Done a million times: new for me. Toddler refusing to go to bed and waking every half an hour!Tell me what to do before I lose my head!

[PippiCalzelunghe]

That's it really. DD is 2.5 and suddenly she finds any excuse to get out of bed and wakes up every half an hour. we keep putting her back but half an hour later she cries again and gets out. we tried to reason, we tried the silent but firm manners, we tried the resolute - to turn the bed back to a cot last week but she threw herself out in immense distress (and that's not her, she's very careful normally), all work up to a point. She's got her teddy, the light, the music...
We won't put her on our bed, I think that's what she's aiming at but the result is sleepless nights galore in the pippi's household. (and pg pippi is losing her mind) Is it a phase? Are we doing something wrong? Please help. I lost it yesterday and feel like a useless mother.

Over the years we've done various things to help settle our children. Mostly, though, we seem to have either lay on their bed with them until they fall asleep or let them fall asleep downstairs and taken them up once they are asleep.
Repeated waking during the night usually ended up with one of us getting into bed with the wakeful child. Or getting up for an hour with them until they were sleepy and ready for bed again. Sometimes they would go back to bed on their own, sometimes they would fall asleep and be carried back and sometimes, again, one of us would get into their bed with them.
Whatever worked for us to get a night's sleep or part thereof without lots of upset.
You are not a useless mother. It's very tiring and very frustrating.
On a positive note, they do grow out of it.

Yes its a phase - I think they all do it. We ended up putting a stairgate over DS's door. We will go in a few times, but he will still occaisionally have a tantrum and fall asleep at the gate. Most of the time though he realises bed is more comfortable and goes back to bed.

BTW - we have both lost it several times. You are not alone and not useless!

thanks. we'll try taking it a bit easier and keep remembering it is a phase and it's not something we do wrong. the stairgate is not a bad idea.

Have the same problem with my dd1 who is 2.11 yrs. Have done the whole supernanny routine to no avail. I don't have any great solutions but these three observations. Firstly, do NOT be tempted to move her to big bed in hope it may work - I moved my daughter to big bed (needed cot for dd2) and this was the start of the sleep problems. The whole controlled crying is much easier when they are not pinging themselves out of the bed every five minutes. Gina says keep in cot until close to three and this may be the one occasion that I agree with Gina. Secondly, it's an obvious but one that I did overlook until I slept in my daughters room is the temperature.It was chilly in there at 1am! So have invested in some fluffy sleepsuit things from mothercare (vile but dd1 seems to love them) .

The third thing is that following a recent conversation with the best health visitor ever, is that I've stopped beating myself up over of it (every other child I know seems to be sleeping beautifully of course and actually dd1 has had consistent bath, bed, story routine since about 10 days old!) and lo and behold, things have improved a little bit as I've chilled out over it. The whole fear of the dark thing seems to be subsiding and we are now done to just a nightlight when a few weeks ago, it was blackpool illuminations. THe other thing I've started doing is using a kitchen timer for when she's awake but won't settle. So now i'm firm, 'it's mummy and daddy's time now and sleepy time for you but I'll set this for x mins and when bells dings one of us will come up to see you' and the whole hysterics have completely diminished and she's asleep by the first ding.

Stick with it, do whatever works for you and don't feel bad either about loosing it or just having the problem in the first place.

cookie monstress great post, thanks!! the kitchen timer is great. I'll def use it as we've got an egg-shaped one which she loves.
it is also true about being more relaxed about it in my mind as in fairness DD has been (and is) a model child in most other aspects so if she doesn;t want to settle for a week it shouldn't be the end of the world (although when you are sleep deprived it is!!)

yesterday BTW she went straight away without much of a fuss and when she woke up she did not call us or climbed down. I
I have told the childminder not to let her sleep a lot and after 2pm, just in case. also, although relaxed I learnt that firmness is the key as well.

anyway, thanks again I can;t wait to try the egg-timer thingy.

I'm just coming out of a 3-wk bad blip with my 2.10 ds, kickstarted by his having a cold. He's also in a cot.
My top tips:
a/ star charts (he got to choose the helicopter stickers at Woolies).
b/ starting to lift him onto the loo when I go to bed (he has had dry nappies at night for ages now but I just wondered whether he was waking up initially because he needed to pee).
c/ going in when it initially kicked off, just checking and offering water if requested, but not chatting, picking up or even really looking at him
d/ talking it up all day, about how only little babies wake up at night, about how the neighbours won't be happy if he wakes them up, and how jolly we will all be when we get a good night's sleep
e/ making massive hullaballo when he DID go through without disturbing us
f/ also gave him a kit of parts, ie special doll for chatting to if he woke up and wanted company , tissue under pillow, and he got to borrow his sister's special quilt etc

who knows which of these elements worked, if any, but either way normal service has, thankfully, been resumed

on another thead, gemtubb suggested one of these to keep a child interested in staying in bed. worth a go?
www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1190081/Trail/searchtext%3ECHILDRENS+BEDDING.htm

by the way pippi, you have my total sympathy. my dp and i are like the living dead today - we were up from 2.30am to 4.30am last night as my dd found every excuse to stay up. in the end she came in with us, a practice I am trying to discourage - not least cos none of us get any sleep then.

wheelsonthebus you have my sympathy today. i feel like a new woman just for having slept a good few hours. oh god if a couple of days do that to me what am i going to be when DD2 is born? MyEye yes all good suggestions, some I've applied some I will. especially the chart thing. It will be useful for other instances as well.

Oh I so hope that last night was not just a chance and that she'll also go tonight. The worst is as well when you do not expect it and you make plans in your head of a good evening and a good night. Last night I was ready for a war and a sleeples night so I would not have lost it as I'd be prepared. I know that today it's another story... in my stupid head I've got plans of a glass of wine and some telly... yea right!