Sleeping FAQ: 18-24 Months – Settling/Sleep Associations

How do I get my daughter to sleep happily in her cot again now we are finally settled in our new home?

We have had the most terrible week – we have moved house which is stressful enough but my daughter of 20mths has become very unsettled. She has coped extremely well over the past few months with moving country to Africa (we live in Mozambique) and then temporary accommodation. We have made various trips in this time and stayed in other places and she has been fine with her same routine every night always settling well in a new place, crying for up to 10 minutes on the first night but settling down. All has changed this week – we have unpacked all her room and her toys and she is in a lovely room and back in her cot rather than her travel cot. We have had absolute hysterics both when I have put her down for her lunch time nap and to bed. The moment she wakes she is waking screaming and last night it took me 3 hours from 1 am to 4 am to get her back to sleep even staying in the same room as her. I have done sleep training in the past and I have tried this for the past 3 nights but she seems so traumatized that I don?ft know what to do. This is a baby who always goes into the cot happy and will spend up to an hour talking and playing both at night and in the morning – HELP! This evening I have sat with her to get her to sleep however every time she stirs now she is waking again and screaming for me. When she wakes she is insisting that she wants to get out of the room and pointing to the door. I am at a bit of a loss what to do as she is such a good girl and obviously this move has been the last straw for her. Any advice would be gratefully received as I am exhausted and pregnant!

My daughter eats a varied and healthy diet with three good meals and two snacks a day. She drinks 8ozs of formula before going to bed.

She naps from 1-3pm.

Getting your daughter settled back into a regular way of sleeping is going to take some time. She seems to have coped exceptionally with all the changes she has been through recently. Now you are in your new home you will be able to get her really settled and secure again.

If she has grown accustomed to sleeping in a travel cot begin to familiarize her again with her own cot. Have a short period each day when you put her in it to play. Potter around in her room if she is happy to stay in her cot playing alone, and then tell her you are leaving the room. To begin with you may only be able to leave for a very short time, thirty seconds maybe, before coming back in again. Gradually lengthen the time you stay out of the room and see if she is able to still play happily. Use your voice to reassure her that you are coming back in again. Continue to use her room for short play times throughout the day so she becomes thoroughly familiar with it and all her toys. Play together in there well before naptime and bedtime so her bedroom is a place she associates with being happy as well as sleeping.

The kind of behavior your daughter shows in the middle of the night could be due to waking from a bad dream. Richard Ferber, the sleep expert, feels that a lot of bad dreams and screaming fits in the night may be due to overtiredness. A toddler of this age is on the on the go all day, also your daughter is having to adapt to living somewhere new. Watch that she does not get exhausted in the day, even though she is still having a two hour nap at lunchtime. Until she is better at settling without you in the evenings bring her bedtime forward, to around 6.30pm, and try to make her whole bath and bedtime routine quiet and unrushed. If you can, build quiet times into her day as well; where you both sit and enjoy a story together, or watch a short video. Your daughter may be aware of your pregnancy, even if in the early stages and this, as well as all of the other changes in her life, has unsettled her. If you deal with her in a calm and gentle way, and maintain a simple routine which is very much home based for the next few weeks, you should see her growing out of this phase quite soon.

To help her settle better at night time, try doing some role play by day using teddies and dolls in sleeping scenes. You can easily make impromptu beds for toys with old shoe boxes or cereal packets. If she has a special teddy or doll make sure that it, too, is tucked up at bedtime, either with her in her cot or in its own bed. This will all help her feel more secure about falling asleep. Puppets are also a good way to try to find out if anything is really bothering her. It does depend on how much vocabulary she has but, by observing the way she plays with her toys, you may discover what is causing this extreme reaction.

Even a simple star chart at this age can encourage her to be quiet when it is bedtime, and fall asleep without too much help from you. Under two’s usually need nothing more than a star or sticker as a reward for managing to settle to sleep without too much fuss. Praise her in the morning, when you show her that she has a new star or sticker for managing to settle herself better at bedtime. It may be a good idea to begin this chart once you have started to notice an improvement in her settling, to encourage her to keep it up.

To get her back into her old habits of falling asleep alone use the gradual withdrawal method. This is explained in The Complete Sleep Guide, page 49. Once you have kissed your daughter Good Night and settled her into her cot, turn out the light and sit near to her cot. If she cries bitterly try to calm her using your voice with the same soothing words, ” It’s night time now, lie down and go to sleep”. You may have to tuck her in again and use these words over and over again before she settles but, with you remaining near her, she should feel more secure. At the next nap or sleep time move yourself a little further away from the cot and use the same words to reassure her. If she wakes in the night time, once you have calmed her use this same method, sitting in the same point of the room as you had done on the previous evening. Gradual withdrawal can take time, and the first evenings may mean you spending quite some time settling her, but she needs the reassurance of your presence until she feels more secure in her new surroundings. You will need to deal with the lunchtime nap in exactly the same way.

In a few nights time you may be able to leave the room for a few moments and then return. As in the daytime, when you leave her playing in her cot, reassure her with your voice from outside the room and go back in within a short space of time. This time should be lengthened gradually until your daughter is falling asleep on her own again.

It can take a while for a child to settle down fully in new surroundings, especially as it was preceded by a time of upheaval for her. Dealt with in a calm and sympathetic way, without giving in to her completely and staying beside her for hours, your daughter should begin to feel a lot more secure and begin to enjoy her new home.