Constantly tired three-year-old

[Janel85]

My three-year-old (four in jan) is always tired, he goes to bed at 6.30pm but doesn’t fall asleep until about 7/7.30pm and wakes up at 6.30/6.45am. He doesn’t nap at all during the day, has refused to do so since he was about 18-months-old. He will occasionally fall asleep in the car during a long journey but that’s it, if he does he is very hard to get down to bed that night. Reason for my post is that he seems so tired all the time, he can only walk quite short distances at a time, for instance the walk to my daughters school is about 0.3miles but he will demand to be picked up several times, does this seem normal? Thanks

We had this around that age. I'm not sure if it was just age thing or possibly low iron - I asked the gp who said most children are anaemic so to just give a multivitamin with iron. Around 3-4 mo later he got more stamina. But it may have been an age thing.

Two dr friends recently found their children had slightly low iron actually, one 5, one 3.

He just seemed to need to build up more stamina basically which he did eventually do.

Thanks for your reply, will look into boosting his iron

Maybe chat to gp first though. Just find a children's vitamin and look at diet.

Don't let them drink milk near an iron rich meal. We keep it to morning with cereal and a cup just before bed, or yoghurt after dinner. It can inhibit iron absorption. Fresh orange helps absorb it.

I don't know if it was that though or not. I've heard others finding this phase is tiring for them.

Oh getting a scooter helped actually.

My friends son was like this, it was the inability to walk any real distance that really worried her in the end. He turned out to have type 1 diabetes. Maybe get him checked out?

Sounds odd but does he have flat feet, my now 4 year old isn't a fan of walking. But his flat feet make him more tired.

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My 3 year old is a similar age and I’ve been thinking the same this summer. I’ve got her on a multivitamin with iron in it. I’m not sure it’s helped loads tbh. Keep an eye on it and if doesn’t improve I would see gp.

One other thing to consider is whether he might be hypermobile, as this can lead them to tire much more quickly. If so, physio can help.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions

My DD1 was like this at that age. I remember reading posts here sneering at 3yos in pushchairs, but we walked miles per day and she couldn’t do more than a few minutes walking.

I went to the GP when she started having a persistent cough in the evenings. It turned out to be asthma. Not severe enough for full blown attacks but she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

Nowadays a preventer inhaler 6 months of the year has her sorted!