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?

Bloody hell I thought ds was bad for not sleeping through til he was 2 1/2! He's 4 now and sleeps from 7:30-7am.

My older 2 are good sleepers but even still we have phases of wakening. 1 wets the bed and often gets growing pains. The other had a phase of bad dreams a while back. When they were babies even though they were easy to get back to sleep we often had to get up and put waylaid dodis back in their mouths. All in all I think the guarantee of sleep comes with the teenage years

Both mine slept through for 11-12 hours at a stretch at that age (well, from much younger, tbh). Perhaps not if they were unwell.

They shouldn't be waking up on a nightly basis, assuming their health and development is normal. They have probably just got into bad habits, but that isn't to say those habits can't be overcome. Don't waste energy on "blame" or trying to convince yourself and your dh it is perfectly "normal" when by "normal" you really mean unavoidable.

DD1 went through a long phase of waking and wanting me with her. We eventually solved it by getting her a plastic ladybird that projects stars onto the ceiling. It simply needs a touch on its back to turn on. That dealt with bad dreams and scary shadows. Wanting me at night was solved by letting DD choose some photos of me and DH. These were stuck on the wall next to her bed so she could see us whenever she wanted.

Hope you get a good sleep soon.

my ds is just 3 and wakes most nights. It's more often than not.

He has never been a great sleeper and goes through short periods of sleeping through.

Some children sleep, some don't - if you have non- sleepers it's just the way they are. My DD1 slept through from 2.5, DD2 still gets up most nights and she is almost 6! I have no doubt she will sleep through at some point, no point stressing about it.

All of mine were sleeping through long before age 4, I am afraid. But what matters isn't what other children do, but whether you and your dh are happy or not with the way your children are.

As your dh isn't happy, it does sound to me as if you need to do something about this - you will all feel better if your nights are unbroken, I think.

Yes all my (3) kids slept all night consistently after around 9 months. Obviously one might occasionally have a nightmare or similar but I wouldn't expect to be woken up in night more than say once a month or so (or less) by my 3 year old. He sleeps 7-7. Has to he woken for school.

DS is 4 months and a com

DS is 4 months and a complete nightmare. DD is now 4 and has never been much of a sleeper either, probably gets up 3 times a week maybe, but easily sorted (want cuddles, can't find Henry, funny dream). Think it was the sticker charts with her that finally cracked it.
So Yanbu basically. Hope it improves soon.

My 4 yo still wakes once or twice a night, and since starting nursery school, has been waking at 4.30 every day asking when he can go to school - no going back to sleep though...

Still, twice a night is such a massive improvement that we are not complaining!

I'm not sure it's all that helpful when posters come on to post that their abies were sleeping through from 3 weeks etc.
I stressed so much about sleep when ds was a baby, to the point where I suffered awful insommnia!
This was partly due to the "oh he should be sleeping thru by now-he's 6 months!" brigade.
OP-try some practical solutions, but don't worry, and if the only way YOU can sleep is by getting in with them do it. I can assure you, you will be able to deal with it all better if you have had some sleep yourself.

I have 3dc. Dc1 slept through from 6 weeks old, I can count on my fingers and toes how many times in her 7.5 years she has woken through the night. Dc2, never slept well as a baby, but from about 2 has slept through reasonably well, but does wake quite early, around 6am. Dc3, slept well as a baby, sleeping through on and off from around 6 months, reliably from about 1. She is now very nearly three and has woken up every night about 2am for about the last four months. She wakes and comes into our bed, sometimes going straight back to sleep, sometimes just lying their quietly for anything up to two hours until she drops off again. I'm still just going with it in the hope she grows out of it in time. (So she sleeps 7-2,then 3ish till 7am).
I can't wait to sleep in till 7am. My only ray of hope is that the children are old enough to be able to entertain themselves in the morning, so their noise does wake me but I can now roll over and know that they are able to sort themselves for a bit while I doze till a more suitable wake up time.

Also, Don't forget that the smug parents with one child who sleeps really well may have another dc in the future who sleeps really badly and wakes up ever hour and then is up for the day at 5.30. That was me. I learnt the hard way that how you parent your baby has no influence over how well your baby sleeps.

Both of mine were at school before they slept through the night but that was due to health issues.

Oh, and while they still sleep in until after 7am I still wake up about 5am.

Ha ha Maryann1975 that was me absolutely until dd2 taught me a harsh lesson!!!

Exactly Maryann. I expect that if I manage to have dc2, he or she will be a champion sleeper., but I won't EVER think it's because of some marvellous thing I did!

My 14 yr old still doesn't sleep through the night.

Dd1 slept through from about 18 months unless she was ill.

Dd2 slept through from about 7 weeks - until 16 weeks when she started waking again. She's now 3.5 years and still wakes every night, shouts "muuuummmmmmyyyyyyyy" and then comes into our bed til morning. We've tried putting her back to her own bed every time but that was 2 weeks of us all getting even less sleep as it then took about an hour for her to go back to sleep, it's much more restful just to bring her into our bed where she goes straight back to sleep.

My niece is 7 and STILL wakes up most nights. My sister is beyond demented with it but doesn't know what to do about it.

My 6yr old often ends up on our bed at the moment. 2yr old always ends up in our bed. 9yr old does sleep through though.

We have used a really successful chart in the past with our dcs when aged 3/4 (need to reuse it again with ds I think). I made on the computer - it consists of an a4 sheet with 7 coloured circles (laminated). We also had 7 laminated circles with a fun picture on them. Each morning them stay in own bed all night they get a circle on the chart. When they have all 7 they get a decent reward.

Yabu, I'm afraid. Of course 3 and 4 year old children wake up at night (all of us wake up at night) but the issue is whether they can drop off back to sleep again without you.

I think it is the norm for 3 and 4 year olds to sleep through unless they are ill or have had a bad dream.

IfNot

I agree

I think some posters have only read the OP. Conversation has moved on since then. The OP would appreciate your hints and tips,or at least sympathy, everyone!

Rest assured, when they are teenagers, you will need a crowbar to get them out of bed. Mine (aged 16, 18 and 20) are all good at getting up,if they have to (they have all had paper rounds, meaning they had to be up by 7each morning), but when they don't have anything to get up for, we don't see them until midday. And they sleep through.

It is a horrible phase, but it does end. At worst, a teenager can get themselves back to sleep without waking you up. Mind you, we are now at the stage when we want to be tucked up in bed nice and early, and they are out partying with their friends - so we end up staying awake until they get in (that's when mum's/dad's taxi isn't required).

DS age 3.5 has never slept for more than 3 or 4 hours in one stretch. He tends to fall asleep about 10pm on an "early" night, then wakes for a couple of minutes at 1am, around 4am, then 6:30am before waking properly around 7-7:30am on a "late" morning. Until he was nearly 2 he would wake every 2-3 hours for a feed! Now he just needs either his covers pulling back over him or a quick cuddle/pat, but not doing that means that he then wakes properly for the day at 2am or so (tried that a couple of times in the summer holidays, once at 2am and once at 4am.)
Oh, and no, he doesn't have a nap - he stopped having any kind of nap in the day when he was about 2.
Does that help? :-)