Weaning....
I'm in the process of weaning Kaylie from her musical mobile toy thingie that helps put her to sleep, to making her go to sleep on her own, in silence. I used a musical toy for all my daycare children, and it worked wonders in helping them go to sleep on their own. I'm kinda foggy on the age bracket, but I think I weaned them closer to a year old, before another baby would come along.
I've been using the same music method with Kaylie, and it has worked well. One problem--come church time, she doesn't want to settle down as fast, partly due to not being sung to; partly due to not being rocked to sleep anymore. I didn't have to deal with the church issue with my daycare children, so this is a new one for me. Plus, those children were probably in the nursery at their church, whereas we don't do that in our circles. I do wonder sometimes what that would be like, to just leave your child with someone else, in another room, while you got to listen to the entire message preached, or whatever the service may be, without distractions. I have helped out in a Baptist nursery a handful of times for different events, so I've been on that end of the spectrum as a caregiver during a service.
Anyway, so now I'm trying to convince Kaylie she can go to sleep from being wide awake in silence. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, as she's been doing for a while, ever since she's been sick, she'll eat and go back to sleep, no noise needed. But since she's not used to that during the day, and Mommy's limiting how much music she hears anymore, she's decided to make her own noise. When my daycare children were old enough to be without music, and were in another room with others going to sleep, I had a no talking, no noise policy, and it was strictly enforced. Thus, I had no problems putting 5 toddlers to sleep in one room, sometimes three in one big kingsize bed. For right now, though, as long as Kaylie is content, I care not what she does in her bed. How many of you moms have that same thought at times? =]
My questions for you today are this:
How does your child go to sleep? By being rocked, or on his/her own?
Are you the parent who doesn't care if your child talks himself/herself to sleep, or do you insist on the no noise policy, or does your child use music?
posted by Momof3 @ 12/20/2006
2 comments
2 Comments:
At this point our children all have their own rooms so I don't care if they talk or sing themselves to sleep. We actually have cheap CD players in their rooms and have lullaby songs or Scripture CD's going all night and at naptime. We do have problems at church or other environments, but overall, it works well for us!
Hmmm...I'm actually glad I haven't started that as Anna is now going to sleep on her own--most of the time. We use a humidifier for white noise, though, which helps cover other sounds. Anna had been waking up and crying during the middle of naps lately for her pacifier, so I am strictly enforcing a timer policy. When she starts crying, I set the timer for five minutes. At the end of that time, I go check on her to make sure she doesn't need anything and replace the pacifier. If she cries another five minutes, then she goes in her car seat. That usually does the trick. If she really needs to go to sleep, she will often quit crying before the timer goes off. She stopped waking up at night, too, and wanting her pacifier once she learned that Mom wasn't going to replace it as soon as she started crying. I guess she wakes up and goes right back to sleep, because last night I didn't hear a thing out of her till 6:30 a.m. I felt like a mean mom at the time, but she is much happier now!
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