I just don’t know what to do anymore

[SkyBlue20]

I have a 2.5 year old DD and a three month old DD and I just cannot cope with the sleep deprivation anymore - and it’s the toddler causing it, not the baby.

She was always a really good sleeper as a baby, then from being nine months old she suddenly started having split nights, which lasted a year - I think they partly lasted that long as we got in to a bad habit of giving her a bottle when she woke and so she then started waking for the bottle. We eventually managed to claw that back and she started doing full nights again around December of last year. However, the last month or so, her sleep has gone to absolute pot. There have been a lot of changes for her in that her sister arrived, she’s started dropping her daytime nap (the only way we can get her to sleep is to get her in the car but obviously we can’t do that on nursery days) and she learnt to climb out of her cot so we’ve had to get her a big girl bed, which we were hoping to avoid until the new year. So I get that her sleep would be affected but wow. She keeps waking in the middle of the night for three hours at a time, often meaning we end up starting the day at 4am, or on nights she doesn’t wake, she’s up for the day at 5.

It wouldn’t be too bad but obviously we have the baby’s wake ups in there, too, so tonight, for example, DH stayed up to do an 11pm feed, I got up at 2am to feed the baby and at 3am as I was heading back to bed, the toddler woke and asked me to go cuddle her so I left the baby sleeping in the room with DH and went in with the toddler. Two hours later she still wasn’t asleep and I had to leave the room, have a massive cry and ask DH to take over. This was 25mins ago and I can still hear her screaming for me, which is so hard.

She’s so clingy to me at the moment and I just don’t know what to do about that either as it means both her needs and the baby’s fall on me (I’m combi feeding but majority breast and all breast overnight), despite DH being absolutely amazing. I spend most of the time she’s at home giving her all of my attention while DH looks after the baby or baby is just in her Moses, I took her out for a mummy and daughter shopping and ice cream trip the other day, I smother her in kisses and cuddles and yet I still feel like I’m not doing enough and she’s feeling abandoned (when really it’s the baby who isn’t getting the love when the toddler is around!)

I’m at my wits end, I just don’t know what to do anymore, every version of nights DH and I have tried thinking it’ll be the way to get more sleep, had failed as the toddler has thrown a different spanner in the works. I know we need to change some bad habits we’ve gotten in to (lying with her while she goes to sleep - we used to just be able to leave the room and she’d fall asleep on her own - and lying with her when she wakes at night) but she’s such an emotional wreck at the moment (not helped by how little she’s sleeping) that I feel terrible abandoning her when all she wants is comfort, love and reassurance as she goes to sleep. It’s 10mins since I started writing this and I can hear her screaming for me getting worse. It absolutely kills me but she’s with her dad, I don’t think I can pander to it and go running every time she does this? I need some sleep, too (granted, right now I’m writing this and not sleeping but I couldn’t sleep with it all whizzing around my head).

I think I’m going to get in touch with the HV in the morning to see if she has any words of wisdom but any stories/advice/solidarity/reminders that it’s just a phase (hopefully), very appreciated. I can’t go on like this, none of us can.

That sounds like an extremely hard situation. I have a 3yo and a 9 month old and prior to his birth I read that toddler sleep can be disrupted by baby’s arrival as it’s their way of getting attention from you. It sounds like when your DD is awake for long blocks of time she’s getting a lot of cuddles and attention and it’s understandable that you don’t want to leave her screaming for you.

I think if it were me I would try and make your response to her waking up very boring and repetitive. We had to do this at one stage with DD when she was waking and shouting a lot at night. We would go in her room, say the same phrase every time e.g, “back to bed, time to sleep, love you.” I would pick her up and put her into bed and then leave and shut the door. Of course there was a lot of protesting and it took many many repetitions of this before she realised that night time wasn’t the time for getting lots of attention from us. Before starting this, I did sit her down and drew out a new bedtime routine on a big piece of paper step by step with her where I explained that this would happen if she woke up. You can even roll play her waking in the night and you putting her back to bed so it’s very familiar and not scary at night time. Basically it’s about keeping night time as boring and repetitive as possible so it’s less appealing for her to keep getting you up in the night. This combined with making sure you are filling up her attention tank in the day (sounds like you are anyway) is what I’d try.

good luck xx

Thank you, @Sleepysaurus2. you’re definitely right that she’s seeing that she’s getting attention and therefore every little wake up she shouts for me - I would do the same if I got cuddles from it! I think we need to bite the bullet and just start pulling away a little bit but still in a loving manner. I think we’re going to try and put limits on it initially - so, ‘I’ll sit with you for five minutes but then I have to go’ type thing and make it shorter and shorter. I guess it’s similar to what they say about babies - if they go to sleep being held, for example, when they naturally wake a little between sleep cycles, they’ll wake fully as something has changed if you’ve put them down. She’s waking and we’ve gone.

we’re going to try to instil it in her, too, that if she wakes up at night then daddy will come and see to her as that way DH and I can take a child each and each get an ok amount of sleep rather than now, neither of us are getting any sleep! I’m actually out tonight anyway and won’t be here for bedtime so that’s a good way to start her off, I guess - she’s not that bothered about me when I’m not here!

