I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown with the lack of sleep. It’s about 18 months now where it’s like 8 weeks of really, really bad sleep, and then a week of good sleep, then back to the bad for weeks again. I am really struggling to cope now.
My little girls is almost 3 (she’ll be 3 in a week), and in the very beginning she was such a good sleeper. Slept all night from 8 weeks old! And then all of a sudden when she was just over a year old something bad happened. She’d wake up every hour or every couple of hours and she’d be wide awake and talking.
We have tried everything. And all I can see on the NHS website and others about toddlers not sleeping is;
- if they can’t self soothe BUT she has never needed us to self soothe, ever, she falls asleep on her own with no issues ever.
- if they are hungry SO for a year we started introducing a snack before bed in case that was the case. Didn't make a difference.
- if they are too full SO we decided to stop the snack before bed, or gave it earlier. No difference.
- Screen time SO we made sure she wasn’t watching tv 3 hours before bed (more than the 1 hour the NHS recommends).
- Too hot / too cold - We’ve done the with sleeping bag / without / socks on / no socks / vest under pj’s / no vest.
- Does she need a wee at night - we started putting her on the potty while she was half asleep to see if this was the case - didn’t make a difference, and in the end she started crying when we did this. Now I ask her when she’s awake if she needs a wee and she says no and doesn’t go for a wee for about 30mins after getting out of bed so can’t be this.
- lighting in bedroom, tried all sorts!
- grow clock, tried this!
- regular bedtime routine - we’ve done this from the beginning and have also tried later bedtime / earlier bedtime.
- too much napping - she decided to drop her nap in the first lockdown 🙈 but honestly think she could do with it but she totally refuses so no point. She sometimes will fall asleep in the car but it is hit and miss.
- not enough exercise in the day - we like to be outside so we do tend to do activities like that almost every day.
- not giving her attention when she wakes, tried this. I find I have to go in and tell her it’s night though, it does seem to help but I do this countless times a night.
Honestly think we’ve exhausted everything we could try / change. She doesn’t get out of bed so it isn’t that she’s distracted by toys or anything. She wakes up, I mean gets out of bed at around 7.30am and she goes to bed around 7.30pm. No naps as I mentioned because she just won’t! She requires a lot of attention and likes me being involved when she’s playing so it’s full on when I get home from work at lunch time and I’m just so tired by now and feeling like I can’t cope. Also my sex life with my partner, her Dad, is not good because I’m just so exhausted, permanently, and I’m just fed up of feeling this way!
Does someone please have any advice?! Last night she woke at 12.30am, 2am, 3am, 4.30am until 6am. Surely this can’t be healthy for her? Even though, to be fair, she is in good spirits during the day, most of the day too, but I worry it’s not really good for her health to be like this. It’s definitely not good for my health I feel! I cried at 5am this morning, and just before work!