 Jennifer came to me for life coaching to see if she was ready to embark on becoming a single mother by choice. She had her financial ducks in a row, and family support lined up. Her mother had even offered to provide childcare for the first year of the child’s life.
But Jennifer couldn’t help but wonder if she had tried hard enough to find “the one.” She had always imagined having a child with a partner. Would she regret doing it alone? Would single motherhood be too much for her to handle? This was a familiar theme for me because I went to therapy 14 years ago to make sure I, too, wasn’t making a mistake in choosing to pursue single motherhood. I spent six months trekking to lower Manhattan, always feeling vaguely dissatisfied and like my therapist spent too much our sessions talking when I mostly wanted him to listen. Jennifer and I started out talking about all the reasons Jennifer wanted a child, and why she wanted one now. As she shared her thoughts, her face lit up and her body became animated. Jennifer and I finished just one session together with her feeling confident and ready to embark on fertility treatments. She didn’t need to hear my advice. She needed to figure out how to trust her own wisdom. Through our conversation, she also came up with a plan for how to handle possible fear or regret that could arise in the future. One of the things I love about coaching is that we can make progress very, very quickly. Many times, a client needs only one session, like Jennifer, to make a big decision or process a traumatic event. She didn’t need to tell me about her childhood, or her relationship with her parents. We were able to just dive into the issue and in her case, find her answer in just one hour: yes, she wanted to move ahead with [single] motherhood. If you are struggling to make a big decision, I invite you to book a free30-minute life coaching consultation call to find out more about how life coaching can help you make your decision with confidence. PS I made the decision to move ahead and become a single mother by choice 14 years ago and I’ve never once regretted it. I do occasionally regret spending six months questioning my own judgment, though!  Working with so many clients in New York City where sharing bedrooms is a requirement, I get a lot of questions about when and how to move siblings into the same bedroom.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to room share (parent and newborn) for at least 6 months to decrease the risk of SIDS. When considering moving your baby into the room of your older child, probably your first and biggest concern is if they will wake each other up. The good news is that older siblings typically sleep through their baby siblings’ crying, or can learn to. Make sure to tell your older child ahead of time that the baby might cry at night sometimes but Big Sibling doesn’t need to worry about it and can keep on sleeping. With reassurance, chlidren that wake up with the crying can sometimes learn to sleep through it. If your baby is still waking up multiple times per night to feed, I suggest sleep training before room sharing with the big sibling. You might still have one feeding per night, or none, but multiple feedings is just too disruptive. In order to sleep train, you have a couple of options. I typically suggest moving the baby into the children’s move and having the older child temporarily sleep in your room with you, on the floor and not in your bed. You don’t want your older child to get used to sleeping with you and have to sleep train them, too! The reason I recommend this is that then you are able to sleep train the baby in the same environment where you intend for them to sleep for the long term. If you sleep train your baby in your room, you will have another transition to weather, moving the baby to their new room. Also, many parents have a full size crib for the baby in the children’s room but not in the parental bedroom for reasons of space. Again, it’s best to sleep train in the actual conditions where you plan for the baby to sleep. If for some reason you can’t sleep train in the children’s room, then I suggest you sleep train in the parental bedroom, in a full sized crib if possible, otherwise in whatever sleep space you have been using (Snoo, bassinet, pack n play, mini crib). If your baby is rolling, they should not be in a bassinet any longer. I also suggest that one or both parents move out of the bedroom while sleep training, as being able to hear one’s parents moving and breathing often causes night wakings. Most parents in this situation choose to sleep in the living room. This is especially recommended for the breastfeeding parent, if there is one. If your baby is still in your room at night but could nap in the children’s bedroom during the day, do that. That’s another opportunity for the baby to get used to the new sleep space. Once your baby is sleep trained, you’ll need to bite the bullet and move the children into the same room together. Remember to reassure your older child multiple times ahead of time of what to expect. I suggest you tell your older child, “Baby is learning to be a great sleeper just like you! So if you hear Baby crying at night, just keep on sleeping so Baby can learn what to do.” Big siblings love to be role models! After the first few days, you’ll want to stop playing Bedtime Whack A Mole. You won’t be able to prevent either child from crying or waking the other. And you do want to be permanently poised to run into the bedroom at a moment’s notice, because that’s not good for your sleep. At some point, you’ll have to let them cry (or play or talk) and figure out how to go back to sleep on their own. This may happen immediately, or it may take some time. But it’s a necessary part of the process. It’s normal to be nervous about this part! If you’d like some support in moving your kids in together, or with another sleep challenge, set up a free consult and let’s get your family the rest you deserve in two weeks or less, guaranteed.  “Hi Abby- hope you’ve been well! Wanted to reach out because there’s something we were looking into and didn't see it in on your blog. Rory is 18 months now and still doing two naps because that’s still what they’re doing at daycare, but lately he’s been fighting bedtime, stalling, taking awhile to fall asleep during naps, or crying when we leave him in his crib at night to go to sleep.”
Most toddlers move to one nap a day between 15-18 months old, with a few little ones transitioning as early as 12 months or as late as 21 months old. In the case of this little guy, I suspect the issue is that he no longer really needed two naps a day. It’s unusual to see a toddler continue to take two naps a day when they really only need one. In most cases, they simply stop taking one nap, usually the afternoon nap, so then they are awake from the end of the first nap until bedtime. This leads to crankiness and overtiredness at bedtime. For this child, instead, he was getting too much daytime sleep, which was making nighttime sleep more difficult. When there is an afternoon nap refusal, I suggest moving the first nap later by 15 minutes every day until a single nap time is happening at around noon. During the transition, you can continue to do an afternoon rest time, moving it progressively later as the morning nap moves later, but don’t be surprised if your little one doesn’t sleep during the second nap. That’s fine. Some quiet time in the crib is still restful. Plan for a very early bedtime during the transition. If your toddler tends to skip the morning nap rather than the afternoon nap, this is an easier situation to remedy. Simply skip the morning nap – as your chld is already doing on their own – and move naptime earlier, to 12 pm. It’s important not to do it at 1 pm or later because that is a very long time awake for a young toddler. However, in the case of this toddler, naptime was only available at 9 am and 1 pm at daycare. So I advised the parent to do nap at 1 pm at daycare and at 12 pm at home on weekends. As he gets older, a 1 pm naptime will get progressively easier. Even now, 1 pm is better than 9 am and 1 pm. Hopefully that will make bedtime a lot easier! PS If your little one is struggling with nap transitions, you are not alone. Schedule a free consult so we can discuss how to get sleep back on track and make life a lot happier for the whole family. |
AuthorAbby Wolfson is a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified child sleep consultant and certified life coach for parents. She divides her time between Brooklyn, NY and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Archives
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