How to stop a 3.5 yr old waking up in the night?

[wolfhound]

Our 3.5 yr old has always been a good sleeper (albeit an early waker) - has slept through since he was about 18 mths. In the last couple of weeks he's started waking up around 1am - wide awake, and for the next couple of hours keeps leaping out of bed and calling for us.

Only way to get him back to sleep is to lie down with him for an hour or so till he's deep asleep. Got a 20mth old and am 6mths pregnant so really don't want to get into the habit of this.

Any ideas on how to return him to his previous sleep-through state?

Mine used to do this when he was overtired. (Still wakes in the night now when overtired, but thankfully at 6 puts himself back to sleep).

I would try an early bedtime for 3 or 4 nights (even 20 mins earlier makes a difference!)

I have a 25 week old, who is presently demonstrating the same wakefulness at 3am - so you have my sympathy!!

that's interesting jazzandh - we have recently put his bedtime back a bit (trying to combat the early waking tho' no effect so far) so I wonder if that is having an effect? will perhaps try an earlier bedtime over the long weekend and see if it makes a difference. Would rather have the 5am waking than the 1am waking frankly! Good luck with your 25 week old! xx

This is a shameful confession but was so weary of my nearly 3 yr old doing this that have resorted to bribing him with chocolate cake if he stays in his own bed It is exhausting, tho, in my defence...

Maybe he is waking up cos he needs the loo? Is he in nite pants or is he toilet trained? At this age they start to become aware of the urge to empty their bladder. My son started doing this for these reasons. I make sure he goes to the loo just before bedtime and restrict drinks after 6pm

lostlady - i am definitely not above bribing with choc cake. if it continues much longer i will consider that!

vickibee - he is toilet trained but in 'underjams' though they are usually dry in the morning. last night he did want to use the potty in the middle of the night, though only after he'd been up and down for a couple of hours. that is another thought though - we have recently been making him go to the loo before teatime (because he was always needing the loo in the middle of tea which was a bit annoying) so that slight change in toilet time routine might perhaps be having an effect. He always sits on the potty before his bath too, but currently not doing anything because he doesn't need to go. He has a beaker of water in his bedroom ( to avoid him calling us because he's thirsty) but doesn't necessarily drink it.

Hi there!
I think they sometimes do this at times when they go through development changes- it sort of disturbs them.

I would work on getting him to go back to sleep by himself if he wakes. Talk about how it's normal to wake up sometimes in the night and then go back to sleep by yourself, how you do this, and that he doesn't need to call out for you even. Probably won't work, but sets up the expectation. Then if you do go in keep it minimal- giving too much attention reenforces the behaviour.

It's odd when this happens when they've been sleeping brilliantly, but if they've been sleeping brilliantly at least you know they can and they should get back to it soon enough.

We had a bit of this with my son when he was 3.2 and we moved house. We had about a month of him calling out in the night- luckily we just had to pop in and reassure him and he'd go back to sleep. It was getting tiring though and in the end we had rather a mature chat with him about how he didn't need to call for us, he could just cuddle his teddy etc- oh yes, we bought him a night light too. Were very lucky and it worked .

Good luck!

Oh yes, forgot to say that moving the bedtime earlier often helps too. At 4.5 DS is better if he is in bed by 6.45 during term time and 7/7.30 during holidays. He then sleeps through to 7 or 7.30.

Thanks Tigger. Had one night (Sat) when he slept straight through again which was great (lavished him with praise and he was very proud of himself) but last night he woke up 4 times. It was an improvement in a way as DH didn't have to stay with him each time, just popped in, reassured and went out again - but DH knackered now, and I was up with the younger one so both wanting more sleep. Their bedtime is pretty early as it is (used to be 6.30 and have recently moved it to 7 in the hope they'd sleep longer but still both get up like clockwork at 5.30!)