DD - has slept brilliant all her life, turns 3, all goes to shit

[PaulHollywoodsSexGut]

Morning

Just wondering if anyone has had a baby who was an A1 sleeper and as a toddler has lost the skill?

DD is 3y4mo and her sleep is getting worse. Granted she has a cough but the night wakes now average two with an hour to settle each time, other night she woke every 45min.

She shares with DS who’s 20mo younger, he manages to sleep through all the commotion mostly.

She’s been tip top until last few weeks. Routine is

Tea at 5:30
Bath at 6
Bedtime milk and CBeebies at 6:30
Bed at 7 with story
Lights out 7:15

Now instead of waking the next morning at 6 it’s

Wake at midnight, 3, and 4:30. Up for the day 5:45 screaming the rest of the house awake.

She is also a touch off her food atm but we try and see she eats enough in the day; hard at home but works at nursery.

Anyone else had this? Just wonder if we will ever get another undisturbed night again like we used to

I would try cutting out television before bed. It's something to do with the light it emits that's been shown to disrupt sleep.
She'll be relaxed after her bath so would go straight to pjs, bed, story, lights out. Might make no difference but worth a try?
Also is she nappy still at night? If she's having a drink at bedtime it might be needing the toilet that is waking her up.

Agree with pp about maybe cutting the bedtime milk because it could be bladder awareness. If she still naps in the day it may be time to stop if waking up early? Otherwise it sounds like a blip .... mine have had them occasionally but it’s passed with being consistent and taking them back to bed without talking or making night waking interesting for them.

At 3 years old, she shouldn't really be needing an hour to settle in the night. Go in, tell her it isn't morning yet and leave her to it. She'll soon stop waking although like a PP said, it's hopefully just a blip anyway.

Is she napping? If so, I'd cut back on the nap for sure. As a PP has said, is she needing a wee during the night?

Good point re the milk; she’s semi rejecting it anyway when we give it to her, she’s just not interested.

So we have her in pull ups overnight, she’s fully toilet trained and also dropped her daytime nap around a year ago.

I think @MrsJBaptiste has captured the essence of the issue though, she shouldn’t be needing an hour and never has before. But she is thick in the phase of yelling (and I mean yelling) for the opposite parent at times of stress - a tactic no doubt - but we don’t give her who she wants and that takes a long time for her to “get” when she’s feral, knackered and coughing at 0300.

It’s just shit for everyone.

I should drip feed that we are away to move house and are due a baby in June. This has registered with her no question but I just can’t be sure it’s THE reason for the night wakes and if so what can be done at times of change to try and curb the fractious wakey behaviour?