Child afraid of sleeping in his crib?

We have 2.5 year old twin boys. We have had good times and bad when it comes to getting them to sleep. For quite a while they slept well, from 8 or 9pm until 7 to 830am. We are now in a rut where neither one will coroperate at bedtime.
Kyle will actually be OK sometimes at night, but Ryan likes to YELL and it scares Kyle and then kyle cries. We always let them go for a while but as we do, then end up bringing one down because we feel bad that Kyle can't sleep and it just doesn't work.
The other problem is Kyle got croop a couple months ago and we had him in our bed, well big mistake but not at that time. He wasn't breathing well and we had to do it. So now he has gone in spurts where he wakes up at night and just yells for us to come get him.
We then try and try to get him back into his crib and he just will either go back to sleep for a bit or not at all and we end up bringing him into our room.

We have tried to let him cry it out both at bedtime and in the middle of the night. Our doctor told us he is now to old to CIO. So we bought a book by Kim West to do the sleep shuffle and that just won't work even remotely.

We are looking for everyone that has had this trouble to please write in with ideas.

 

I'm going to disagree with your pediatrician. I think you will have to use CIO. They are old enough now that you can explain to them what your expectations are. So I would start by having the conversation with them about bedtime and what you do and do not do. Kate explained it really well in this article:

[wiki]Toddler_Sleep_Tips[/wiki]

Also explain that you will not be coming back after bedtime routine is done with. I think you might have a rough week or so, but once they get the idea of they should adjust.

 

thanks, the other thing the pedi said was to try toddler beds, I put them together and there was no way that was going to work.

We are now wondering if we should start doing separate bedtimes or even separate rooms?
We let Ryan CIO tonight and scream, he quit after a little bit but Kyle was a wreck. He is now sitting on the couch with us and the tough part is that ryan gets him upset with his yelling


QUOTE(FirstTimeMom814 @ Feb 11 2008, 12:54 AM) [snapback]615506[/snapback]
I'm going to disagree with your pediatrician. I think you will have to use CIO. They are old enough now that you can explain to them what your expectations are. So I would start by having the conversation with them about bedtime and what you do and do not do. Kate explained it really well in this article:

[wiki]Toddler_Sleep_Tips[/wiki]

Also explain that you will not be comisng back after bedtime routine is done with. I think you might have a rough week or so, but once they get the idea of they should adjust.

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We have 2.5 year old twin boys. We have had good times and bad when it comes to getting them to sleep. For quite a while they slept well, from 8 or 9pm until 7 to 830am. We are now in a rut where neither one will coroperate at bedtime.
Kyle will actually be OK sometimes at night, but Ryan likes to YELL and it scares Kyle and then kyle cries. We always let them go for a while but as we do, then end up bringing one down because we feel bad that Kyle can't sleep and it just doesn't work.
The other problem is Kyle got croop a couple months ago and we had him in our bed, well big mistake but not at that time. He wasn't breathing well and we had to do it. So now he has gone in spurts where he wakes up at night and just yells for us to come get him.
We then try and try to get him back into his crib and he just will either go back to sleep for a bit or not at all and we end up bringing him into our room.

We have tried to let him cry it out both at bedtime and in the middle of the night. Our doctor told us he is now to old to CIO. So we bought a book by Kim West to do the sleep shuffle and that just won't work even remotely.

We are looking for everyone that has had this trouble to please write in with ideas.

The other crazy thing is the pedi said to put them in youth beds and that will NOT work. I actually attempted it.
Kyle was in our bed all night last night and he slept great. I put him in his crib and he was immediately just afraid and just upset.

Should we move his crib into our room? I know these are not the best ideas but sleep is not happening for anyone.

