Teaching our children to sleep on their own has been one of the best tips ever given to me as a mother.
And I feel even more strongly about it now after being blessed with our 7th child. You see, she does not go to bed on her own. She needs to nurse to sleep and sometimes requires to be attached to me the whole night to sleep. 🙁
The other 6 children were taught to sleep on their own as early as 3 months old. Yes, the teaching period may be unpleasant but it is very short (3 to 5 days) period. And the payoffs are tremendous.
(Disclaimer: please do not write or comment on how cruel or selfish this is because I just won’t respond. 🙂
No fuss, no drama during nap and bedtimes
With the other children, the moment nap and bedtimes rolled around, I just needed to tell them that it is time to sleep and they would follow me into their room and lie down in their cots/beds. Then I would pray for them, say “bye bye”, leave the room and close the door. Almost always, they would go to sleep peacefully and cheerfully.
I did not have to lie down with them or pat them for hours and be unable to do the necessary things I needed to do. This freed me from having to stay up late to finish up my work just because the baby/toddler doesn’t want to unlatch after nursing to sleep and stay asleep.
Except for our #7 child
As I said – because I had 6 who slept by themselves, it is even clearer that teaching a child to sleep on his own is a blessing. That way, should they wake up in the middle of the night, they can put themselves back to sleep. There won’t be the middle-of-the-night crying that disrupts sleep for everyone in the house.
Related posts: Sleep Training Part 1
Post updated in July 2017
6 Comments on Teaching Children to Sleep on their Own
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So why did you not train no.7? But then again, the sleep training for no.s1-6 was probably the reason why you have no.7. ;D
Sam – I *did* sleep train #7 THREE times and failed all 3 times 🙂 She would stand and sleep or sit and sleep for about 15 minutes or so then start crying all over again. The problem was that I missed the window of opportunity when she was 3 months – had loads happening then and then as she was learning to sleep on her own she started to be able to pull herself up to stand! So that was the end of it 🙁
And Sam – you have 4 without sleep training so I would hardly say that having more or less children has to do with sleep training 😀
Totally agree with you, Serene. I also train all my 5 kids to go to sleep on their own from young. I thank God for that. Even when they need to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, they do it on their own, as youngas 4 years old.I don’t think I can function the next day with interrupted sleep every night.
Hello, think my 16 mth old DD and your #7 very similar in this regard except that she usually manages to sleep thru with only 1 night feed. But when nap time / bedtime comes around, she wants to latch for looooong time. I’m out of ideas, so if you have a breakthru, lemme know!! 😀
Hi Serene,
My #1 is 27 months old and takes 1 afternoon nap. My #2 is 5.5 months old and takes 3 naps a day. How and when can you get #2 on the same nap schedule as #1? I need them to nap at the same time at some point during the day so I can get a break!
Simple, you adjust the baby’s schedule so that you can time both their naps – and yours! – together. But this means you know how long your baby sleep each time. By closely observing your baby’s sleep cues and sleep pattern you will be able to adjust her sleep so that at leats one of her naps coincide with the older one’s. All the best!