Nearly 2 and still not sleeping through.

[hisgirlfriday]

Any ideas please?

DD is nearly 2 and has never slept through. She wakes usually once, possibly twice a night, standing up in her cot. She settles almost straight away if I go in and tell her to lie down and go to sleep, if I don't go in she cries and yells and gets very worked up. Usually its easier just to go in and settle her cos I know I'm going to be back in bed asleep in 2 minutes, rather than try controlled crying. Its as though she can't get to sleep by herself without me telling her to, or that she's waking up for reassurance, but she's nearly 2 now so its not just a phase. She doesnt have a dummy but her special teddy that she sleeps with.

Does anyone have any ideas? Its like she's never learned to settle herself in the night, yet she manages bedtime and naptimes fine she goes down fine.

Does anyone have any ideas? How can I teach her to re-settle herself in the night?

[chestnutblue]

Hi hisgirl

I did the Gina Ford routines and they worked wonders. Good luck

[sunburntats]

dont end up like me with a child of nearly 4 still waking up 3/4/5 times a night and tearing my hair out.
Have a little google of Gina Ford, see if she can answer any of your questions, i wish that i had shopped around and asked around sooner.

[hisgirlfriday]

thanks both. I tried not going in a ccouple of weeks ago but she worked herself up into a real frenzy for nearly 30 mins before falling asleep, then woke crying every 45 minutes for the rest of the night. Worst night sleep ever!
Will have a look at gina at see what she has to say. Avoided her when dd was a baby cos Im not a very organised person but I NEED TO SLEEP!!

[hisgirlfriday]

SUnburbtats - can I ask if Gina worked for you, or are you still getting up every night?

[sunburntats]

no, nothing worked, he is 6 now but only slept through when he was about a month off 4. Even health visitor gave up on us.
I was a walking corpes.
Sleeps ok now, up maybe once a week with him.
He had croup regularly and colic, and just didnt sleep, didnt sleep in the day either very often.
I think it was jsut one of those things.

good luck xx

[hisgirlfriday]

Hi chestnut,
Interested to know if you did the routines from the beginning or did you start them cos you had problems?

DD has a very good bath/story/milk bed routine, and is fine for the next 7 hours or so, it is just the night waking I need to fix!

[MrsBadger]

dd was just the same at that age and in the past 6m has gradually been getting better without me doing anything new - sometimes she wakes up and I have to go in, sometimes I hear her squeak and resettle herself, and sometimes she just sleeps through.

Like you I just can't leave her to cry - I am of the opinion that she will be more secure, and hence more likely to self-settle, if she knows that someone will always come when she really calls.

[hisgirlfriday]

thats good to hear mrsbadger. Did your dd consistently not sleep through before then, or was the night waking just a phase she went through?

I'm am torn about the leaving her to cry thing. My overwhelming instict is that babies need people and its totally unrealistic to expect them to sleep through in a room on their own for 12 hours.

However, baby is now a toddler with a bit more comprehension of what is expected of her and the rest of my life is starting to suffer so I really need to do something.

[Iloveautumn]

My ds only now sleeps through and he is 3.5 - and sometimes he still wants someone to go in to him.

In our experience (because we didn't want to get into any kind of controlled crying or refusing to go to him) it resolved itself once he was able to respond properly to bribes! Ie, he knows he gets a kinder egg after a week of not coming in to us....

Personally I think you have to make a decision as to whether you'll just let her sort herself out and accept at 2 she wants/needs her mum in the night... or you get tough. My friend just put a stair-gate on and refused to respond. Personally we couldn't do that but it did mean it took a lot longer for ds to get there...

[ShowOfHands]

My dd is 2.6 and has never slept through. I don't mind though. She's still little, she does self settle and will do but once or twice in the night she wants a cuddle with her Mum or Dad.

She is getting better and better and wakes less as time goes on. I could never leave her to cry either so just accepted that this is the way it will be. And as all she wants is a quick cuddle, she goes straight back to sleep.

I think whatever you do you have to be consistent and perhaps allow for the fact that some children do wake more in the night. If she responds to you just nipping in there then that's probably quite a positive thing. If you're back in your own bed within 2 minutes, is it so difficult? Genuine question. Only you know if you need to change it.

[MrsBadger]

no, she hasn't slept through reliably since about 6wks, so it's an ongoing dd thing, not a sudden phase of night waking.

tbh popping in for a 2min resettle is so much easier than the hour-long night feeds she was demanding this time last year that although I am still tired I am nowhere near as tired, despite being 6m pg.

To her credit despite not being in a cot she doesn't come in to us, which I admit I would find really hard - she just sits up in bed and calls for mummy till I go in, at which point, like your dd, she generally lies straight back down.

I sometimes think she's checking we (and the real world) still exist after she's had a dream - sometimes she wakes up really distressed and asks me repeatedly (eg) 'It's ok for squirrels, isn't it mummy? Isn't it? Ok for squirrels?' to which I have to say reassuringly 'Yes poppet, it's ok for squirrels, yes it is, now back to sleep'

If I didn't go in I hate to think how worked up she could get, and what would I gain, lying awake and rigid in the next room listening to her howl, when all she wants to know is that it';s ok for squirrels?

I do fantasise about being able to do it over a baby monitor without getting out of bed though...

[hisgirlfriday]

about the squirrels, thats really sweet!

I got into the habit of going to her straight away when she called in the night so that I could just nip out, settle her and back in without her starting to cry loudly and waking DH. So now I sleep with one ear open constantly on alert ready to leap out of bed, but I guess thats just a mother thing!

Even if I did leave her and she settled herself, I wonder if she could get back under her quilt? She doesnt seem to be able to do this yet and I would be lying awake wondering if she was freezing cold!

