the only way the babezor will go down for a nap is if i hold her and walk her for 15-30 minutes, or if my partner nurses her. this doesn't seem sustainable in the long run. any tips on how to transition to self napping?

I saw Max going down the path of the cuddling and I nipped that one in the bud. Mo was a snuggler and even though I throughly enjoyed cuddly babies the act itself tended to put me to sleep and/or sap all my energy.

So what I started doing was giving Max a bit of a cuddle about five minutes on my lap at the computer or when watching the news. Then I put the drowsy child in his crib. He would put himself to sleep. Now I just declare it nap time and put him in his bed.

That doesn't mean that I don't find him asleep infront of the door almost everyday. Just make babezor comfortable, tone all activity down then put her to nap. You and I both know that she'll probably cry and fuss when you start this. I'm a firm believer in letting them cry until they get the idea to calm down and sleep.

Doing this everyday at the same time will help her adjust to this new kind of nap. Goodluck.

how old is your wee one? i put our one-year-old in his crib with a couple of soft toys (note: not ones that make a loud noise when you smash them against the sides, or board books, which he will literally devour) and he usually hollers twice to show that he's offended and then amuses himself until he nods off. when i started doing that, he didn't like it, and i would keep leaving him there, then coming back for a bit of rock-n-walk, then leaving again, and eventually we got the hang of it. generally though i find it easier to make my husband put him down. also helps to do it the same time every day.

I don't know how old kids have to be to start forming associations, but that's what I did with the Little Miss. She had gotten used to falling asleep on me for her naps, and she was a light sleeper. Which meant I could not move a muscle while she was asleep. Inevitably, that is when Little B would become the most whiny and needy.

So, I started her on the same routine as what we did for bedtime with Little B. I turned down the lights in our room (where her crib was), put on some music and a fan (for white noise) and cuddled her for a few minutes in the rocking chair while telling her it was time for naps.

At first I held her until she fell asleep and I would try to transition her to the crib. If she woke, I would sit right by the crib, but I wouldn't look at her, I'd just close my eyes like I was sleeping. At first she fussed for a while, but after a couple of days she was settling in to the crib pretty well.

This was when she was around 3-4 months old.

Aargh. We are working on this right now -- I mean literally right now. I'm listening to the Dragon cry. His dad is going in and out, in and out -- waiting a few minutes and going back in and leaving again; waiting a little longer and going back in and leaving again...etc., etc., etc. It is torturous. The Dragon is hysterical. I'm not doing much better. We've never left him before falling asleep before tonight -- if we tried, he'd bolt up in bed scream-crying.

But we've tried everything else we know to try. I've read so many books about sleep. People tell me this works but we've waited 2 1/2 years to try it because ... I won't even get into it. Lots of very good and very personal reasons. But now, we're exhausted and at the end of our last shred of rope.

I think every child is different and the techniques they'll respond to vary from kid to kid. Ours is a pretty sensitive and wakeful guy who feels best when being related to. So being left alone is tough for him. I think you have to get really attuned to your kid's personality -- understand what they respond to and work your method from there. I'm not convinced that what we're trying now is the right way for the Dragon.

Damn. Seems to have worked. In about 10 minutes, 3 ins and outs total.

Guilt, however, still firmly intact.

Kathy,

We went through (are going through) the exact same thing. Our rope ran out at about 6 months, so I salute your patience. We don't really endorse cry it out, but Sawyer is so active, he would stay up all night (and often has) if we let him. He won't even let us rock him to sleep as often as not. So, knowing he needs sleep (grouchy) and being emotionally exhausted, we dove into letting him cry. We started with frequent visits but no pick ups, timed how long he cried, decreased the frequency of the visits, and finally just let him cry, cry, cry. The first couple of nights he cried for almost an hour. Now he's 1 yr and still hates bedtime. It's gotten a lot better though. About half the time he goes right to sleep with no crying, a quarter of the time he cries for 5 minutes or less, and the unpleasant last quarter of the equation is made up of a wide range of cry times, usually following a disrupt of his schedule but never more than 20 minutes.

