Cried for 90 mins

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Last night my little one woke and was creaming at 4.15am. I thought something was wrong but he just wanted to go downstairs. I tried to comfort him in my arms but nothing was settling him. Took him in my bed which he rarely comes into and we watched my phone. Probably shouldn't have done that but I can't stand his crying.

He wasn't sleeping but it was nice to have him under the duvet with me.

After 10 mins I put him back in his cot and his room. Same issue occured again - crying to go downstairs.

I just left him in the cot until he eventually slept at 6am.

I did go in one or twice into the room but honestly I can't settle him when he wants to go downstairs and I told him it's dark outside.

I was watching him on the room camera so he wasn't in any danger.

Did I do the wrong thing? Next door is hard of hearing so won't wake him. I live just with toddler.

Your DC is a very similar age to my DS. I personally wouldn’t leave him to cry in his cot for an hours. A 4-5am wake up time is annoying but I would and have done taken my DS downstairs when he’s woken up for the day at that time. I’d rather that then him crying and not wanting to stay in his cot alone.

I had this with my DD. She would scream or cry and ask to go to toilet and we would take her and she would pee and I was looking at her face and suddenly realised she wasn´t awake, yeah, her eyes were open, she understood our simple directions but she wasn´t awake! I was weirded out the first time it happened. Then some minutes later and back in bed she screamed the house down, again she wasn´t awake. Night terrors.

My DD eventually grew out of this (we also never co-slept, I spent much of her baby/early toddlerhood with a PICC line in my arm that she would just fiddle with and try to pull on) we got rid of the cot and used the Yoto player to explain:

• if there is a sunshine on the screen it is wake up time and if there is a moon it is nighttime
• If you wake up and there’s a moon, and you can’t get back to sleep you can play in your room until the sunshine appears
• if you wake up and feel poorly /need a wee/ need a cuddle you can always call for us whether there is a moon or sun, but if you just want to go downstairs that’s not happening
• we used a reward jar for correct use, she was allowed to choose a small treat when the jar was full

We found that she wasn’t so bothered about going downstairs when she could play in her room. In the early days of it sometimes we would find her asleep on the floor among her teddies 😆 as she obviously needed more sleep after having got up at some daft hour. I was worried about getting rid of the cot/sleep sack but she slept better in a bed with a duvet and pillow. We would watch the baby monitor footage back to see what she got up to!

She is approaching 4 now and still opens her door with “it’s sunshine on my storybox, wakey up time everyone!” 😆 she knows we are there in an instant if she is scared or ill, but she also understands sleep is important for everyone and if she is just awake before anyone else is she needs to play by herself until it is time to start the day. She’s largely grown out of the super early starts now anyway, but I think giving her a bit of control over her own situation helped. Good luck, sleep deprivation is a torture method for a reason!

Personally, I used to bring mine into bed and just give them some toys to play with when they really weren't tired, before going back into a light doze for another hour myself. But then I wasn't worried about them falling out - our bed wasn't that high, and toddlers are pretty sturdy, haha.

Maybe a few toys in the cot would work though at that age, depending on the child's temperament.

Are you able to go to sleep if you're not tired? Despite understanding that night is for sleeping?

My eldest was like this. He sprang awake at stupid o'clock in the morning and just wanted to start his day. I never found a solution to be honest. If I brought him into our bed he just fidgeted and arsed about until I gave in and got up. If I put him to bed early, he didn't go to sleep. He didn't nap during the day. He seemed to function on virtually no sleep! I remember trying not to nod off while he happily played with his cars or watched bloody Roary the Racing Car. He's 17 now and his sleep patterns are still shot to buggery. It's something he has worked on with a therapist, with a tiny bit of progress. He has been diagnosed with ASD and is about to be assessed for ADHD. Both of these conditions can cause disrupted or irregular sleep. One thing I never did though, was leave him to cry. No matter how sleep deprived I was, I just couldn't do it. Thankfully his younger brother was a champion sleeper!

Yeah, I wouldn't have done that personally.

7? Wow, that’s a lie-in for most of the working world.

If you can persuade them to go back to sleep of play quietly in their cot then great, but if that doesn’t work do you just shut them in their cot and listen to them scream? What if another parent decided that 9 or 10AM was a better time to wake up? Would it be ok to leave the child screaming until then too? Or is there something about 7am that’s special in some way and not just a random time that you’ve picked because it suits you?

