3 year old causing chaos during the night

[YoungerHeart]

My 3 year old has never been the best sleeper but would usually stay in his own bed and wake early.

Recently he is waking up 6-7 times per night, sometimes he will go back to sleep but mostly he is crying for us or needing settled. The problem is he doesn't want his dad and when he goes in he just repeats I want mummy, I want mummy.

The only way he is semi- settling is bringing him into our bed. I say settling he still wakes up in our bed, talks in his sleep, cries and he's having a nightmare, and kicks lumps out of us both.

Needless to say none of us are getting any quality sleep. It's driving a wedge between my husband and myself as he thinks I'm too soft and he needs to learn to stay in his own bed which I agree with but at 3am I feel that any sleep is better than us all awake and cranky.

He's also decided he's scared of the dark in general so we got him the gro clock but this is making no difference, we leave his door open and our room is directly across, he has a comforter etc.

At my wits end and shattered! Any advice?

We had a similar problem with ds2 so made him his own bed in our room for a while - he would go to bed in his room and then could come in our room during the night. Once we had all got some sleep and had more energy we could tackle the getting him to sleep in his own bed. We would find we had to do this intermittently for years. He has always been a light sleeper and could be described as 'highly strung'.

The gloclock is really bright even on brightness 1, it would be better to have a red night light as that won't interfere with melatonin production - that's the sleep hormone. You can turn the gloclock brightness to 0 if you want to still have the sun coming up. Is 3yo too young to be open to bribery?!

Mattress on the floor in your room. Whatever gets you all the most sleep IMHO

Sleep training. Gently and calmly putting them back into their bed, no conversation other than "night night" and don't waiver.

Takes about a week if you've got a really tough nut but it was around 3/4 nights with ours. It's worth the effort, honestly.

@Curlewwoohoo trust me I've tried the bribery 😂😅😂

@SkyFullofStars1975 it's a thought but I know what you mean.

We sleep trained him as a baby as he was never making it through the night and it worked wonders after about 3 nights.

I would also look at his activities in the daytime. Is he getting enough exercise? Is he on screens too much? He may be overtired and in a bad pattern. In other words he may have you trained, so better to be firm. I used my mom voice on mine when they did this. Just really firm and consistent. Mine would sleep on the floor next to their bed just to make a point I guess, but they were sleeping and let me sleep.

We did this the first night our child was in their own bed and continued it religiously

Yeah thought you would have tried bribery! It did work in the end for my daughter but it was MEGA bribery and she was that bit older...

You've got two camps then,

Camp 1 - put them back to bed, stay very calm, don't engage,

Camp 2 - co-sleep, make a bed in your room, do whatever you need to do to get through.

So pretty much got to try camp 1 as long as that sits OK with you. Be consistent. Both parents need to be on same page. Give it at least 2 weeks.

And if that doesn't work, get into camp 2 and wait it out until your little one is that bit older.

Why is he waking up?

Cold
Hungry
Bad dream
Pain?

My 3 yo has only consistently had good sleep between 2.5 and almost 3. She has been awful since 3. She wakes me 3-5 times a night but most of the time she is crying in pain whilst still a sleep. Working on her pain is the only thing that is making a difference to her sleep. We have had her reflux meds adjusted, put her on even more pillows, give her Calpol before bed if she complains of tummy ache which is most night. She's getting a referral to a different specialist.

None of this will help your child but a lot of the advice on here wouldn't help mine either. They were sleeping well so what has changed? What are the reasons for the wake up and why is it that mummy is comfort and sleep? Look for the little cogs whirling away in the background making him tick.

I think it's the nightmares that would make me think that he does need comfort. He's not just awake and coming for a visit.

@Superscientist thanks! He had had a blocked nose/cold on and off for about 4 months now. I've had him at the GP twice who just say it's normal for kids his age to catch virus after virus.

We've tried using Calpol plug in, Olbus bath, humidifier in his room, Vicks you name it but he is still blocked up. Our health visitor suspected he might have enlarged adenoids but the GP said they won't refer him until next year.

He is also saying he is scared of the dark despite the fact he had a night light and/or we leave his door ajar to get light from
The hallway.

@Curlewwoohoo

I thought we were over the sleep difficulties when he came out of the baby stage!! 😂😅

I hear your pain! Colds wreak havoc with my daughters sleep

Olbas in the humidifier is our go to and a couple of drops on the mattress under her pillow. I usually put the drops on a piece of cotton wool so it can be dabbed all over the area. We do an extra pillow and make sure she is quite upright when we come up to bed. Colds cause her reflux to spiral so I often end up sleeping in her bed just to keep her as upright as possible

We have started leaving her fish bubble light on for some light and white noise as we thought it might be impacting her sleep. She is a everything is scary phase including her favourite dinosaur bedding.