed ready.
She still feeds to sleep (for both her nap and at night), but the feeds have gotten a lot shorter lately (10-15 minutes often). It wasn’t long ago that they often went for over an hour, which I found hard sometimes.
4 Stephanie // Dec 3, 2008 at 8:40 am
Can anyone help answer questions for nannies working for parents following the attachment parenting philosophy?
A nanny friend just interviewed with a mother who follows the philosophy and she’s worried about nap time and bottle feeding since she isn’t the mother and doesn’t want to nap with the child and obviously cannot breast feed the baby.
If you have advice for nannies please respond at:
http://bestnannynewsletter.blogspot.com
5 Justine // Dec 18, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I still have a 5 1/2 year old who does not regularly sleep through the night. Sleeping is just not a big priority for her
As a baby and toddler we did the nursing, the slinging, the rocking, the walking around, the massages, the stories, the singing…and finally reached a point where she was old enough to stay in bed on her own without needing us (and not getting up to wander around). There was no “magic trick” that did it, she just had to reach that point and we had to be patient. I hope that we made it easier for her to do that by providing her with the years of loving, responsive night time parenting that we did. Perhaps without night time parenting she might have given up and finally slept, but at what cost? She very occasionally has night terrors and scary nightmares…i can only think that perhaps helping her at night prevented them from being worse and will help her to stop having them sooner.
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