Need help with toddler

😂 in your defence, we already had a small double mattress spare and FIL is a joiner so he made the bed to our spec. The ones I’d found online were pretty pricy!!

A mat on the floor next to my bed worked. DD still came to sleep on it but it tapered off. She understood that it was either ‘the mat’ or her own room/bed. Good luck OP

If she is waking during the night then she is likely over tired going to bed.

Do you let her off to sleep by herself when she goes down first? If not she does need to be sleep trained. She can't be expected to self settle in the middle of the night if she can't do it at 7pm and trying to sleep train initially at 2am is definitely not a runner. You need to get 1st bedtime sorted.

First 3 nights stay beside her as normal, no discussion or engagement with her, use a sleep phrase if necessary. 2nd 3 nights move 3ft away from her, 3rd 3 nights stay close to the door, 10th night move outside the room.

Good luck!

Also look at her bedtimes. Split nights are normally down to over tiredness. Try to bring your dd to bed a little earlier and see how it works..

Our situation was and is again very simular to yours but without the consistant waking. We had a 3/4 bed in DD room for sharing if needed when she was younger, or worse case swapping with DH although we always avoided that where possible. She alwaya at about age 3 webt to bed in her bed and Id lie by her reading and she would then nod off. If DD ended up coming into bed with me or me into bed with her. She was always returned to her own bed or me to mine once she nodded back off which was key. That way I wasnt always right there but she was never left to cry and get freaked out and we slept better for thw remaining hours. I suppose as she knew that she was instantly more relaxed, there was never that fear of being left. I can assure you that it does not last forever. DS sleeps happily in his own bed next to me. DH will sleep in the spare room if needed. We just dont make a big deal of it and we all sleep well (if there are no illnesses etc). Again it doesnt last forever.

We have a king bed not a double, concidered an even bigger one but it wasnt worth it and DD just naturally out grew it and slept happily in her own bed as she aged.

What I dont understand is with controlled crying or sleep training how people can gentle and kind parenting and would never let their child cry in distress alone in the day, but then that becomes acceptable at night.

I can remeber crying at night (as Im sure we all can to an extent) when I was young and being ignored or not heard for whatever reason and it was a horible feeling.

I appreciate this wont work for everyone especially if you have 2 children close in age, ours are not so that was never an issue.

Just done this with my 4 year old. It is only us here so at the moment I am just sleeping there all night, but tbh it's me finding it hard to sleep without him 🤣.
(My room is a bit of a dumping ground at the moment, plan is to sort that out when he's at his dad's next and reclaim my own bed with a nicely sorted calm room to sleep in)

Like the pp I also used some of the advice in Elizabeth Pantley’s book No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers too.

My two year old was very similar until recently. I got her a floor bed (only a single) and moved her to her own room.

I followed the advice in Andrea Grace’s Gentle Sleep Solutions for toddlers to support the transition. I guess it was sleep training but at no point did I leave her to cry. I just made it clear that she couldn’t come into my bed but I would lie next to her until she fell asleep instead. Once she realised she wasn’t able to come in she has stopped waking most nights and started sleeping through.

I found the book useful because it’s specifically for toddlers, lots of scenarios and published very recently so less outdated advice.

My DD was like this but we very successfully transitioned her through the following approach- 1) read books to her about being a big kid and having her own room; 2) Got her some bedsheets that aligned with her interests (in this case fish) and talked about how cool they were and how lucky she was to get to sleep in her big girl bed with the cool sheets etc, building up to it for a couple of days before the move. 3) Slept on the floor (on a couple of duvets) for the first night and held her hand if she woke. Spoke lots and lots before sleep about how mummy and daddy would come as soon as she needed us etc. 4) Gradually moved out of the room - on the floor the first night holding her hand, the next few nights in the chair in her room keeping her company, then outside the door.

She took to it much better than we thought, she was definitely ready. We also gave her books and said she could read them if she couldn't sleep but actually she'd always just chat to herself and drop off.

Good luck with it, you can do it.

P.S. we used a book called something like Gentle Sleep Training by Elizabeth Pantley. It was very helpful.

Also faffing around with beds on the floor, you moving in the middle of the night and waking her or just waking yourself up to go to your own room - don't bother with all that.

Sleep train her, get your evenings and normal life back, she and you will get a good and healthy nights sleep.

Please sleep train her. It's best for all of you especially her. I know someone whose child was like this and slept with them till 8!!
Don't bother with moving beds into your room, you're not doing right by her just making the problem worse.

With my older child we did what you did and sleep trainer him at 2.5 out of sheer frustration from being so sleep deprived. This time around, with my 14mo we sleep trained her at 10months and I absolutely regret not doing it with my older child.

@rufioooooo our little one has had her own room for years, she actually loves her new bed and is fine sleeping in it. I've tried talking about what makes her wake up and she doesn't know. It's not needing the toilet or a drink and she does self settle some times during the night. We have a night light on the landing so it's never too dark as she doesn't like that. Sometimes she stirs and when co sleeping her leg searches me out and then hooks over mine. I'm just persevering and trying to still keep my sanity (as both her and I sleep better co sleeping). She is also a child who would just sob and sob if I sleep train, that's not something I can do right now

This. Its what we did, large floor beds. Climb in, climb out. If you don't get to climb out you get more space to sleep comfortably.

@rufioooooo my little girl is not a great sleeper, tried cot bed and floor bed. She sleeps well in our own bed although waking a few times she quickly settles.

I have just stuck her in a double in her own room, slept with her for a few nights and I'm now at the stage of going in and settling the night wakings and then sleep in there when it gets too much. I know she will grow out of it (I have a 20 year old son) she just seems to want/ need human touch at some point in the night. Whenever I talk to her about sleeping in her own bed she responds (at almost 4) that I sleep in bed with daddy, and she doesn't want to be alone!

We have a double floor bed in ds' own room. I lie next to him while he goes to sleep and then get in next to him when he cries in the night. He has had long periods where I don't need to get in at all, then when there's a sleep regression or he's poorly I'm in there more often. But it's much better than I have my own space to go back to

Have you tried putting DC in their own room?

Equally it isn't going to help your DD if she's still having disturbed nights once she starts any form of nursery/schooling long term.

Same with us. Never woke as we were going to bed, it was more later when they stired/turned and instead of dozing back off they could hear us and that was that.

I remember watching through squinted eyes one night, DC woke up, I could see their silhouette turn towards us, looking and listening as though they weren't sure we were there or not but the minute they heard DH snort DC would sit up and not go back until they were lifted our and deposited in our bed...

I did the same.

Except I wasn’t as smart as you so DD had a single floor bed and I either shared with her or slept on the floor.

Small double bed. Why the hell didn’t I think of that???

Try sleep training, yes will be awful at first but should be able to turn it around in 5-7 days at that age

Send older dc for a weekend to a premier inn with gparents or aunties…or a sleepover somewhere they wont be disturbed

Sleep train the 2 yr old