Re: Gabriel won't sleep alone!

Well I'm not going to be very popular for saying this but the only way I
ever found was to let my son cry for a little while. I never did it
indefinitly just for a few minutes at a time maybe twice never more than
three times in a row.

If I thought it was cruel I never would have done it. The way I saw it was
that when my son didn't get a good stint of a few hours solid sleep on his
own he was miserable. If it meant ten minutes of crying on a few occasions
the benefits to him were much greater. I have been bombarded with comments
about what a happy kid he is and at eighteen months is very cuddly and
happy
when he is up and actually comes and tells me "mummy tired, teddy cot"
when
nap time rolls around. He is also advanced in communicating and all his
milestones were on target or early. So there have been no problems there.

As far as attachment goes he is confident enough to go and play with other
kids and warms up to new people pretty quickly. He is'nt clingy but often
comes to me for cuddles and is very generous with them when I ask him for
one.

Crying it out has a bad reputation partly because of the name it is given
I
think. I have heard it described as teaching to sleep and that conveys the
idea better to me. I think that it is much harder for the parent than the
child to be honest. I hated doing it but I did it because I knew that my
baby needed some quality sleep that he just wasn't getting. He never slept
well with us and to be honest if he had I probably would have gone with
that
because as you say it is much easier and less stress for all. But since we
made the decision to teach him to sleep on his own he strated to gain
weight
better and was generally happier.

I'd like to point out that I realise that this is an unpopular approach
and
many people will disagree. I am in no way trying to sway you or to
persuade
you to change your mind. What works for you works and I sugest you stick
to
it. However you ask how to get a baby to sleep better and after weeks of
tearing my hair out this was the only thing I found that worked. I am just
describing our experience, it worked for us and our whole family is
happier
and well slept. It can work

Good Luck I hope you find a solution that suits you.

Judy



"Lizajane" <lizaambler@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:8b9ea4b.0305241751.7b6ef067@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Gabriel Day Evans was born to us on May 16th. He is wonderful - of
> course I think he is the most beautiful child ever born. I can tell he
> will have a sweet disposition, he smiles to himself all the time and
> though I know they are not "social smiles" I think it means something.
> The only problem is he WILL NOT sleep by himself, even if we are in
> the room. We have two bassinets, one for our bedroom and one for the
> den. Even if he is sound asleep, if I try to put him into one of his
> beds, he almost immediately wakes up and wails until someone comes to
> get him. This is after he has been fed, changed, burped, etc. I don't
> feel right just letting him cry, but I tried to yesterday and he went
> on for 5 minutes. I don't believe in "crying it out," and even if I
> did, his crying for a long period of time causes a physical response
> in my body that is uncomfortable! He sleeps well in a "family bed"
> situation, which suits me fine, but my husband is afraid that one of
> us will smother him, or that we will never be able to make the
> transition in to his crib in his own room. Also, we just need some
> time to cuddle and kiss and generally be together and it's hard to do
> if a baby is crying! I expected some of this, and don't expect to have
> much uninterupted sleep, but jeez, 15 minutes would be nice. What does
> everyone else do?