Toddler sleep disruption

[alicet]

Ds2 is 2 and a half.

As a baby he woke twice a night and it was over a year before he improved. Then a few months ago we went through a stage where he was waking very early but we managed to get on top of that with a clock where you can set the time for sheep to wake up (an illuminated area on the clock changes from showing sheep asleep in bed to showing sheep out for a hike and you can set the time to the time you want your child to wake). Now he will sleep (or at least stay in bed until) about 7am.

For the last few weeks he has thrown us our latest challenge - he is waking several times a night 'I can't find my rabbit / dummy etc' or in fact nothing seemingly wrong. Last night he was awake at 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.30 which is getting to be too much.

He is getting to the stage where he sometimes sleeps at lunchtime and somtimes not. It doesn't seem to help his night time sleep if he doesn't have a nap - if anything those are the days when its worse.

For what its worth he has settled himself to sleep from a very young age, and when he wakes he settles extremely quickly.

We are getting to the end of our tether. Obviously we don't want to totally ignore him when he shouts out in case this time its something really important. Equally it feels as though he is trying it on and we don't really know how to break this habit.

Help!

Mant to say that ds1, while an appalling sleeper for the first few months of his life (feed an hour / sleep an hour type sleep pattern) he improved slowly through his first year and now wouldn't wake until after 7 if the house was falling down around him!

Oh and while ds2's room isn't that dark once the sun comes up the times he wakes are scattered throughout the night and not clustered to when it gets light

Is there really NONE of you on here that have any idea how to help?

Hi alicet, you must be so tired. I have a DS the same age who settles and sleeps well - most of the time - but wakes very early. If he started waking in the night I'd wonder about illness or teething - does your DS have all his teeth yet?

We've noticed that DS will sometimes, out of the blue, decide that he wants us dancing attendance on him in the middle of the night. We generally go in the first couple of times to check that everything is ok, then we ignore him for longer periods each time. So, if he was calling for us a third time we'd wait five minutes, then 10 (he always gives up way before this though). It's horrible to do but it always does the trick. Our DS is still in a cot and it sounds like yours is in a bed so I'm not sure if this will help.

Btw, where did you get your sheep clock from? I think I need one.

Thanks for your post mamavoo. Yes I am tired!

I take your point about illness or teething. The thing is though that as soon as we go in he is just pleased to see us which is what makes me think he's trying it on. It isn't that he's really distressed and needs us to calm him.

I think tonight I'm going to go check on him if he shouts but not do stuff for him - so if he says he's lost his rabbit (which is invariably right next to him) I'm going to tell him to find it himself, or if he has lost his dummy I'm going to tell him to get himself a new one from his dummy box (which is right next to his bed). I told him this tonight when I put him to bed so fingers crossed he'll get it. Probably means I'll have an even worse night as he usually settles quickly when we just do as he asks but think this might be perpetuating it.

If this doesn't work will def try what you have suggested.

This is the clock from Amazon. They have other variations (incl one you can plug in) but on reading reviews it seemed to be the easiest to use. Hope it works well for you - worked magic for us although a part of me would now [refer him to sleep through and wake early!!!! Know I wouldn't say that if I was back in that situation though. Good luck