 

:hug99: From one who has had a lot of sleep issues, I understand. My two have been in the same room since they were born except for naptime for a few months before they turned two years old. They do not wake when the other is 'screaming/crying.' Last night was the prime example. It's amazing what they can sleep through. It's also amazing that after my husband gets up with my dd, how her night wakings stop (at least for awhile). I think she likes a cuddle from me, but that interupts my sleep. My ds was crying at bedtime & refused to nap in his crib. Naptime was easy, I would lay with him in the guest bed (it worked for me because I had just gotten pregnant and needed a nap too! I'd get up and he'd get up when he woke. Bedtime was a chorus of screaming from him. We did CIO but I hated it. I'd lay awake upstairs until it finally quieted down. One day we left the door cracked and a light on outside his room. He was quiet. Go figure. He needed a nightlight. The very next day, as always I offered his crib or the guest bed for naptime. He chose his crib!
Long story short, do you have a nightlight in there? That might help. Personally, I think he likes sleeping in his bed and KNOWS how to manipulate you into letting him sleep there!
I do agree with you that youth beds probably would not work. I'd leave them in their cribs until you have issues of them climbing out! We got regular beds just a little over a month ago because of that!
:hug99: Good luck!

 

Thanks, at this point I am wondering if I should just get a co-sleeper and let it be. We let him cry and cry and he just won't settle down. I know you can let them keep going, but he genuinely just gets so upset about being placed into the crib at night that it appears he is just afraid or something. Once we are with him in our bed, either of us, he is sound asleep and usually sleeps well, although he does moan at night from time to time.
Anyone see that before? I wonder if he is having growing pains or something?


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I merged your topic with the one from yesterday since TS does not allow for duplicate postings.

 

My oldest DD suddenly started seeming scared to sleep in her crib at about 26 months old. She would just start screaming and seemed scared. This was totally not like her at all. So we decided to put a mattress on the floor for her to sleep in and that did the trick. That was the end of the crib.

 

Did you find you had to sleep with her for a little bit?

QUOTE(summerfun @ Feb 11 2008, 04:08 PM) [snapback]616203[/snapback]
My oldest DD suddenly started seeming scared to sleep in her crib at about 26 months old. She would just start screaming and seemed scared. This was totally not like her at all. So we decided to put a mattress on the floor for her to sleep in and that did the trick. That was the end of the crib.

 

My suggestion would be to split bedtimes. Zachary takes a long time to relax into bedtime (not an issue at nap time, go figure). So, we lay him down at 7 when the girls goto bed. Even though Matt (the oldest of all the kids) is tired, we keep him up until 8/8:15 so that by the time we put him to bed, Zach is ready to sleep even if he is still awake at the time. If we put them down at the same time, there is a circus upstairs and Matt is frustrated and prolongs bedtime for at least an hour - they aren't asleep until well after 9 rather than around 8:15.

Are you in a position to put them in seperate rooms?

We went through a time with Zachary, he was younger at the time, but he would wake up at night and we could not get him back into his bed to save our lives. He was screaming so loudly that he would have woken the other three kids up. So, we set up the PNP in the basement and put him in there and either my DH or I would sleep next to him on the futon that we have down there. He would scream for hours and then finally crash out for the night. It was horrible, but he would not calm down and sleep in bed with us either. So, this was the best way to let him just cry it out and still get some kind of sleep.

Best of luck.

 

QUOTE(mimifl13 @ Feb 11 2008, 12:07 PM) [snapback]616305[/snapback]
Did you find you had to sleep with her for a little bit?

Yes, initially we did for a bit.

 

we tried the mattress thing but Ryan wants to run around.
So I think I am stuck with either putting them in separate rooms or trying to just go in the room at night when Kyle wakes up and sitting the chair until he falls back to sleep.

Any other suggestions to get them out of our bed?

QUOTE(summerfun @ Feb 11 2008, 06:12 PM) [snapback]616377[/snapback]
Yes, initially we did for a bit.

 

We now have started splitting up their bed times a bit. So Ryan goes up first, sort of unwinds and then Kyle goes up. Tonight it worked OK as they both went to sleep not to bad. We gave Kyle a regular pillow and he seems plenty comfortable. Now the tough part is going to be what happens when he wakes up in the middle of the night and decides he wants to go in the "big bed".
I think there is an answer, we just haven't found it yet. He just wakes up and yells for us, and refuses to go back into his crib. We do get him back in there but then he wakes up and wakes up until we are exhausted and finally we give in..

QUOTE(mimifl13 @ Feb 14 2008, 02:54 AM) [snapback]620925[/snapback]
we tried the mattress thing but Ryan wants to run around.
So I think I am stuck with either putting them in separate rooms or trying to just go in the room at night when Kyle wakes up and sitting the chair until he falls back to sleep.

Any other suggestions to get them out of our bed?