I still don't feel %100 that it's the right thing to do and we only do it if he refuses to be comforted and we're absolutely positive that he's clean and dry and well fed. But, everyone sleeps much better these days, he sleeps from 8 to 7 usually which is awesome in my book. Naps are a whole other struggle along the same lines. He's such a sweet and content kid during the day, so I really hope we're not hurting him. Sometimes I feel that we're just being grown ups and doing what's best for him even though it's the hard choice, and sometimes I feel like I'm letting him down because I don't have the patience or wit to parent properly.

Not so smug now, eh?

i feel a little alone here, as we co-sleep. But then our baby is only 3 months old. We tried to do what the hospital said, put her alone in the basinette to sleep, but she HATED it. Nobody got any sleep. (Only on this one occasion when she and I both fell asleep while she was nursing, and the ob/gyn caught us out and made me feel guilty.)

We tried getting her into her own bed, after we took her home - we had a basinette in our bedroom for easy feeds at night, she totally hated it. We tried the cot in the nursery. She just screamed the whole time she was in it, until we picked her up, she sounded like she was making herself sick with screaming, it was really horrible. Never again.

After a day or two of zero sleep and tears on all sides, where she would fall asleep while nursing, but awaken the absolute instant we put her down. So when she was about 8 days old, I was exhausted, I had a broken back from nursing in awkward positions at night, so i lay down with her, to nurse her to sleep, and the next thing i knew it was morning and she'd slept 6 hours straight without a hitch. So had we. From then she's slept with us, and she's happy and thriving.

So our "rough" time is in the mail. We will try Dr Sears' methods, and make it gradual. However she is quite independent, once she reaches a certain level of development - for instance she used to want to be carried all the time... then one day she started crying for no reason we could see, and once we'd eliminated the usual suspects, BiL put her down on her own, just to rest his arms, and she cheered up immensely. So perhaps she will let us know when she's good and ready to move up. Stranger things have happened.

Bol, our girl still liked to sleep with us at night too! In fact, when we got an unexpected bonus the first thing we did was buy a king size bed so we could all fit in it and still be comfy at night. It was the best purchase ever.

Oh, BoL - you're not alone. We still co-sleep. Full-time for the first 10 months; now however the Dragon starts out in his own bed and stumbles into ours halfway through the night. He definitely slept better right next to me for the first many months (Sears did a small but fascinating study suggesting that infants synchronize their breathing with their mother's) but once his conscious awareness of my nearby breasts grew and grew, it got a lot harder for him to settle and sleep, and all three of us were up all night. Now, when he climbs into bed at 2 in the morning, all of us are back to sleep within a couple minutes.

However, the morning report today was a hair-trigger temper from the Dragon. Of course, I'm assuming it's because we let him cry on his own for as much as three minutes last night. But maybe it's just Super Tuesday anxiety.

I'm so jealous of you co sleepers. That was what we wanted all along, but Sawyer is so active day and night that sleep was just impossible. Rolling, kicking, clawing, he actually pushed me out of bed on a couple occasions. We would typically all wake up every two hours or so for feedings because he just wouldn't quietly take the breast, it had to be a big production. Every morning we would wake up with him sprawled out horizontally while E and I were huddled, barely hanging on to our respective sides of the bed. I got really cranky and we started "sleep training" out of a feeling of desperation for a decent amount of sleep. We still try to bring him into the bed sometimes when he seems extra upset, but he goes right back to his old tricks. At least in his crib he sleeps through the night.

Keith - we didn't co-sleep for about a year because of the kicking, the H-pose, all that. Now we're doing it again b/c the Dragon can understand when we say that he needs to not kick us. You may be able to yet.

I think sleep is a moving target for young kids - at least the ones that struggle with it. You think one thing's working for a while, then it doesn't and you have to try something else and you never know what that might be. In a way it makes sense: They're spending half their hours doing it. They evolve and develop during waking hours; why not at night, too?

We were big swaddlers. Wonder Girl would fall asleep in minutes when we swaddled her up. A swaddle and a binky. It was beautiful.

