What helped your non-sleeping toddler start sleeping?!

[MintGreenLife]

My son will be 3 in the summer, and after three years of sleep deprivation, I’m so ready for him to start sleeping through. We have a floor bed and from about 1.5 years I started sleeping in with him as found the wakeups were then much shorter this way, but about a month ago I managed to sit next to his bed as he fell asleep instead of laying with him. This seemed to be a game changer and he slept through a few nights for the first time, other nights it would just be one wakeup and I would just sit by his bed and then sneak back out. This only lasted a few weeks though and he’s now started coming through to our room in 2-3+ times a night wanting to sleep in with us. I always take him back to his bed, but on nights it’s 3+ wakeups I give up and let him sleep in with us.

Does anyone have any positive stories, or tips in regards to what worked for you, if you were still on nightly wakeups around this age?!

I work too, and he will only accept me getting up to him in the night, or sleeping near enough on top of me when in our bed 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ve muddled through for this long, but I’m feeling really low now having thought we turned a corner a few weeks ago.

Bummmppp!

We've had similar and having a new bed has helped him with a bed guard too, so it feels more enclosed. We are also about to have his adenoids out because he wakes due to blocked nose and other symptoms associated with infected adenoids. I actually read about it on here from another mum whose son was a terrible sleeper and it saved them, so I hope for the same! Good luck x

School. My non-sleeper finally started sleeping when she started school. So hang in there!

@Georgia324 thanks for replying ☺️ I thought my post had gotten buried with no replies 😂 fingers crossed for the adenoid removal 🤞🏼 mine has never snored or had any signs of sleep apnea until the last couple of months. Since he had a cold he’s been snoring heavily and I’ve heard him stop breathing in his sleep, but his sleep has always been bad and the snoring only seems to make it marginally worse. He has another cold now, so I’ll wait and see what happens when this one passes and if still snoring will get some advice! With his bed, we have a floor bed that has sides all the way around, with an opening so he can easily climb in and out, so he should already feel quite enclosed xx

@FacingTheWall because of where his birthday falls he will be starting school next year when he’s 4. To me that seems too early, but if it might help with his sleep at least that’s one benefit 😂 thankfully despite not sleeping a lot each night and always waking up several times a night, he’s a very happy and content child, so I suppose he doesn’t need that much sleep 🤷🏻‍♀️ (unlike his mum 😂). Hopefully school is the turning point for us too, as we are starting to think about baby number 2, but the fact that the first still doesn’t sleep well makes me worry 🤦🏻‍♀️

My daughter is 4 in the summer and starts school in September.
She didn't sleep through the night for the first time until she was 2. We moved her to a bed at 2 and getting her to bed started to get easier but we both had to be in the room. Between 2 and 3 she slept through the night maybe 20 times. A good night was sleeping 8 until 3 and a bad night was waking every 40 minutes and only sleeping if touching me.

My daughter has allergies and reflux and these are absolutely horrendous for her sleep. She had a really bad flare up in summer and it took until January to get it under control again. She probably slept through 1 or 2 times in that time and after her omperazole went up to 40mg in January she went to sleeping through 1 to 2 times a week!
For her to sleep through she needs to have absolutely all of her needs met. As soon as she has a poorly tummy due to allergies, reflux or a cold or is cold or is hot or is itchy from an allergy rash or is over tired or is under tired and so on and so for she stops sleeping.
We have to be keen on managing symptoms ensuring she has antihistamines if itchy etc. we have had an improvement in sleep since we got her a heat under blanket on a timer so she had that on most of the night. When she is warmer she keeps her covers on more and stays warmer and asleep! We have also put an electric radiator in her room so we can keep her room warmer overnight as my partner and I don't like to be hot at night.
Since Christmas we have managed to get her down to one person for going to bed and even accepting daddy which has made a difference to our evenings. She's sensitive to the light in the evenings and since the clocks changed she is much more active and wriggly a bed time so it's now taking about half an hour longer to get her to sleep. We are ensuring her room is dark when we go in for bed time having learnt lessons from previous years when her bedtime has creeped to 11pm with the time of sunset. It's harder now her language is more developed as she doesn't like going up to bed when it's still "morning" ie. Daylight. We will start doing a fake sunset downstairs too in a few weeks hopefully to fool her that it is still bedtime.

For us it has been important to focus on the positives and to make the most of good weeks to push her independence with sleep a little more. She now resettles most of the time in her bed when she wakes in the night. Last summer she mostly had to be brought into her bed to be resettled for example. It means when we do have a set back we still have made progress from the last time!

For us drink overnight has made no difference. Her sleep has been equally terrible whilst breastfeeding Whilst formula fed, whilst having a small amount of oat milk and whilst having nothing. We can't "wear her out" during the day either - she's more active at bed time if we do this. Baths turn her into a lunatic too so we only do those once a week although she has calmed this down since turning 3 and it's now a brief run around and then we get into PJ's and into bed time mode. She dropped her nap last summer that made no difference. The most difficult thing is the reflux and it's pain and discomfort that wakes her up. It means that I get a lot of mum guilt for being truly knackered by it all. I have been having counselling with my HV to help with managing her and the lack of sleep which has been really helpful.