I am going to have a read of the Gina site and see if it worth a go or too traumatic!

[chestnutblue]

Hi hisgirl

I did Gina from the beginning but my sister had very similar situation to you and started gina-ing from around 2. Her dd slept through very quickly after that.

[chestnutblue]

Me again. Just to say I have kept my 3yo ds in a sleep bag because I thought he would wake up cold in the night. He's in a full size single bed but is still in a huge sleepbag! with a sheet folded length-ways and tucked in to the sides of the bed to pin him in... and that seems to have skirted that issue.

[hisgirlfriday]

I tried the tactic last night of not leaving her to cry but not speaking when I went in. Can't say it worked any better/worse than any other night.

It actually seemed a bit silly cos instead of telling her to lie down and then tucking her in, I had to sort of wrestle her into a lying position in silence!

Anyway, its only day 1 so will see how it goes!

[hisgirlfriday]

Hi all,

Just for anyone following this thread for their own DC.
The not speaking thing seems to be working in a small way - last night she woke at 10.30pm (we were going to bed so may hve disturbed her), then she went through till 5.30, which is more hours unbroken sleep than I've had in a while.
Unfortunatly, DH forgot about being strict and brought her into our bed at 5.30 to see if she'd have another hour so we may be back to square one tonight!

I read the Gina sleep book but it all seemed to relate to toddlers waking in the night for a feed/nightmare so I coudlnt really relate to any of the case studies.

[chestnutblue]

Hi I'm glad things are getting better. You just need to get your dp on board! Is it The Complete Sleep Guide for Contented Babies and Toddlers by Gina Ford that you've been looking at? I seem to remember that was the one my sister used.

[roadybar]

Hi,

I too have a 2 year old who has never slept through the night (and never reliably slept in the day either!). He is in a bed now and gets up 2-3 times a night and then wakes at 5 (doesn't sleep during the day at all, goes to bed at 7 if we're lucky). Can just about manage the early start but lack of sleep is seriously affecting my abilty to function (and turns me into a horrible grumpy mum as well). Advice I have ben given is:

put stair gate over door so they can't get out (only applies if they're in bed of course and not something I'm keen on - think he would just stand there and cry)

give a warning and then 3rd time they wake up/come into your room give them a "light smack" (read it in very well known book by paediatrician) - again, smacking not for me personally but there have been times at 2am its looked inviting....

hold the door so they can't get out and say "back to bed" - tried this once and he got hysterical (as I probably would in his position)

so haven't found any solution - repetitive replacement just does not seem to work with him. Hope you have better luck with some strategies!! (controlled crying worked for us when he was still in a cot).

Good luck!

[hisgirlfriday]

Thanks for the replies. The gina book was (goes to look....) the complete sleep guide for contented babies and toddlers. I also tried ' Healthy sleep habits, happy child' which I just thought was horrendous. It was just full of statistics and incredibly long sentences. Not very user friendly for a sleep deprived brain, I ended up throwing it across the room in disgust!

DD has a virus/temperature/rash thing so am holding off the tactics untill she gets a bit better. She woke at 2 with a temperature the other night so I am not confident abotu not going in until she's better.

Roadybar, hope things get better for you. I think some babies just arent good sleepers in the same way as some are slow walkers, talkers, etc etc.

[Pam270774]

Hi,

I've not posted in the forum before but read it quite a lot so hello all...

I have a 21 month old son who has never been a great sleeper and am 6 months pregnant at the moment. We've had spells of maybe 4 weeks or so where I'll only be up once or twice with him during the night (quick cuddle, plug him with the dummy then back to bed) and very occasionally he'll sleep right through. When he was 9 -12 months it was absolutely horrendous and I could be up every 45 minutes during the night. My partner point blank refused to try controlled crying even though my health visitor swore by it and the few times that I managed to try it when Daddy wasn't about I could see it starting to work. Tbh though I was never completely happy with it myself so we then tried the "pat and soothe" method where I basically stayed with him and tried to settle him in his cot. Up until a fortnight ago that was working really well and I was even able to put him down when still awake but sleepy and he'd nod off on his own. However he's had the cold a few times and then changed nurseries about 5 weeks ago and is finding it difficult to settle at night again. The last two nights have been terrible and I was about 5 minutes away from doing my partner in as he just doesn't see where I'm coming from. Both Saturday and Sunday night DS screamed hysterically for about 45 mins whilst I tried to settle him, then Daddy came bursting through the door as though he was on a bloody early morning drug raid and proceeded to take our son into bed with him and watch Postman Pat DVD's until 10.30 when DS decided to fall asleep. I was coping fine and not losing the rag but he cannot bear to hear our son cry and will basically do anything to stop it. I'm actually considering booking into a hotel tonight and just leaving him to deal with it but I know that isn't fair on our son. Sorry for the mad rant. I don't even know what point I'm trying to make here as I know that left on my own to deal with this I'd have DS back into a routine in 4 or 5 nights. But what do you do when you're partner is the bloody problem and can't see the beyond tonight or tomorrow night. What about when the new baby is here at the end of Feb ? Is he going to have the two of them in bed watching Postman Pat ?

[hisgirlfriday]

Poor you pam, that sounds really tough,and very frustrating. I am finding the lack of sleep hard, it must be a thousand times worse pregnant.

Could you say that you've taken DS to the docs and CC is what the dr recommended?
Or get DH to sleep in the spare room with earplugs so he doesnt get traumatised.

Theres no point booking into a hotel - by the sound of it all that will happen is DH and DS will be snuggled up in bed watching DVDs and then DS will expect that every night. Maybe DH is the one that needs to go to the hotel.

Best of luck! Things are exactly the same here. We had a night poorly with a temperature which has turned into a chesty cough, and are off to stay with friends for a couple of days so will have to start afresh next week.