2.5yo STILL waking most nights

[beela]

......and we are very tired!

He occasionally sleeps through so I know he can do it. However, more often then not he wakes between 1-4 times in the night and calls out for us until we go in to him (he's recently gone into a bed but hasn't worked out that he can come through to us yet ). When we go in, we tell him that it is still sleep time and 90% of the time he turns over and goes back to sleep.

He has a good bedtime routine and falls asleep on his own. I don't think he's too hot or cold, his bed is comfortable, he's not hungry and his nappy isn't leaking. I can't work out why he's waking up

I go through phases, most of the time I am resigned to the fact that his sleep will get better eventually, but every time I hear someone say the phrase 'there are no bad sleepers, only bad habits' I start again down the path of wondering what we can do to sort it out a bit more pro-actively.

Any ideas??

If its any consolation, my horrendous sleeper got better just before he turned 3.
Not really sure what sorted it - think it was a combination things.
We did loose it one day, after a 10 wake night, and said we wouldn't go swimming, as Mummy and Daddy were too tired. He slept through that night, and asked to go swimming the next day
He also wanted to grow as tall as grandpa, so we told him he needed to sleep to grow.
We also "gave" his teddy lots of kisses just before bedtime, and said if he needed a kiss, he could get one from teddy, as he was saving them for him - so teddy became the source of comfort in the night rather than us.

Hope he gets better soon - its amazing how much better you start feeling if you can get 4 straight hours.

And don't let sleep put you off any more - DS2 was a dream compared to DS1. Was going through with on feed from about 4 months, and completely through from 9 mths.

I can't help but I am going through the same thing, my 2.2 year old has just gone into a bed aswell and he gets out of bed every night and won't settle back down till he gets in bed with us. I don't know why he won't sleep through as he always has done before and it's driving me mad!

Thank you, it's good to know we are not alone!

Since posting this on Saturday, I had a chat with him about Mummy and Daddy being very tired and if he wakes up he can just go back to sleep and we'll still only be in the next door room.

He slept a straight 12 hours with no wake-ups on Saturday night, and last night he woke up once and called out because he couldn't find his dummy, and then went straight back to sleep

So I don't know if the chat did any good, it could be one of his red herrings that he throws in from time to time (ha! fooled you!!), but either way I am happy with the two nights sleep we've just had! I like the teddy bear idea, I will store that up for future use.

Thank you also for sharing your experience re DC2, tbh it has put us off a bit (well, DH more than me), but we haven't died from lack of sleep yet it just feels like it sometimes so there is hope for siblings yet