Sleep - how to get toddler to come into our room

[Sleepy74747]

I have a 2.5 year old and a 9 month old. 2.5 year old sleeps through about 60% of the time…the rest she wakes about 3am. When this happens me or husband go get her and bring her in our bed or husband gets into bed with her in her room (double floor bed).

we are fine with cosleeping itself but both struggle to get back to sleep if we’ve had to get out of bed etc so it can mean waking at 3am and then not getting back to sleep for hours even though she falls straight back to sleep!

we could just cosleep from the start so we don’t have to go get her but since she sleeps through a decent amount I don’t really want to take her out of her own room and un-do that. For parents with toddlers who just wake up and run into their room…did you have to teach them? I feel like she would understand when awake but when half asleep and usually crying I can’t imagine her just popping in quietly!

Not quite sure why you want to put energy into creating a habit that eventually you will probably want to break. Why not focus on settling her in her room and leaving?

Yeah if she goes straight back to sleep if you lie with her in her bed, then surely you can go back to your bed and leave her in hers? Or will she just wake 10 mins later if you do that (mine did that for a period of time).

DD just kind of started doing this herself. Now she will appear and get into bed with DH (I am sleeping separately in our room with newborn atm) and it doesn't even wake him up, but for a while she did need to be collected. I'd say from about 3 (she's 3.5 now) she started just bringing herself in.

We did say before bedtime each night that if she woke up she could come to us, but I think it took a while for her to be able to work that out when just woken up.

Be careful what you wish for!

Time. Mine would shout out for me until about 3, and then she realised she could come in herself. Once she realised, she did that every time.

Yeah I should have said if we try re-settle after the first wake up she just wakes constantly. I think she’s not quite tired enough to conk out again without comfort. She’ll sleep till morning if with us!…but basically wondering how I teach her to just come in if / when she needs! I’ve debated A trail of glow in the dark stickers leading to our room and trying to talk to her over the baby monitor but may have just gone mad with sleep deprivation from my youngest! 🤪

in terms of habits I’m sure she’ll grow out of it and not want anything to do with us / her own space soon enough but just trying to get the most sleep at the mo and also not wanted her to feel pushed out with arrival of her little sister

@PointeShoesandTutus ahh yeah I am wondering if maybe she’s just a little bit too young to get it!

If you don't go in when she wakes, surely she'll eventually come to you? If you call to her and tell her to come in, would she listen? My motto is generally 'whatever gets me the most sleep' so if you really can't get her to come in to you without you getting up and risking no more sleep for the rest of the night, id just co-sleep from the start. It's a perfectly natural way to sleep and they all grow out of it eventually.

Some children really just don’t seem to get out of bed on their own, even when much older. I distinctly remember as a child calling out to my parents if I woke in the night but I would have been to scared to get out of the ‘safety’ of my bed…even when I was calling out for ages!

In terms of being careful what you wish for - I am desperately trying to get my 6yo to STOP coming into my bed in the night but it’s hard to break the habit as I don’t always wake up when he comes in (only when he starts fidgeting and stealing the duvet!). I haven’t minded this so much during the toddler years but he seems more dependent than ever on sleeping next to me while as he gets bigger it’s impacting my sleep more negatively.