as the days get shorter, the babies want to go to bed earlier

[malakoa]

so how does this work in your family?

we've gone from the sun going down at 9 to around 7. Small, therefore, is interested in bed at 6:30 or so. She nurses to sleep, then wakes up every ten or fifteen minutes or so, sees that i'm not there and cries in exhaustion and loneliness. so i nurse her, or if daddy is here he sings to her. then she wakes again.

look, ladies, you understand, i can't go to bed at 7 at night. 8:30 was bad enough! advice?

[~yogamom~]

no advice, just

I am going through the same thing. DD needs to go to sleep at 6:20, but won't sleep for very long without me. But I am not going to bed at 6:20. So...she's exhausted all day, I feel like the world's worst mother and I am just praying for a miracle (yeah, probably not the most pro-active solution...).

last winter I just held my ds and watched tv in the recliner

[MarynMunchkins]

Can you sneak away if you lay a pillow beside her? That's what we did last winter - when I actually didn't fall asleep too.

I think if you just keep trying to get up when they're asleep and respond when they need you, they'll gradually become more comfortable with the idea of sometimes sleeping without Mommy. I think you have to just work on it. Don't give up (except for a time, if you're just exhausted from the effort) and resign yourself to going to sleep with them. Reinforce that there's nothing to worry about, because you'll be there in a heartbeat when they wake up, but get them used to experiencing your absence. Just keep going back and forth and consider it a *project* with a goal in mind - rather than a reasonable way to exist indefinitely

My dd still nurses at night (22 months old) but she has ever-so-gradually gone from her first wake-up around 30 minutes after being put down, to 1-2 hours, to, presently, 4-6 hours or so before she first wakes up enough to need me to nurse her bacl. It seems to me that simply being used to being asleep by herself in the bed, is what helps her sleep longer stretches.

I'm *no* veteran, as this is my first, and she's not yet night-weaned. My dd spends the whole night in our bed, so nursing her back is not a usually a big production.

Take heart. Things WILL get better. It might take a little bit of time, but less than you probably imagine

Our answer to this is to stay downstairs watching a quiet tv show, and nurse her to sleep on the couch, then carry her up when I AM ready to go to bed ! Most nights though, I can nurse her to sleep -deeeeep sleep, and then pop her off and go downstairs...