Why does my 22 month old refuse to sleep past 4am all of a sudden?!?!?!?!

[mrswhits]

My DD has always been a great sleeper, from 6 months she slept 6:30pm to 6am every night without fail, but about a month ago she started waking up anytime between 3am and 4:30am and refusing to stay in bed or go back to sleep.

She sleeps in a big girl bed (a double mattress on the floor as she learnt very early how to climb out of her cot and kept rolling out of the toddler bed we initially moved her to) and as a result can get out of bed, open her door and scream for my DH or I anytime she wants. We have a stair gate on her bedroom door to make sure she is safe and can’t get any further than her door, however her door is right next to my 6 month old DS’s, so the initial wake up/screaming fit from her bedroom door always wakes him up as well.

This issue didn’t start until about 6 weeks after we moved my DD to her big girl bed so I don’t think that is what caused this, nor did anything else change around the time she started waking up early. She sleeps in the dark, with blackout blinds on her window (we have tried giving her a nightlight in case the problem is that she is scared but she absolutely will not sleep with a nightlight on) she has a dummy and a bunny both of which I swear must be attached to her somehow because she always seems to have hold of them and she has white noise played to her from a speaker at the other side of her room.

After the first wake up I have to stay awake so that each time I see her climb out of bed I can run from my bed to her door to stop her coming out and to put her back to bed. As I am writing this I am watching my DD on her monitor and running back and forth to her room to put her back into bed!!

I feel like I have tried everything, we started off getting into bed with her and trying to help her go back to sleep (she was ill the first week so we didn’t want to leave her incase her temp spiked and we thought it was only happening because she was ill) the second week we tried recreating her bedtime routine (to an extent) we would go in, read her a book, give her cuddles and a kiss and leave her room. The third week we started going in, explaining it was nighttime and putting her back to bed and repeating this until 6am, this carried on into the 4th week, but it is having no effect whatsoever. Once or twice we tried letting her scream at her stair gate in hopes she would get bored/tired and just go back to bed on her own but that completely backfired and resulted in far more tears and stress than was necessary and she didn’t give up.

I am doing the back to bed routine on my own as firstly my DH works and secondly my DH is wrapped round our DDs finger and cracks after about 3 trips to her bedroom and I am now so exhausted I can’t get through the day without at least 8 cups of strong black coffee.

What can I do?! I can’t carry on like this for much longer, its not fair on my poor DS who just isn’t getting the attention he deserves because I am always so exhausted, it’s not fair on my husband as he is woken up constantly through the night then is having to go to work, and it’s not fair on me. I have never been so run down or felt so defeated, I just want to sleep until 6am and know that both of my DCs are getting enough sleep!!

Some ideas:

• later bedtime
• teach her to use a grow clock
• some quiet play toys easily gettable that she is allowed to play with if she wakes up earlier than the grow clock says
• sticker chart for each morning she correctly uses the grow clock

Mine both did this at 15 months and 18 months respectively (although they weren't good sleepers to start with). Lasted a few weeks, then gradually worked their way to waking at 6am. The before 6am starts lasted around 8 weeks.

I didn't find a solution I'm afraid

Following for any other suggestions as we are in a similar position with our 15 month old.. we started using a gro clock last night, decided she would probably have to do some crying as we knew she would protest, laid her bai

Same boat here

Said child just knocked my phone so it sent too soon! Laid her back down every ten mins... she resisted for about 25 mins this morning but fell back to sleep at 5.. woke at 5.50 ( gro clock turned yellow at 5.45..will set to 6 for tomorrow). I went in all bright an happy then lights on etc clear distinction between night and morning reaction to her waking. We are now very determined that our days are not going to start this early on a regular basis haha. So hoping that she will learn that too with the Gro clock and our positive reinforcement. Fingers crossed! But I too have been miserable and not the parent I want to be on such little sleep and I believe she is tired too so things must change! Good luck!

Later bedtime. 11 1/2 hours in one stint might just be too long now. try 7.30pm

No tips myself but I'm going through the same, DS is 11 months and gets up at 4.30am usually, today was 3.30am and some days he manages until 6am but it would be heaven if he could stay in bed until 6.30am just so I can get ready for work in peace! He goes to bed at 7pm and wakes a few times in the night usually 10pm-1am but settles quickly it's just if he wakes up after 3am he won't go back to sleep

So I’ve put my DD to bed as usual (but a little later, 7pm) I have set up her gro clock and explained the stars and sun and all that bollocks, didn’t go down particularly well, she got out of bed about 10 times 😒 she is now asleep so I will see how tonight goes!! Thank you all for your suggestions, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one going through this!!

Typically, my 6 month old DS is now refusing to go to sleep this evening 😖 large gin and tonic for me!!!

My DD made it till just before 7 before she was too tired so I took her up to bed.. Pointed out Gro-clock and talked to her like I did yesterday.. DD not remotely fussed of course but hope it is still going into her brain somehow! She went down easily as she was so tired, just a little grizzle tonight. We shall see what happens over night and in the morning. Let us know how you get too OP!

So last night was better (technically....) DD woke up 3 times (which sounds a lot worse than it actually was) she got up, screamed at her door for about 30 seconds then closed her door and went back to bed and went to sleep. It was very confusing, I’m not sure if it was because she got up SOOO early (first wake up was 1:30am!!!) and therefore definitely needed more sleep, or if she realised that she shouldn’t be up because of the clock??

At 5:30am she woke up again (1:30am & 2:30am were the other wake ups) but she was not going back to sleep then, so I took the opportunity to show her the sun coming up on her clock, we lay in bed whilst I made up awful fairytales and waited for the sun to come up and tell us it was morning and she seemed genuinely amazed when the star on her clock went away and the sun came up. I’m hoping this means tomorrow might be a bit better, but that could just be wishful thinking!!

How did your DD get on sw2102??

It was...mixed? The first part was great slept through from 6.55-4.40. The second half, which thankfully my husband dealt with mostly as it was 'his turn' ( we are alternating the early mornings whilst he is home for Christmas as he works away in the week so usually it nearly all falls to me) was pretty bad. She cried a lot, he went in at intervals to calm her down, she sort of went quiet and slept for ten/twenty mins at a time then would start up again, this carried on till 6 when DH got her up. It was weird as she kept going quiet so.. couldn't exactly give in then and get her up as she was calm, which we didn't want to do, but the crying in the intervals between was hard to hear.

Don't know if the clock had any impact at all but he kept pointing it out to her. She is really tired this morning though and I woke up from my precious lie in at 9am as she was crying in her cot next door as DH had put her down for a nap at half 8, but normally now she wouldn't nap till 11.. so now I am not sure if she will nap then or not, but she seems pretty tired again already.. DH has now taken himself back to bed!

Will keep going obviously as we know this will take longer than three nights to sort out.. if it does get sorted!

How's it going @mrswhits ? We have had two mornings of 6 and 6.15 wake ups. I am so happy! Don't know if its all down to the clock but so far I'm impressed.. I do feel like DD is beginning to understand it.

Hey @sw2102 it's getting better for us too!! We had a 5:30 this morning 🎉🎉🎉

I think the night before would have been good as well if my DH hadn't overreacted and run straight in to my DD's room when she made a noise (I was dealing with my DS who seems to have an aversion to sleeping these days as well 😒) DH claims he forgot what the POA was with night wake ups and panicked.

I really feel like the clock is helping, I re explain it every night and my DD takes great delight in saying goodnight to the sun and hello to the stars and gets so excited in the morning when the sun
comes back, it's v cute 😍

Hopefully its onwards and upwards from here!!