Hi all,
I have a 3 (next month) year old boy who has never been the best sleeper. He has always woken in the night, and we’ve never quite managed to figure out why. He’s now in a big bed and has been for the past 6 months, which he’s able to get out of but has a stair gate on his door which he’s never been bothered by. He has had periods where he has slept through, but mostly he gets up between 1-5 times a night crying. Sometimes he doesn’t fully get out of bed, just lays there whining/crying. We have tried leaving him to it, but he doesn’t stop it just escalates.
His speech is very good, but when trying to communicate why he has woken and is crying we usually hit a wall. Sometimes he will say things like ‘dinosaur is going to get me’ indicating a bad dream, which is fine and I get happens, but others times he just won’t answer us or will say ‘because I did’. It’s so frustrating and I don’t know how to get past this, I feel like I still have a newborn and am exhausted all the time. We have another due in April and it’s honestly making me so anxious to deal with newborn wakes in between his too, I have no idea when I will ever sleep.
He sleeps with a dummy and muzzy, and has spare dummies on his table next to him but has a strong preference for one, so obviously this unsettles him if he loses that particular one. We are going to get rid of them entirely next week as I think that’s part of the problem.
We got rid of his nap around 7/8 months ago, so he doesn’t nap in the day.
we also ask him the next day what made him wake up in the night, and usually all we get is ‘but I’m not waking up now’. So no real answers as to what it might be caused by. The times seem to be different every night. He sleeps with blackout blinds and white noise, and a gro clock which initially worked really well but now he doesn’t bother to wait until it goes orange to get out of bed. He has a very good appetite and will always have dinner and a bottle of milk before bed, so can’t be hunger related. He also has a bottle of water next to his bed.
has anyone experienced similar? Would be so grateful for any tips or advice.
thanks x