It’s not easy u have my sympathy. My little girl used to do this. I had to take her downstairs as she would wake everyone else up with the crying. I made it as boring as possible. No lights, no tv, just sitting in the dark not saying anything. I wouldn’t give her milk or anything either as at 2 she clearly didn’t need it and I didn’t want to encourage the habit. She wld potter about for a little while but often end up coming for a cuddle. She grew out of it thankfully probably by about 2 1/2 to 3.

She wld eventually either fall back asleep or would settle enough that I would take her bk up to bed and she would go bk to sleep albeit in my bed! It was often around an hour ahead wld be awake. Brutal when ur working the next day 😭

If you are happy to walk up and down carrying a 2 year old in the night (I don’t think I’d have the energy tbh) then that’s fine, you are comforting and helping her. But you haven’t said you leave her to cry for hours in a cot, which is what everyone here is objecting to.

I personally, couldn’t have left my 2yr old to cry on his own. If my DS wakes in the night I give him a cuddle until he settles down and let him listen to a story on his Yoto in bed (he usually falls asleep to this).

I don't give in to tantrums. If they need something before 7am or are ill etc that is very different.

But no, they don't get up at night simply because they want to.

7am is because it means they have slept well based on when they went to bed and generally need to be awake for nursery. Mine would be incredibly hungry and desperate for the loo/a clean nappy at 9am-10am so I imagine that wouldn't work for most toddlers either.

You did the right thing.

Your suggestion is dangerous for the toddler. If the op fell asleep then there would be a toddler on the loose. It would have been safer putting him back in his cot.

I know I'm in the minority, but I'd leave him if there's nothing wrong with him or his environment. He needs to learn he can't always have his own way.

What is so special about "downstairs" ? Why does he want to go there ?
Anything that could be moved into his room to keep him quiet ?

You don't encourage them to wake at 4am though? You arrange their daytime sleep/bedtime so that they are waking up at an acceptable time.

Eg my son is now not going to sleep til 2130, waking at 7am. If i want him to go to sleep earlier i need to wake him up earlier so he goes to sleep earlier, cap his nap, or a combination. And i need to accept that it might take a week to adjust.

As a one iff its fine

but if you do this again then his brain will become adjusted, ah its 4am lets wake and have time watching something. Hard as that maybe not to let him watch something, keeping him in a dark room where he is safe is better and you did put him back to bed

does he have back teeth coming through?

What's there to disagree with? 7am is when most working people get up for a 9am start. It's a reasonable time for most people to get up. Not running after a child's every tantrum will build them up for when others say no to them. The whole world doesn't revolve around small people who want it done there and then.

Sorry for all the judgy comments you’re getting OP - for somewhere supposed to be a supportive forum to get advice or discuss I find it almost never is and lots of posters just love to put you down regardless!

Personally I wouldn’t have got the phone out I don’t think that’s helped your situation!

I wouldn’t worry about the drop from the bed at that age though.

My DS at that age had a toddler bed and a baby gate on his room, if he woke up really early he would generally play in his room - maybe you could look at a set up like this?

Good luck!

Yes, why reach for phone? You could have got a book & read quietly. He may have then felt sleepy enough to nod off.

By leaving him to cry you're affecting his attachment to you. Long gone are the days of Ferber & his crying to sleep method. My eldest is 21 & it wasn't acceptable then either.

Tell me you don’t have any children without telling me you don’t have any children 🙄

He's 2, idk why he's even still in a cot. My daughter could easily climb out of her cot before 18 months and we switched to a toddler bed. I'd be very surprised if he can't climb out of his cot yet which is way more dangerous than being "on the loose".

It’s a good age to start with a grow clock, when it’s blue it’s still night time and we can’t go downstairs. It comes with a nice story and mine really took to it. Fully recommend and it takes
a few weeks and re enforcing with we can’t get up as there’s no sun on the clock

All the parents out there who end up with a child regularly waking at 4 or 5am probably started out thinking 'it's just this once'

If you even once let a child get up and go downstairs, you've set a precedent and they will fight much harder to be allowed to do it next time, because it's much more fun to be allowed to go downstairs and play than lay quietly in bed!! This is why so many people end up with this issue which is then 10x harder to fix with a 4 or 5 year old in a terrible habit.

I don't think you can identify the causation there. How would you know it was because you 'gave into it' one time and it's become a habit? And not just because they've had all the sleep they need and you need to either put them to bed later or let them have less of a nap in the day? If you have a child who gets up at 4/5 every day, presumably they're getting enough sleep at some point within the 24hrs. Maybe it started happening because they got older and their sleep needs reduced.