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13 month old waking and crying?
My 13 month old son is a fabulous sleeper. He sleeps generally 11 hours per night with two one hour naps in the daytime. He has been able to put himself to sleep for a long time; never really had to let him "cry it out", he would whimper a bit in his crib when younger but fell asleep rather quickly.
My question is, on the rare occasions he wakes crying in the night, what is an appropriate amount of time before we go to check on him? If I wait 5 minutes he more often than not will fall asleep again. But then I am left laying there guilty and worrying that he woke up scared/feverish/had a nightmare/was thirsty, needed his Mommy, etc. The issue arises however, that if I do go in to make sure everything is ok, he wakes up more, thinks it's time to get up and play, and when I tell him it's still "night-night" time he begins to wail uncontrollably when I leave and then won't go back to sleep. This issue has really only happened when he wakes up too early in the morning (ie an hour or two before we have to get up) so at that point I just get him up and give him breakfast.
Is it cruel or harmful to let a one year old cry for 5-10 minutes when they wake in the night? Longer? Shorter?
Curious how all of you handle it.
Thanks!
3 Answers
- 8 years agoFavorite Answer
At that age I gave it 10 minutes of continuous crying before I went & checked. Then I would go in & pat but not pick up. If baby makes a scene just say you love him & tell him to get some rest then add an additional 5 min so go back in after 15 minutes. If you don't feel comfortable with those times then you can start at 5 min & add 5 min to each interval. Go in at 5 min, go back in 10 & so on. We never had to go longer than 30 min & that was rare.
However, is your child going through separation anxiety? When my daughter went through that I had to cuddle her a bit more. Use your instincts & adjust accordingly.
- xKLv 78 years ago
Nope, it's perfectly fine. You know your baby's cry by now, so if it was something dire and serious, you'd know. He needs to learn to self-soothe and put himself back to sleep, and you can't intervene for him to do that. Some people check at 5 minute intervals. Others wait longer. Since it's pretty rare, it's hard to say what would work best. You know what doesn't work though.
- 8 years ago
Cruel or harmful? NO. Teaching him that he can manipulate you into whatever he wants for the rest of his life could be cruel and harmful to YOU though. I suggest you teach him to have a life, so you'll be able to have one again someday, too.
