3.5 year old awake for 4+ hours every night for weeks, please help!

[PitifulPrincess]

For weeks now my 3.5 year old DD has been waking up for hours on end every single night and I don't know what to do 😫

I should mention she is significantly speech delayed so can't tell us why she's awake

She has dinner at 5pm and goes to bed between 6pm-8pm after cuddles and story time (6pm on days she's had a full day at nursery, 8pm on days of no nursery or half days)

Her nursery routine if relevant is 9am-4.30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 9am-1pm Thursdays and Fridays.

Between midnight and 2am every night without fail for weeks now she wakes up wide awake ready to play and begin her day. No matter what we do she will not go back to sleep for at least 3 hours.

Since the age of 1 she has never slept well but never this bad. When she used to wake up in the night it was for 2 hours max, nights like tonight she woke up at 1.30am and has only just fell asleep now at 5am. She just wants to play and chat and mess about and I feel way out of my depth. I'm due baby number 2 in 5 days and am filled with dread at how we're going to cope with this plus a newborn. My family won't have her overnight for obvious reasons!

When she wakes up we offer her a drink and a snack in case she's hungry, change her pull up (not potty trained yet due to speech delay). We keep it dark and quiet and read her favourite quiet time books, sing nursery rhymes then either put her back in bed or let her fall asleep on us. She's started screaming bloody murder and crying when we put her in bed. This goes on for hours. She very rarely will fall asleep in our bed as she finds the change of location too distracting and just ends up messing about more.

I've just ordered a night light in case she's waking up afraid of the dark however I don't think this is the case as she often wakes up laughing and happy. There are no noises that are waking her up, I'm a light sleeper and would hear it too.

What do I do?! I feel way out of my depth and embarrassed I can't get my child to sleep

Does she have a water bottle next to her? We did that with DS from about 2 so he could have a drink whenever he needed one, from one of those bottles that won't spill. I wouldn't offer a snack at her age. By reading to her etc you're showing that night time is fun time. What happened if you quietly give her a drink and then cuddle her back to sleep?

My 3.5 is the same - she on the pathway for an (expected) autism diagnosis. Do you have other concerns apart from the speech?

We tried earlier bedtime / later bedtime / dropped the lunchtime nap (helped with getting to sleep quicker, but not the nights) and we also tried melatonin as recommended by doctor. Sadly nothing helped so far - I think a lot of it is for my DD tied to her sensory needs and whether she has had enough / too much sensory stimulation (movement, tactile stimulation) etc in the day. But we are still figuring that out.

I have heard melatonin helps for some - have you spoken to a doctor about it?

I also feel like her development would be really assisted by having more sleep, maybe you feel the same re the speech. My DD looks and seems very tired in the day, dark circles etc.

Sending solidarity, it's really really bleak being up for hours in the middle of the night... I expect the newborn adrenaline will carry you through a bit but you need things to improve. Hopefully family might help occasionally when baby arrives? Yes not ideal for them either but a bit of respite for you? Do you have a DP who shares it at all?

I would stick to a single bedtime every night rather than chopping and changing all the time.
When she wakes, return her to bed. It's night time, and time for sleeping. Don't engage further. No chat, stories, food - just quiet return every time.

Do you think she knows baby is coming and is acting up a bit because of that? I don't have experience with this age gap but can imagine it could have an impact.

Why do you offer drinks and snacks through the night? Does she not eat very well through the day?
Is her pull up soaked through? These are designed to last through the night and keep the moisture away from the skin.
These things will wake your daughter up further.
Imagine if you wake up through the night and someone every night then giving you a drink, a snack, then saying you have to get changed.
This would really overstimulate you and you won't be able to go straight to sleep.
My daughter is the same age and how just become afraid of the dark. If she wakes up in the dark by herself she just stays awake and can't get back to sleep. This has improved since putting her a night light

As PPs have said above, I would stick to one bedtime instead of changing it through the week and then get her up at the same times in a morning.

If you know she isn’t hungry, thirsty etc then interact with her as little as possible during the night. No stories or chatting to her, keep things dark and use the same phrases like “it’s sleep time”. My 3 year old DS also didn’t like to come into our bed as it woke him up even more. If she needs a cuddle could you get into her bed then leave once she’s back to sleep?

At 3.5 my son had a big growth spurt and was always hungry, this is why he started waking at night. So we started doing a pre-bed snack. So something like milk and grapes with a few crackers. We did this whilst having stories so 6 - 6.30. Then it was bath and bedtime. This seemed to work and stopped him waking at night. So might be worth trying a late snack to see if this helps.

The nightlight also helped us. He has one in his room and one in the hallway incase he wakes in the night and needs to find his way to our room.

Sending solidarity, my 4 year is the same and it's killing me. We don't feed change or play though. I keep it dark, and just tell him it's sleep time. He doesn't chatter or try and play, just tosses and turns and fidgets for hours, he cries if I leave him.

We've tried making it darker, lighter, earlier, later, snack before bed, no snack etc etc

This week, we've started switching TV off at 6pm, big snack before bed (milk and banana with scoop of protein) , reward chart and a sleep clock which tells him when it's morning is being delivered today.

So far we've had 2 nights where he has slept all night with a brief wake up (he has a double bed, when he wakes I get in with him) where he went straight to sleep when I went in, and one night when he was awake 3.30-6am - that's different from the usual pattern of being awake midnight-4am

Ps when I ask why he is awake he either says he doesn't know how to sleep or that he needs a Cuddle. This morning he asked me "how do people sleep? I don't know how to do it"

I wouldn’t be offering snacks in the middle of the night. To me that’s just making future wake ups more likely and prolonging how long she’s awake in the first place.
Put a sippy cup with a small amount of water near her bed and she can help herself.
I would probably keep her up later than 6. To me that’s probably a huge cause of the split nights. Yeah she will be tired after nursery but she shouldn’t need to go to bed at her age at 6pm. By 1:30am she’s already had 7.5hrs sleep! Instead have a long bath with toys and then have quiet time reading books or something so she’s awake but not running around.
You’ll need to do this for a few weeks consistently to see a difference. I would put bedtime at 7 or 7:30 and keep it the same through the week.

My 3.5 year old has been the same for about 10 days! She isn’t autistic and is on track with milestones (only saying because it could be unrelated to your daughter’s speech issues). I’m also pregnant so wonder if that’s affecting things. Last night we kept her up an extra hour until 8pm, she slept through until 5 then I brought her through to my bed and she slept for another 2 hours. I would say a later bedtime, maybe you could try 8pm as a routine? I’m also going to try snack before bed.

6pm seems very early, ds2 is 2.5 and a terrible sleeper. He's at FT nursery (8:15-515) if he naps there he falls asleep at 9pm, if he hasn't napped he's asleep by 8pm.

Go up for bath at 7, then milk and a banana or porridge, then stories and into bed by 7:45 most nights.

His brother is 6.5 and always loved sleep and is mostly asleep before him! We've realised DS2 just doesn't have as high sleep needs and is ok on 9-10 hours a night rather than the 12 hours recommended (He wakes frequently but a cuddle and one of us sleeping on a mattress on his floor from the first wake up seems to be keeping these wakes shorter now)