Two year old waking for hours during the night

[TheHeartGoesLast]

Looking for some help and advice please. Since the Christmas break, DD (2.5) has started waking up at anywhere between 1am - 3am and staying awake for hours. She was a terrible sleeper until about a year ago, when she started sleeping through maybe 5 nights in 7, and although she would wake once during the other nights she could be resettled easily. Now she's awake for hours every night. We'll stay in her room and she'll lie in her cot quietly (after having a drink or a cuddle) but she won't let me leave until she's asleep - she screams the house down when I leave and as I also have a 4 year old this just wakes everyone up. DH and I taking it in turns to deal with this but as we're getting 3-4 hours sleep every other night it's not sustainable and causing issues with work etc. Any advice gratefully received!

Hopeful bump.

Mine didn't need a daytime nap by that age - it was hard work late afternoon & early evening. But if they napped by accident it was a nightmare.

Do you have to sit with her at bedtime til she goes to sleep or just middle of the night?

The OP hasn't said the little one naps

Does she nap? You could reduce that?

We had quite a lot of issues with our second from about 18m. Tbh it came in waves and was a bit of a nightmare. We found we had to eventually just not go through- we reinstalled a camera and then would, wordlessly, put back to bed but really it was waiting it out a bit for her to go back to sleep.

Sorry that’s not much help but we found she basically wanted one of us through!

Thanks all. She does nap for anything up to 2 hours - unfortunately her nursery has a policy of not waking them and she goes 3 days a week, but I will try no nap on my day off and see if that helps.

I have to sit with her at bedtime til she goes to sleep, although she will let my husband leave 🙄 When she wakes in the night whoever goes in to help has to stay.

You need to manage this. At the moment she is getting Mummy till she sleeps in the evening, and now Mummy cuddles again in the middle of the night. With a drink too.
My advice is, warn the neighbours, then no light, no cuddles, only water if a drink is really needed. Leave the room. Repeat as needed.
She won't bother after a couple of nights. She will learn to go back to sleep by herself.
PS I'm a grandma with 3 well adjusted children and 3 well adjusted grandchildren and this worked with them 😊😊

Tell that to their therapist!

Learned helplessness isn’t healthy. It’s ok to cuddle and comfort your child, sleep is developmental and can be very hard. If you want to sleep train and it works for you, do it. But don’t be scared by outdated advice where you can’t cuddle or comfort your children!

Hmm I think that's OK if you start when they are a baby or young toddler, but a 2.5 year old could be frightened of the dark and I think at the very least a night might be needed if they are not used to sleeping alone in the dark.
However I definitely agree thst you need to take a firmer approach.No wonder a kid is waking up every night if they are getting a drink and mummy sitting with them

If she goes to bed fine for dh then I'd put him on bedtime duties for the foreseeable.

Then yes, deffo firm up the night time/ staying with/ night time drinks.

Mine did this - time to stop the nap. It made a big difference. Also every time she woke i sat her on the toilet she would have a huuuugeee wee then fall asleep! We figured she needed potty training!

Arrgg!! Sorry to hear that. Mine (now nearly 4) did that for a few months at about that age. It was from dropping a nap but still getting lots of lovely kip at nursery! It was completely annihilating! I hope yours eases off soon, best of luck with it OP

DS did this for months. I think dropping his nap probably helped. I co-slept with him but was still hard to go back to sleep whilst he was wriggling beside me. Sorry I can’t remember what changed in the end but it did stop. Just wanted you to know I think it’s common and you’re not alone.

Get the Ferber sleep training book. It takes two nights then they sleep through.

When your sitting with her at bedtime what do you do? Are you talking cuddling or just sitting no eye contact?

My eldest is nearly 3 and did this for around a month recently. He then had a sudden massive burst of language development and his sleep completely settled again by itself, so I think it was a 'leap' if you follow that type of theory!

I took my kids into my bed when that happened.

We needed our sleep and it worked - they would go straight back to sleep.