DD2 better be a better sleeper than her big sister, I think we’re owed that by now 🙈

Dropping the nap can cause MASSIVE issues. It's got to happen, but it's so tough for you and toddler.

Can you sleep even if she isn't? One of my boys had a patch where he did split nights. If I lay in bed next to him i could doze though! He seemed content with that. The bad patch passed after a few weeks. Tricky with new baby, but could DH being toddler in with you? Or could he sleep with toddler? My DH had a bed in my eldest's room when her brothers were tiny.

I'd try going cold turkey with the naps.

I think we’re going to try and put limits on it initially - so, ‘I’ll sit with you for five minutes but then I have to go’ type thing and make it shorter and shorter.

Don't do this! She's 2.5, she's doesn't have any concept of time, particularly not in the middle of the night when she's an emotional wreck! You're just making it needlessly complicated. Do as pp said and have one consistent, boring (but comforting) response and stick to it.

First work on bedtime. Do a gradual retreat type sleep train to get her settling herself to sleep.

In the middle of the night DH deals with 100% of wake ups, by going in, putting her back in bed/lying her down, giving her a quick kiss and saying it's sleepy time now and leaving. The key is consistency.

You need to apply something called sleep pressure. You create this by keeping them awake during the day. If they have a split night where they are awake for hours at ungodly times that means they are not awake enough during the day. You can create sleep pressure by creating wider wake windows and when you are exhausted this is hard because I’ve been there with the split nights before.

You can create wider wake windows by waking her up earlier and keeping them awake. Shortening their nap or dropping it altogether if they have a nap at all at this point. And even sending them to bed later.

I always highly recommend the huckleberry app. It’s great and if you’re willing to pay the subscription it will even help you create a sleep schedule for both of your littles and it’s very customizable if something isn’t working for your kiddos!

Don’t mind the sleep chaos in the picture. She’s been suffering from the flu so she hasn’t been following a perfect schedule right now. 😂

We have slept in her bed a couple of times but then other times, it’s just impossible - last night, for example, she was just climbing all over me and all sorts 🙈 I’m glad it didn’t last too long for you, hopefully we have an end in sight 🤞🏼

ahhh yes, we learnt all about sleep pressure during her split nights phase. She doesn’t nap at the moment so it isn’t the lack of sleep pressure, I think if anything she was going to bed overtired, so we’ve brought her bedtime earlier to see how that goes. We do use Huckleberry to log sleep but tbh I found the paid subscription a bit pants for us so we didn’t use that side of it for long. There are just so many variables and I think that’s what I find hard - I just want one clear answer 😭

Oh Im sorry OP - this is so tough! We have a 2yr age gap too and I remember so well people asking me how is baby and I'd reply it's the toddler causing issues! We slept in shifts to stay sane - I would go to bed at 9pm (DH napped on the sofa from 7-11ish), DH did wake ups till 2, then Id take over and stay awake till 5/6, watching materchef aus - he'd then get the toddler ready for nursery at 8 while baby and I slept. I remember one night I had to put the toddler back into his bed (moving out of cot) over 50 times. I stopped counting at 50. They are 5 and 7 now and sleeping like babies - it does get better, hang in there!

Just an update on this in case anyone finds it in the future with a similar problem - we changed it so that DH does all of the toddler’s bedtimes and any nighttime wake ups and it’s really helped her sleep - she still has some wake ups but is sleeping through much more, has also helped DH and I feel much more sane. She’s still super clingy to me in the day but it’s getting better. My theory is that because she does have some separation anxiety from me, she was noticing I’d gone when she swapped sleep cycles and waking to cry out for me, whereas with DH putting her down, she’s not as aware/bothered that he’s gone so just continues sleeping. Or something.

Still having to lie with her when she’s going to sleep but that’s fine, we’ll deal with that down the line. So getting there, slowly. Very slowly 😂🙈