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HELP , we haven’t slept in 3 years

4 replies

Desenia86 · 26/11/2022 22:45

My DD is 3 next month and I can count on one hand the nights where we got uninterrupted sleep. She has the same routine since she was a baby , dinner , bath , stories , bed . She goes to sleep NEVER earlier than 9:30 regardless of naps or no naps , if and when we try to put her down one hour earlier mostly cause we are knackered it just drags till she goes to to sleep at 9:30 anyway which isn’t too bad but it’s still pretty rubbish considering that around 1 am she will wake up
, come crying in our bed and spend the rest of the night kicking us , rolling , whining until it’s 5:30 am and she is wide awake and saying on repeat DADDY DADDY I WANT BREAKFAST and one of us eventually gives up and gets up . We are exhausted, slightly depressed ( how would I know I have been taking meds since the horrific total sleep deprivation depression I got after the first year of no sleep ) and on survival mode every day . She still has one h nap after lunch , we tried stopping it but not only when it’s successful she still has a horrid night sleep , but most of the time she will fall asleep half way through the afternoon absolutely exhausted no matter where we are so I assumed she still needs it . Her behaviour is somehow perfectly fine and she appropriate , she is developing and learning just fine , she catches colds and viruses at nursery like every other kid but her sleep is as bad as any normal day so we don’t really suffer at night because of that .
she is currently sleeping in her little toddler bed in our bed which to me is a massive fail cause we have been trying to avoid setting these bad precedents . But we are past exhausted and our life is pretty bad because of it . HELP . Just help !!!

OP posts:
PritiPatelsMaker · 26/11/2022 23:03

Personally I don't think that having her sleep with you is such a bad idea. Not if it means that she sleeps. At the moment she sounds overtired.

Can I ask what time she has her nap and how long it is?

Desenia86 · 27/11/2022 03:38

She sleeps from 12:30 on for about an hour sometimes she falls asleep a bit later .
its currently 3:30 am and she woke up as usual at 1 and ended up in our bed , my partner put her back into hers after a little while and she seems to be ok for now.
At this point , sod it , she can sleep in our room but it really can’t be permanent cause there isn’t enough space for her bed too or for her in bed w us . I obviously thought we should buy a bigger bed but we literally just bought a new matress for the king size we already have .

OP posts:
PritiPatelsMaker · 27/11/2022 08:15

Ok so it doesn't sound like the nap should be affecting her sleep.

Some things you could try are:

Sleeping with her bedding for a couple of nights so her bed smells like yours.

Putting a fleece blanket underneath her bottom sheet to keep her warmer at night. My DD liked to be cosy and woke up if she was too cold.

More daylight. It's been proved that there's a direct link to getting sunlight and sleep so get her outside and active at least once a day.

No screens for at least a couple of hours before bed.

Getting an extra snack or light meal in during the day. My DF was advised to do this and her LO started sleeping for the first time ever.

And lastly try the No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers.

I hope one or at least a combination of those things work for you Wink

Desenia86 · 27/11/2022 10:35

Thank you so much . I will try all of these one by one . And will let you know .

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