Anybody with a toddler not sleeping through the night?

[aley28]

My son started sleeping through the night at like 5 or 6 months old and pretty much only woke up if he wasn't feeling well.

Suddenly, about a month ago, he stopped sleeping through the night. I was spending hours in his room every night coaxing him back to sleep.

Well, as I'm getting closer and closer to the end of the pregnancy, I'm starting to fret how this is going to work out. I sit in his room with him to get him to go to sleep, but that shouldn't be a problem. That takes 30 minutes at the most, and I figure I can just bring the baby in with us and feed him while DS1 gets comfortable and dozes off.

But nights like last night, he woke up at 4am and I was in there for an hour trying to get him back to sleep. Twice I tried to sneak out and he wasn't as asleep as I thought he was, because he called me back in. I don't know how I'm going to manage that with a baby. My 4am self this morning had convinced me that I'm going to be awake most of the night every night between the baby and the toddler.

Anybody else in this position? What is your plan of attack?

 

[gills8752]

Yup! Me! My toddler wont sleep all night in her bed so she walks through into our room and crawls in with us. I don't really intend of doing anything and will just see what happens once baby is here. I'd rather get sleep with her in my bed than sit in her room all night with her screaming at me. I quite like herr in my bed! Lol

 

[diz]

Me too.

Ive had to take to going in, settling him, telling him i will tickle his back for one minuet before i go back to bed, and then doing just that. He does cry and its really sad but i have tried everything else.

The only other things that work is me climbing into his cot bed and cuddling him to sleep, then climbing back out again, or hanging over his cot bed for the best part of 45 mins to an hour trying to settle him back to sleep then sneaking out of his room whilst praying that i don't stand on one of the 4 squeaky floor boards.

Its a nightmare.

Since I've been doing this the night wakings have become less frequent and the period that he is awake for crying and calling for me has reduced, but occasionally we do have set backs... like last night when he kept crying then falling sleep, then waking up crying harder then the last time and falling asleep, then waking and screaming. My OH brought him into bed with us with is fine for all of 20 mins and then he plays up.

Tonight will be bad again. He will most probably wake up in the night and it will be a pain to settle him as he will want to come into bed with us. It's alway a rough night that precedes those when we gave in to his demands.

 

[ProudMum]

yup... Mine slept thru the night for about a month at 4 months... after that its been waking every hr all thru the night for 12 months.

makes me cry sometimes because im so tired

 

[Celesse]

DD is having a lot of issues with sleeping. We are ending up co-sleeping 2-3 times a week atm and when she is in with us she is having a few night feeds. I used to just sleep when I was feeding her but now I get very uncomfortable and start getting BH's when feeding.

 

[mum2b2009]

congrats

 

[ProudMum]

DD is having a lot of issues with sleeping. We are ending up co-sleeping 2-3 times a week atm and when she is in with us she is having a few night feeds. I used to just sleep when I was feeding her but now I get very uncomfortable and start getting BH's when feeding.

My boys Feed starts at about half 4 in the morning... It's really getting me down!
I'm co sleeping too but he still doesn't wanna sleep and is tossing and turning, whining and crying every hour! I just don't get it at all! My eldest from 8 months was in bed by half 7 and up at half 8 the next morning! Those were the days!

Not sure what's gone wrong with my soon to be, middle boy!

 

[AimeeM]

Nathan wakes through the night and always has. I am pretty much used to it but it is really tiring. He is 20 months old now so hopefully he will start sleeping through soon but im not counting on it!

I have the cot next to the bed and when he wakes up crying I hold his hand through the bars which usually settles him but ut still takes him a while to fall back asleep. I refuse to put him in my bed now as its too cramped and it will set us back to not being able to get him in his cot at all.

 

[ProudMum]

I keep telling myself, one good thing about this is that my body has never really gone back to a full nights sleep so the night feeds when baby 3 arrives will be a doddle as Im up every hour anyway with the middle boy....

 

[Twinkles]

We have also just come through a rough patch with our son waking through the night and wanting to get in our bed. Initially we were letting him crawl in with us but as i got bigger and more uncomfortable it just wasnt an option anymore.

Im an absolute softie and im afraid of the dark so it kills me to leave him crying. I started off by telling him in the day time what i wanted from him, "mommy wants you to sleep in your own bed tonight ok sweetheart" etc and then when he woke up in the middle of the night instead of letting him in our bed i would sit with him and say im only staying for a little bit sweetheart but i will be back to check on you in 5 minutes, he protested but after reassuring him that i would definitely be back he would let me go, then i would go back into my room and lay there for about 3 minutes and then go back so he could see i would keep my word and he could trust me, if he was still awake then i would sit with him a few minutes and then tell him again i would be back in 5 minutes and so on until he went off to sleep. It worked really well for us and after 2 nights of hard going we cracked it.

