Night time waking

[RedHairedGirlie]

DD is 2.5 and for the last 1.5 years has gone to bed in her cot, and now bed and eventually ended up in my bed in the early hours. This is now just part of our nightly routine that I think we have both just got used to. It was one of those things you always planned to nip in the bud, then before you know it 2 months had passed, then a year and so on...!

I really want to try and get her to seelp through the night in her own bed though, mainly so eventually when it gets to the time to have sleep overs, staying with grandparents etc that I won't be stressing about her waking. I have no problem getting her to go to sleep in her own bed. Any advice on how best to tackle this or if anyone has had a similar situation how long did it take to to ger your wee ones staying in their own bed the whole night?

Thanks

[amandagoodman]

hi, my daughter is 2 and we put her in her own "big bed" about 6 months ago, shes fine going into bed but like you she was waking early hours crying to come through, or just coming through to our room.
we ended up putting a gate on her door, and what we do now is when i hear her crying at the gate i just pick her up put her back in bed, i do this a few times before she gets the hint, i dont talk to her or play with her. just straight to bed.
sometimes it dosnt work and either me or my hubby goes in and lies with her for 10 minutes or so and she falls back to sleep.
we had many weeks of no sleep, but now shes is good as gold, dosnt wake up till around 7am. and if she does cry through the night i go in and give her her comfort blanket and she cuddles in and goes back to sleep.
its worth it if you keep at it, i didnt want to start bringing her into our bed, but i know what its like when you are shattered!! but stick at it for a few weeks and its very much worth it.
i guess you got to be a little cruel to be kind.. sometimes at bed time she dosnt want to go down and she crys at the gate while we eat our dinner, but only for 5 minutes then she goes to bed herself probably thinking ( huffff stuff you then mum lol)
i feel for you though, its really frustrating, but remember it wont last forever.

but to answer you question, my daughter took around 5/6 weeks to stop all that x

[MigGril]

Answer is she'll do it when she's ready or you can try what OP suggested. That wasnt' for us though luckly DD did start sleeping through at 2.5years but it's more comman then people realise for preschoolers to wake during the night. around 25% wake every night and another 25% wake some of the time so your not alone by any means.

[RedHairedGirlie]

Thanks for the replies, I think I need to set a date in my head when I'll give it a go and prepare myself for some sleepless nights..;-)