4 year old still waking at night

[Sausageandpicklesandwiches]

Does anyone else have this? My real life friends never seem to get up with their similar aged kids in the night. I am up once, more often twice in the night. Mostly at the moment to put blankets back in but other than that it’s just her calling out for me. I’m hoping school will exhaust her 🤞

DS was doing this. He came into our bed every night until he was 5. Completely out of habit rather than anything.
Eventually, we offered to get him a cabin bed if he stayed on his bed every night for a month.
It worked. He never gets out of bed now.

Yes my 4 year old wakes every night and comes into our bed. Older dc did the same until aged 5 and then it dwindled off. I think it is quite normal?

Yep, we were up 3-4x a night until I recently made DS a nest on the floor next to our bed. 50% now he sleeps through, 50% he gets up to hop into our bed - but I DONT HAVE TO get up and that really is making a massive difference to me. I’m hoping school will exhaust him too! I’m sure he won’t still be sleeping next to our bed when he’s an adult so I’m not worried about it so long as we’re all more rested 😄

Have you heard of the gro company toddler bedding? That might help you. Has a zip along duvet to mattress to stop it coming off.

is she scared/heart racing when she wakes up in the night? Both dc did this, in both cases for mine it was nightmares/a sign that they were a bit overloaded in the day. Are there any other things you are concerned about or just the sleep? It's ok to go to the GP/HV and discuss it.

I don't agree that it's normal for them to be waking once or twice in the night regularly at that age, yes there are always a few kids still doing it in the nursery class but most are sleeping through.

My almost 5 year old still wakes up in the night and gets into bed with us. He slept through aged between about 2 and 2.75... we’ve just spent a week on holiday sharing a bed all night (him in it first then I joined him) and he slept through. He gets “lonely”, bless him. Sure he’ll grow out of it Amon good time. Until then, I enjoy that cuddles!

Yup! Then one of them wants to come into bed, she likes to sleep right next to you and moves all night. I can't sleep, husband can't sleep. Only benefit is she doesn't wake her brother.

I met another couple with twins who said they were sleeping through from 10 weeks. I wanted to cry, how are we still waking multiple times at 4.5.

Following for advice!

Yes, she is nearly 5 and still wakes up in the night regularly, sometimes to fix the duvet and sometimes for no reason at all. She won't/ can't go to sleep without someone sitting by her, so, if she wakes up in the night, she calls us to sit there after we have sat there until usually 9pm waiting for her to go to sleep in the first place. She has always been a terrible sleeper. The other day, as I sat there at 3 am, I wondered about doing a kind of gradual retreat where I start off sitting in the same chair but refusing to hold her hand for a few days, then sit on the floor instead, then move further away until I get to sitting outside the door. But she starts school next week, so this doesn't seem like the right time to start it, and she isn't likely to be happy about it and her screaming will wake up her sister and DH and the neighbour.
For some reason she has never got out of bed and come to our room. She doesn't get out when she wakes up in the morning either, just calls us or sits there playing with her cuddly toys.
Maybe school will exhaust her, but I am not holding out hope because I don't want to be disappointed. The level of sleep deprivation I have suffered in the past 5 years with her and work (13 hr days, 12hr night shifts, often both in the same week) is horredous.

DS usually wakes about 4:30am because the duvet has come off slightly. We have those duvet grippers but they haven't fully stopped him shouting. But he was waking 3+ times a night so I'm grateful I can get a good chunk of sleep

@happypotamus DS was similar with the handholding to go to sleep. For about 6 weeks before his 3rd birthday I simply told him that when he was 3 I was going to give him a hug and a kiss, tuck him in and go downstairs. When it got to his birthday I did exactly that and he's been fine ever since. I think it was habit for DS rather than a real need. I honestly never would have thought it would have worked, but it did. A much more experienced parent did it with their child and their comfort blanket, so I thought it was worth at least a try for us.

Thank you for all posting and for sharing your experiences. It helps to know my daughter isn’t an anomaly! @CarolineKate I have heard of them yes, one of the issues is that she is hot when she goes to bed so has no cover on, then I cover her up before I go to bed and then she gets hot again and wriggles free and then by 1am she is cold and then again at 4am. I know it’s ‘just a phase’ but agh. Just as well she is a sweet soul (mostly!) during the day so that helps make up for it!

They all have to start sleeping through soon, right?

One of my 9-year-olds very rarely sleeps through.

@moofolk ...you aren’t meant to tell us that 😲

We all wake up, even adults, but we’ve learnt to resettle ourselves. This is the bit you need to teach your dd. The waking is a red herring, it doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t be moving her blankets, encourage her to do it herself.

DS3 was about 10 when he stopped coming in to me.
When he and FS1 were younger the solution was double beds all round. So every one could have room to sleep wherever they ended up during the night.

My son is four, he gets up every night around 4am and gets in bed with me, if I don’t want waking up I just sleep in his bed rather than mine.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat yes I think you see right. She used to settle herself then got poorly and was quite ill and it all went to pot and here we still are!

purplecrazyhorse thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I will try that when she turns 5. She will have had a few weeks to settle into school, it will be half-term and I will be off work so a good time to try and change things.

Dd came into my bed every night until 6.