in thinking that 3 and 4 year olds wake up at night

[TokenGirl1]

Please can you solve an argument my dp and I are having. Our kids keep waking at night and it's doing our head in and we are trying to find a solution. Dp says he doesn't know anyone whose kids wake on an almost nightly basis. I've talked to mums that I know and they say that their kids do wake up. All of you parents out there, please tell me if your under 5s sleep through all night every night 7pm to 7am?

My 3 year old wakes almost every night, if we're lucky he just wakes for a chat. If we're not lucky he's screaming and frightened. We aren't lucky very often since he started nursery

Are you thinking it's normal and therefore not a problem?

Or normal and so there's nothing you can do about it?

Because if either or both of you think it's a problem then I'd say there probably is something you can do

DS is 3 and DD is 1 and they both sleep 7.30 at night until approx 8 the next morning, unless they are sick

My three never got up in the night at that age, or even before they were that age.
Ds1 went through a very short phase of waking up when he was about 18 months, which we put a stop to.
The other two slept without disruption from babyhood.

Dd1 was 5 when she started sleeping through.
Ds is almost 2 and still wakes almost every night.
I hold out no hope for 8 week old dd2 sleeping through.

Your dh needs a lesson in children are not carbon copies of one another. If they were all dc would walk talk eat etc at the exact same time. trying to reign in angsty laughter.

My DD slept through from early on til she was 2 and then for about a year seemed to suffer from night terrors or similar. DS is 2 and sleeps through but took till he was 18months old. My cousin was 6 before she slept through the night

out of my 5 dc's only 1 would sleep all night from 7 to 8 am it was fantastic. he was my second dc so I thought I had found the knack but no the next 3 regularly woke during nights with dc 5 now six still wakes at least every other night

Ds is 4 and I find it goes in cycles - some weeks not a peep, some weeks up to 3 times.

If dh is away with work he will creep into bed with me halfway through the night more often than not. He thinks I might get lonely :)

Sleep til 7am????!!!!! NEVER.
Mine do 7.30-6ish. DS1 wakes before that, and goes to the loo by himself, and then goes back to bed til his alarm goes off. He's 4. occasionally wakes during the night also.

DS2 (2) probably wakes in the middle of the night once/ week, and us up around 4.30, and then requires co-sleeping if the day isn't to start then, once a week.

Do you want to change the current situation? Can i recommend a gro clock, or a teaching clock which has benefited the amount of parent sleep obtained in this house.

DD1 is 4.5 and sleeps 12 hours a night. She has done so since she was 12 months old.

DD2 is 2 and still wakes up at least once most nights.

YANBU. All kids are different.

I've got 5 DC, by that age they were definitely sleeping through.

They might wake up for the loo, illness or a bad dream, as others have posted.

It would be rare for them to wake up in the night more than once a week.

Other mothers might say their child wakes up, but I think you need to check the frequency as I don't think the majority of children are waking that often by their age.

If one is waking regularly at the same time in the middle of the night, I can recommend trying Wake To Sleep. Basically (and you can google it), you rouse the child slightly, enough to make them murmur or roll over. This has to be done about an hour before they normally wake up, over about a week. It sorted out DS2s middle-of-the-night waking at around this age. Something about r-setting the sleep cycle.

Most nights we have some sort of sleep disturbance. Ours are 8, 5 and 4.

Mainly nightmares. But then DH does let them watch Dr Who.

We use a gro clock which is great for explaining to dd that its still night time. She was waking for the day too early and the gro clock has really helped with that.

So I agree it may be worth a try, but it hasn't stopped night waking for us.

Tig

Me neither

Thank you all so much for your responses. We really appreciate the help and support. Dd slept through from 3 months to 3 years then we moved house a year ago and she moved into a room with her brother. Before that we all shared a bedroom. Ds only started sleeping through from 18 months and again woken up much more regularly since moving into the bedroom with his sister.

Dd says she misses me or has a bad dream.

It's got to the point that I'm on the edge and to just get some sleep I end up in bed with them but dp isn't happy about this happening every night. I'm just too tired to deal with it after 4 years of broken sleep. Dp works 70 hour week and so doesn't think he should do the night waking. I have the kids 6 days a week apart from when they are at school and also work between 5 and 15 hours a week without childcare.

Please can someone tell me a solution?

I don't think I slept through until. I as nearly 9! I kept kicking my duvet off, waking up cold, and being scared someone was hiding in the duvet so couldn't just pull it back up.

My parents got special clips to hold the duvet on and then I was fine. Sympathies OP, it must be hard.

It's fine for him to be not happy but then he needs to contribute ideas and action. You are, understandably, doing what you need to do to stay sane - sleep deprivation is a killer.

So, you need to decide if you really want to give it a go with you staying in your own bed, and he needs to take a share in dealing with the night-wakings if that's the case.

Things to try:

Nightlight
Wake to sleep (see above)
Rapid Return (if they are getting up and coming in to you - google it
A beaker of water at the end of the bed
A toy that plays music when they wake - DS2 had a Care Bear that lit up and played a lullaby when he mad a sound

The Little Angels book is good on sleep - if I recall correctly

Little Angels Parenting book

Ds1 did. But was a nightmare until he was 11 months old. Ds2 slept as a baby. Then started struggling to go to sleep when he was about 18 months (and woke in night loads for about three months at the same time). Still fights sleep at 6 1/2 years. Dd always woken once or twice in night until very recently (she's 4 1/2 years).

2.5 year old and a 3 month old, both occasionally sleep through but never on the same occasion so we never have an undisturbed night.

Thank you Jamie. I've just remembered they used to have a lullaby dream show that came on when a noise was made and it broke soon after eerily moved. I wonder if that would help as it shows a light and the noise might reassure them and send them off to sleep again.

Ds has night terrors at times and I have had depression for the last 18 months. Sorry to drip feed.

My DS1 has night terrors too. Had his first for many years recently - horribly upsetting to witness.

I sympathise hugely. It sounds like a lot of this is on you. I wouldn't have a third child because I found the whole sleep issue so hard (and mine weren't bad!)

Oh Token, that sounds bad, I'm sorry. You won't like my idea. I ended up sharing a bed with DD whilst DH slept in the spare room. It worked for us because DH didnt mind, and understood that it was more important that we all got a good nights sleep, than had a bad nights sleep with each other.

Otherwise a friend of mine has recently had success with a weighted blanket on her wakeful 3 year old. The very first night they used it he slept through - maybe both your DC could have one their 'magic sleep blanket' Worth a try?

Only wake if they are ill I'm afraid.