At 18 months old,
your baby is definitely able
to self-settle or self-soothe at this age.
And you may, however,
be stuck in a little bit of a habit of where your toddler
has gotten used to you feeding them to sleep.
Today I'm answering the question.
How do I get my 18 month old to self-settle?
We are currently feeding to sleep.
Hi, I'm Amanda a founder and co-creator
of Little Ones Sleep Programs.
I'm a pediatric sleep specialist
and mother to two darling, little girls.
At Little Ones, we sell comprehensive online sleep
and nutrition programs
from zero through to toddler and pre-school age.
We do this via our custom-built app where we have our
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please make sure you visit www.littleones.co.
Let's talk about your 18 month old.
Your 18 month old is now a toddler.
They are really aware of pretty much everything in their
environment and especially how they go to sleep.
They have been used to,
you feeding them to sleep for
the last 18 months.
So this is well ingrained in their brain
as to this is how they go to sleep.
But this doesn't mean that it is unable to be changed
and gentley work away from feeding to sleep.
As your 18 month old is well aware of their surroundings
in their ability and how they go to sleep.
Things are going to have to be done a little bit slower if
you're working your way towards self-soothing.
And they could definitely be a fair bit of protesting from
your toddler because they are used to
the way that they've been going to sleep,
And now you're trying to change it.
But give your toddler some credit.
They can definitely learn things just like they will have
been probably learning how to walk at this age.
They can definitely learn a new way of going to sleep,
but you're going to want to take things slow.
So first of all,
you probably want to feed your toddler until they're sleepy
and you know, drowsy rather than all the way to sleep
and put them into their cot or their crib,
wherever their sleep environment is.
And then let them,
allow them to actually fall asleep by themselves.
Try not to interject too quickly
if they do start to rouse and not go to sleep.
But if they do,
please, you know, make sure you do pick them up
and feed them until they're drowsy and sleepy again.
But pop them back into their cot.
The aim of this is to ensure that they actually do the last
part of the actual falling asleep
inside their cot by themselves without your help.
Then what the key for this method is to actually gently
allow them to fall asleep more and more by themselves
at every nap and bedtime to be able to eventually
be able to put them into their cot
and actually walk away without
them crying you know,
this is not a, just put them in
the cot and walk away with your baby screaming method.
This is still allowing the hands-on method
of you helping them when they need,
but the key part of letting them
actually fall asleep independently.
I guess the trick with this method is to make sure that in
the first place they are actually tired.
At 18 months old,
if they're on still two naps a day,
I would look at actually dropping that first nap
and ensuring that they are now down to one nap.
And that is key to your success in this method,
because once your baby is actually
down to one nap they are super tired.
They need to go to sleep
for that lunchtime nap
and it will make your ability to teach
them how to self-settle much quicker,
because they are tired.
They aren't able to protest as much
because they need to go to sleep.
So if you're on two naps,
I would drop it down to one nap
and that should help it hugely actually.
And then also if they are on two naps
it could mean that you're second nap
is actually too late in the day,
which will be interrupting your ability
to get your baby to sleep in the evenings.
And they'll be able to protest
because they've just had a lot of sleep through that day.
So cut that nap down to one nap.
Maybe it will be around 11:30,
if they can't get all
the way through to 12 or 12:30 for
the first nap of the day
and work your way towards sort of 12,
12:30 for, that first, long,
big restorative sleep in the middle of the day to get them
right through to a decent bedtime.
So I hope that answers your question as to how you are able
to get your baby into more independent sleeping,
rather than you having to feed your baby to sleep
at every nap and bedtime.
Once you've got your baby sleeping better
and independently you'll find that
overnight things just click into place
because they can wake and rouse.
They have the skills to be able to go back to sleep
independently without you needing to feed them again.
So you'll find that your night time
becomes a lot better as well.
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