For the first time in my two short years as a father I have had to walk away in despair..

It’s our own fault.. when my wife had post-natal depression we let our little boy get into the habit of using milk to soothe himself to sleep.. It’s time to break he cycle as he’s guzzling pints of the stuff at night..

Joyfully it’s coincided with his need to exert his will over us and as a result I am spending another night trying to cope with increasingly agitated demands for milk at irregular intervals throughout the night.

My patience has just worn thin.. 😈

EDIT: I’ve already wee’d in his shoes

Still got all that to look forward to.. My wee lads 22 months, still gets a decent sized bottle at night and a wee on when he gets up… Sigh.

still gets a decent sized bottle at night and a wee on when he gets up

Actually took me a second to work out what you meant. Kinda prefer it the other way though 😀

Give him milk with a load of chilli powder in, he may go off it.

The terrible twos and threes can be a bit challenging can’t they? My youngest is just three and has just started to taper off but man he was a bugger.

Punch him in the goolies.

Cuddling my 3 year old whilst she drinks milk. It does get better.

EDIT: I’ve already wee’d in his shoes

No I think he’s currently weeing in your shoes…. 😉

Wait till you have teenagers, I’d gladly have 2 yr old.

Wait till you have teenagers, I’d gladly have 2 yr old.

+1

Keep smiling!

leave the bottle/cup of milk in his cot, by his side during the night, so he can drink it himself if he wants.
he doesnt need feeding by you at that age.

I usually get a wee on when I get up first thing..
Didn’t finish till 1:15 last night, he slept till 7 this am.. A miracle!!

Control crying – just started it with our two two yr olds one of whom uses a bottle as a comforter. A week later and I wish we’d started months ago – it really does work.

Our twin two year old boys have been good lately! Sleeping through the night apart from an hour and a half of screaming the house down during the night last night! I need sleep!!

I use cake to soothe myself to sleep, you could try moving him on to that? Have to be careful of falling asleep on the fork though, oucheroo 🙁

All kids play up in some way or other… apart from the really odd ones that sleep all through ?!?!

Jnr FD (17 months) usually sleeps quite well. However when he gets ill he usually doesnt then sleep at all well and Mrs FD usually ends up putting him in bed with her as its the only way to get him to sleep. A week later he is used to waking up and getting transferred to our bed and continues to do it when he is better.

The Mrs FD does a week of nights shifts and it falls to yours truly to get him back in to a sleeping routine in his own bed. This usually means me getting about 4 hours of broken sleep at night.

Controlled crying doesnt work with Jnr FD, he will just ball his eyes out for 2 hours until he starts chocking.

Instead I have to go in to his room, lay him back down, sing to him (I’m good you know) and after about 20 mins he will start to nod off. It can take 3 or 4 repeats of this before he ventually falls properly asleep, and then he may wake up 2 hours later and do the same thing again. However eventually he does learn he should be asleep. As it gets to the stage where he would wake up and I dont even go in the room. He may cry for 20mins or so and then drops off.

Just recovering from a week of this and just had 2 nights full sleep in a row! He will be ok now until he gets his nect illness 🙁

I never ever give him milk in the night though. As again its just a habit thing. Try exchanging it for water to start with, as above maybe just leaving it in the room. But even that should go eventually.

Kids its all habits isnt it. I woman I work with has to get up at 4am every morning as she stupidly once let her son play downstairs one night when he wouldnt sleep. Now he thinks the day starts at 4 every morning !!

So its going to get worse… Bugger. Mini Transapp (9months) sleeps from 7:30 until 6:30 (ish) just weaning off the dream feed at 10:30 now. I’m posting this because I’m smug.

My son was an absolute shit for about 4 months earlier this year. 3y 4m to 3y 8m.

He’s out of it now, but my 1y 10m daughter is starting to show signs of “attitude”.

Let him cry a bit. It won’t hurt him. Controlled crying does work.

my 15 month old is alrready trying it on. we gave in last night at 3.30AM after 3.5 hours of crying and refusing to sleep and bought him into bed with us.

Personally, I don’t favour ‘controlled crying’ but waiting a minute or so to see if he sorts himself out would be a plan. Also, you could try gradually diluting the milk with water so that he is getting less food from the milk over time. Eventually he won’t be hungry and will only wake when thirsty or needing a cuddle. Waking him for a drink just before you go to bed is also a good plan. Finally, in the wee small hours remind yourself that by providing your boy with a secure loving environment, you are helping him grow up into a well-balanced individual.

We have a 27 month old and 3 month old. When the older one was able to climb out of his cot we moved him to a bed. He didn’t like this at all, screaming, banging on doors etc. We decided to try the controlled crying and it was a miracle. the first night it took about 4 times of us going back in and putting him to bed (don’t speak!), the second night 2 re-visits and that was it! He now sleeps from 7 till 6.30 with no problems (except for when his got an ear infection).

Now we just need to cure the 3 month old of his snot problem (sleeps well but sounds like a pig is in the room with you) and we’re sorted.

