Sleeping when not at home

angeldelight

Our 15 month old is an ok sleeper a lot of the time, she can be truly awful to put to bed when she's in a leap but generally stays asleep all night once she's asleep (again leaps excepted).

However when we're not at home it's awful. She just does not/will not/can not sleep in places other than her own cot at home. She won't come in the bed with us, or fall asleep in buggy or sling. Eg last night we were in a hotel and at 2am we gave up and came home as she was distraught from overtiredness but could not fall asleep.

She tends to sit up and lie down a few times in her own cot and roll around it then fall asleep. She won't lie on a bed with us - she would climb all over us and sob her heart out to get off the bed.

Anybody had a baby who was similar? Did it improve? Any ideas to help? We've a holiday booked for December and already starting to dread it (we were away for a week in May and she didn't like it at all, barely slept)

Ms2011

I feel your pain Angel our 15 month old is the exact same, she will not sleep not even nap anywhere but her cot.
She was sick with Chicken Pox a few weeks ago & I couldn't even bring her into bed with me to comfort her because she had a fit to go into her cot.
I'm always in a hurry to get home for naps or sitting around waiting for her to wake up so I can go out as she she has to be in her cot.
My son was never like this, he could sleep standing on a washing line

Sorry I don't really have an solutions, just sympathy, I'm not to sure what I would do if we were away overnight.
The only thing is she has a blanket she needs to fall asleep, I would just hope that it's familiarity would help her eventually fall asleep.

angeldelight

Thanks for that - it is a help knowing it's not just us! Everyone just says ah you should take her into the bed with you and doesn't seem to believe us when we say she hates it!

Lucuma

Could you buy a cot in the location of your holiday? I take it that it's the travel cots she's not a fan of. Did you put a mattress in the travel cot?

angeldelight

Lucuma wrote: »

Could you buy a cot in the location of your holiday? I take it that it's the travel cots she's not a fan of. Did you put a mattress in the travel cot?

It was actually a cot in the hotel room this weekend and one of the previous times was in my parents house where it was the travel cot she has all her naps in as my dad minds her!

jockeyboard

Bring the travel cot then if she sleeps.in that!!

mirrorwall14

We have our own travel cot, he slept way better in it. I now bring his own pillow and duvet if using a different cot for familiarity. He won't sleep in the bed with us

seamus

Ours was similar. Never slept in the bed with us; never could, she'd be rolling around. Often had difficulty getting her to sleep anywhere but her cot - many, many mornings, afternoons and evenings going on long walks with the buggy trying to get her to nap. There was a period of a few weeks where I had to loop up and down the M50 for 30 minutes to get her sleepy enough to transfer her into her cot.

We had good success with our own travel cot, provided that it was as similar as possible to home; same sheets, blanket, toys, etc. Familiar surroundings and smells.

Swings and roundabouts. At nearly four years of age now she sleeps till 8am most days (it was 9:40 yesterday morning!), whereas everyone else who had "great" sleepers at 18 months now have kids that are bouncing off the walls at 6:30am every day.

Just remember that like everything with an infant that feels like torture; this too will pass

LegacyUser

We have a two year old who was sick at the weekend. I brought her into our bed thinking I could manage her better there. (we also have another tiny). She would not go to sleep. Got quite disturbed at the fact that she wasn't in her cot. Eventually, I had to give up and put her in the cot. She hasn't slept in our bed since she was very small, she just doesn't associate our bed with sleep.

She will sleep about 40 mins in a car if we happen to do a journey at nap time. Otherwise, we just have to be at home with her, for a long nap. The last time we were away was when she was 14 months, and we brought her Grobag, teddies etc. She did sleep but it took a while, which was to be expected really.She won't sleep in buggies any more, hasn't for a long time.

Bring her travel cot on holidays. Most of the airlines will let you. bring it free Bring her teddies, blankets, whatever it takes, and keep her bedtime routine the same as much as you can.

I told someone we know about the "sleeping in our bed" thing at the weekend, and he told me his kid would sleep in theirs no bother - and followed it up by saying he (the kid) has bad habits. You could look at it that way, she's got good habits. It's a pain in the ass for you right now I know, but it could be a lot worse...and I will say that it becomes WAY easier to manage during the day anyway, when they drop to one nap. We just are at home between 12 and 3 and that's it. Surprisingly simple actually.The other thing is that you may just have to accept that you can't go away for a couple of years, with her at least. As she gets more active though, exhaustion will hopefully get the better of her in strange beds.

afkasurfjunkie

We try to replicate our lad's bedroom when we go away. Bring his favourite teddy and his grobag. He has one of those projectors that play music and shine lights on the ceiling for 15minutes every night so we bring that too. I think the music really helps because he associates it with falling asleep.

fall

Very similar to above. Music box, blankets from home and we talk about bed and a big sleep in the run up to bed time.

genie_us

We are kinda in the same position, or at least we were. Now when we go away I bring the actual mattress from his cot and use that in the travel cot and it seemed to do the trick!