We did the co-sleeping. DaddyWho worked nights, so it was just me and the baby. Then he went to days, and it was a large man, me, and a toddler who grew to adult-size in her sleep. We're still struggling to keep her in her bed - she's 5 1/2 - and we end up playing musical beds. She doesn't understand why Mommy and Daddy get to sleep together and she has to sleep all by herself. She has a point.

Swaddling worked well for her when she was tiny. It also helped if I lay her down just before she was actually asleep.

Both of my brothers were motion babies and had to be walked to sleep each night. The old style swings were noisy and didn't help them, but our new-fangled ones would probably have worked.

We swaddled Mo until he was two. It was just something that he needed to put him self to sleep. Max not at all. He's a very independent sleeper. Now that they are 5 and 2 we have a set bedtime where they get put to bed, tucked in, and go to sleep. Everynight Max reads himself to sleep. Yay books.

We still co-sleep. We are buying a bigger bed to accomodate the growing toddler so that I don't have to hop back and forth from one bed to the other. I know all of the books say to put them down drowsy...etc. But, Kid A wasn't having any of that when he was a babe. Now that I am working all day, I rather enjoy reading to him and snuggling and talking with him while he drifts off.

WG now sleeps in a twin-size bed, so we go through phases when we snuggle next to her while she falls asleep. She also now has a little light that she can turn on and off, so she can play for a little while. Last night she actually turned the light off and got under the covers to fall asleep on her own. I was very impressed.

As a baby, she only slept in our room for one night. Nobody enjoyed it. The next night she was in her crib across the hall and everyone was happy.

the babezor will be a year old next week. unfortunately, when we put her in the crib (if she isn't totally zonked), she pretty much stands herself up, and will cry until we give in, so that hasn't been an option.

co-sleeping seems to help a little when she is already close to being asleep. she has started to bond with a little stuffed fox named "boots" - perhaps having her cuddle with him before bedtime will help

I know that it's easier said than done but when she cries rather than ignore her and let her cry it out. Give her a minute but don't let her get hysterical then go and comfort her with words. Don't pick her up but instead explain in soothing tones that she needs to go to bed and lay her back down and give her "boots". Then leave again. You might have to do this for a couple of times.

Don't forget that a cuddle before bedtime is ok but don't rely on cuddling her til she's asleep. We made that problem with Mo and it took a long time to get him to put himself to sleep.

I think that starting healthy sleeping habits early is important especially as kids start to become more independent.

I agree on the boots thing. I sort of consciously enforced a "blanky" with WG, and now that's a major part of her bedtime. The smell of it is of paramount importance.... it's always a trauma when it gets washed.

That being said, the sleeping ritual has changed again and again. Just when something seems to be established, she goes and switches it around on us. We went through a tough period between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2. I would get her all soothed in the rocking chair, and then she'd psyche herself up again when I put her in the crib. She figured out how to climb out, and it got so she could do it faster than I could get out of the rocking chair. This pattern didn't stop until we got her a bed.

I'm not telling you this to give you concrete recommendations, but to reassure you that, like everything else in parenting, this too shall pass. I realized at some point that I could either be upset and freaked out for hours while WG didn't go to sleep, or I could be relaxed during those hours. Either way, she was ending up asleep at the same time.

We co-slept until my daughter was 5 mo. old. And at that point we were all up every 1.5 hours and starting to feel like we were going insane. Someone recommended that we read Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Happy. (Alan and Kathy maybe...). I know not every book works for everybody...but this book was the end of our search. Within a week our daughter was sleeping in her room. We eventually had to cut out night nursing because it seemed to be a "sleep crutch". And we definitely have become very dedicated to our bedtime ritual...bypassing social opportunities to guarantee that she is in bed at the same time every night. We still use a monitor and get up 0-3 times a night with her (she is 17 mo. old), but we all feel much more rested. And we are getting more and more sleep.

We also are big believers in not making it a super quiet environment at nap or bed time. They get used to sleeping through noise and you don't have to watch all your movies with subtitles on.

Good Luck!