We used controlled crying when our eldest was about 4 months, between the 7pm and 11pm feed. The first night he cried pretty much the whole time, other than when we were in to settle him. By the third night he went straight to sleep, it’s painful and makes you feel cruel but it really does work. He’s coming up 2 now and is still happy to go to bed after a small beaker of milk and a story, he often chats to his teddy for a while and then dozes off. He has started to develop some attitude though so I think we might be in for a rocky ride through the 2’s.

The youngest didn’t even need controlled crying, he loves his bed!

Lucas – move the nipper into his own room, you can all get some peace 🙂

“controlled crying”? – must’ve missed this one being coined 🙄

does every single aspect of parenting/common sense need to be conveniently labelled for new parents these days? ..WTF happened to saying what you actually mean?

yunki – Member.
.
“It’s our own fault..”

/thread

“Now we just need to cure the 3 month old of his snot problem (sleeps well but sounds like a pig is in the room with you) and we’re sorted.”

Yep get him in his on room asap, better for all in the long run. Plus raise his cot slightly at the head end.

trash em physicaly every day mate it’s the only way make sure that his eye’s are closing before his head hit’s the pillow. best of luck.

Kids wake up through the night these days? Blimey glad mine are 4 and 8 then.

Stop pampering to his demands, it’s hard and easier to give in but don’t. You got yourself into the cycle your right but had you have known then what it would led to you wouldn’t have. He’ll grow out of it. Good luck.

I think controlled crying is a good description – it doesn’t mean put them to bed and leave them to cry, same as indexing your gears doesn’t mean pulling the cable tight and doing up a screw. Plus as it has the word controlled in it, it gives you the illusion of actually being in control!

nonk +1, once they’re moving make sure they don’t stop til bedtime. Also, if they’re still taking lunchtime naps then maybe break it a little short.

Stop pampering to his demands

This. Tough love! You’ll all be better for it, fortunately my missus is tougher than me.

controlled crying is a good description

yes, I used to go for a quiet sob in the bathroom at 2 in the morning so I didn’t wake the little fecker up after spending an hour convincing him to go back to sleep.

I know that feeling. Our eldest had colic pretty badly, for the first few months when he wasn’t asleep he was crying. We cried ourselves to sleep many times – perhaps he was using controlled crying on us?! Clever little buggers babies.

We’ve never been sure about the controlled crying thing tbh. I know a lot of people swear by it and stuff but always seemed to be about putting the adult’s needs ahead of the child’s. Anyway our two are both sleeping through, in their own beds now (3 & 4) and getting up at a reasonable hour. Our technique was love, cuddles, patience and lots of caffeine 🙂

We’ve found that you can break most baby/toddler habits in about 3 nights. Eg, dummies…cold turkey…1st night horrendous, 2nd slightly less so, 3rd much better & 4th pretty much back to normal. Mid way through the first night though you’d generally swear it’s not going to work.

I think people need to remember that not all babies behave in exactly the same way. I know parents who treat their babies the same as we treat ours, yet ours is mostly very easy to manage and theirs are screaming nightmares.

I think people need to remember that not all babies[b]parents[/b] behave in exactly the same way. I know parents who seem to treat their babies the same as we treat ours, yet they actually don’t.

FTFY 😉

Best to put kids through cold turkey from dummies/late feeds etc when they are still in a cot and can’t climb out and disturb you. Those bars are there for a reason. We found it beneficial to use ear plugs to ensure a good night’s sleep during cold turkey week. Both our kids were broken in after a few nights.

Good Luck. 🙂

We’ve found that you can break most baby/toddler habits in about 3 nights. Eg, dummies…cold turkey…

Aye, not looking forward to the cold turkey habit. I’m sure it’s useful around Christmas, but what about the rest of the year?

FTFY

So perhaps you could explain that, despite following the same routine every night, sometimes our baby goes straight to sleep, and sometimes she doesn’t? Maybe it’s because *gasp* she’s a person and not a robot…

*gasp* are these “parents you know” clones of you and your missus, or are they robots you program?

Don’t be fooled into believing “similar routine” is the same as “treating the same”

*gasp* are these “parents you know” clones of you and your missus, or are they robots you program?

Don’t be fooled into believing “similar routine” is the same as “treating the same”

If the baby is able to pick up on differences so small that even the parents themselves don’t notice, then none of the advice on here is much use, is it?

thanks for all the replies..

yunki – Member.
.
“It’s our own fault..”

/thread

very helpful GW.. spoken with the true empathy of a fella who has left parenting to his spouse.. you’re a gent and a scholar..

We’ve found that you can break most baby/toddler habits in about 3 nights. Eg, dummies…cold turkey…1st night horrendous, 2nd slightly less so, 3rd much better & 4th pretty much back to normal. Mid way through the first night though you’d generally swear it’s not going to work.

that’s what I wanted to know.. I’m somewhere into night three.. my life hurts from lack of sleep.. that wailing baby sound is like having every bone in my body polished with a rasp..

he’s happy as a pig in muck during the day though.. little swine

he will adjust, I promise. Just stick with it. Hardest sound in the world to deal with though, especially in the small hours