It was really hard though because he would say hold my hand please mommy, stay with me and hold onto me for dear life and i could see how tired he was but he was insecure about something which tore my heart apart but i think the trick was to just get him to let me go out the room without getting distressed and trust that if he needed me i would be there like a flash. Sometimes i would just say that i needed to go make a wee wee and that i would be back after that, anything to just get out the room without there being a fuss and it was usually ok once i had managed that.

So thats what we did and he is now one happily sleeping boy again, thank god!! Good luck! Its really hard and i hope you figure out the thing that works for you.

 

[aley28]

Thanks ladies. At least I know I'm not the only one.

When I put Ethan to bed, we go into his room, turn out his lights, and then stand and look at his fish tank for a while. It has bubbles and a blue 'night light', and watching the fish swim around in there seems to relax him pretty quickly. I can only hold him for about five minutes at a time, so after that, I set him in his bed and climb into the foot of his bed after tucking him in. He mostly just lays there and talks after that, and is usually asleep within half hour of entering his room. Its not so bad.

But then between 3 and 5, most nights, he wakes up and is calling for me. By the time I get to his room, he has his light on and is standing at the door crying. At first he would scream and tantrum for a long time during the night because he wanted to go out and watch TV, but after a few nights of realizing that that wasn't going to happen, he's slowly been settling into just repeating his bed time routine, except that it takes longer for him to settle back into sleep, and we have the repeat the entire routine over again if I leave when he's not all the way asleep.

I'm just getting really concerned that I'll be up every 2 hours to feed the baby and then just when I think I can crawl back into bed, DS1 will start calling for me, and I'll be up with him for an hour, then try to go back to bed just as the baby is waking up for another feed, giving me a whopping 3-4 hours of sleep per night or something. I don't function well with that little of sleep, and there's no point in getting my DH to put DS1 to bed, as DH works nights half the time... plus he's not very patient and just ends up losing his temper, which is going to result in less sleep for EVERYBODY.

This is probably one of those bridges we'll just have to cross when we get to it. I'm thinking I'll probably have to dig up the travel cot and set that up in Ethan's room and just bring the baby in with me when Ethan wakes up. Then the baby can sleep in the travel cot while I get Ethan back to sleep and I won't have to rush from the room to get the baby if he wakes up for a feed while I'm getting Ethan back to sleep.

I'm tired just thinking about it.

 

[aley28]

We have also just come through a rough patch with our son waking through the night and wanting to get in our bed. Initially we were letting him crawl in with us but as i got bigger and more uncomfortable it just wasnt an option anymore.

Im an absolute softie and im afraid of the dark so it kills me to leave him crying. I started off by telling him in the day time what i wanted from him, "mommy wants you to sleep in your own bed tonight ok sweetheart" etc and then when he woke up in the middle of the night instead of letting him in our bed i would sit with him and say im only staying for a little bit sweetheart but i will be back to check on you in 5 minutes, he protested but after reassuring him that i would definitely be back he would let me go, then i would go back into my room and lay there for about 3 minutes and then go back so he could see i would keep my word and he could trust me, if he was still awake then i would sit with him a few minutes and then tell him again i would be back in 5 minutes and so on until he went off to sleep. It worked really well for us and after 2 nights of hard going we cracked it.

It was really hard though because he would say hold my hand please mommy, stay with me and hold onto me for dear life and i could see how tired he was but he was insecure about something which tore my heart apart but i think the trick was to just get him to let me go out the room without getting distressed and trust that if he needed me i would be there like a flash. Sometimes i would just say that i needed to go make a wee wee and that i would be back after that, anything to just get out the room without there being a fuss and it was usually ok once i had managed that.

So thats what we did and he is now one happily sleeping boy again, thank god!! Good luck! Its really hard and i hope you figure out the thing that works for you.

Oohhhh... I think I'll start giving this a try. Thank you so much!

 

[Twinkles]

You're welcome hun, i feel your pain and i truly hope it works for you. I also felt desperate to get the situation sorted out before the new baby arrived. Keep me posted xxx

 

[babynotoo]

Oh me too!!!!!

My DS has always slept since 3 months old, then when he turned 2 years 7 months we started having the sleepless nights.

It would take, no word of a lie, between 10 and 30 attempts to get him to bed, then during the night he would wake anything between 3-6 times or every 1hr 30 mins to 2 hours. This could involve coming into our room or screaming for me or just standing in the hallway crying. This went on for 8-9 weeks, during that time I was on the phone to a Health Visitor for advice and also a Sleep lady. All the advice they gave we were already doing.

During all this my pregnancy was progressing, my hubby was working away and I was working full time and I was surviving on literally 3-4 hours sleep a night. Not good!!

I contacted our Doctor and he prescribed him a sedative. He thinks his body clock is completely out of sinc. He is now sleeping better, not a struggle to get him to bed and now wakes maybe once or twice a night which is so much better. Going to start weaning him off of the sedative soon to see what happens.

Really need to nip this in the bud before baby no 2 comes otherwise my life could be very interesting floating on fresh air!!