3 year old waking in the night and I can’t deal with the anger

[Peonyyyy]

Just having a moan. Our boy has always been a fantastic sleeper - we put him down awake from anc early age and he slept through other than when he’s sick or sleep regression.

But the last 6 months have been hell. At bedtime he requests more and more things - more teddies, books etc and finally goes to sleep. He also now demands a night light. He then wakes at 4-5am or sometimes 2am because a teddy las fallen out of his cot, or something else and we go in and sort it. That used to be the end of it, we would pick up the teddy or give him a drink and say it’s still night time and he would go back to sleep.

Now it’s gone downhill even more, for example tonight he woke at 4 shouting mummy, this then turned to crying. I went in and he said his teddy fell out the cot so I found it and put it back. I gave him a cuddle and said night night and he got really angry saying no I want another teddy, I was saying no you already have 3 teddies in your cot and it’s night time etc. he’s now hysterical so I say night night and go to the toilet (I’m 6 months pregnant). My husband comes in to deal with it, ends up showing him videos on his phone. That’s still not enough for him and he screams when put back in his cot. It’s now 5am and we’ve both tried. We’ve tried explaining it to him, telling him he has to stay in his cot until morning as everyone is sleeping, tried saying ok one video then sleep but he still gets angry and wants more.

he actually makes me so angry that I end up speaking to him in an angry tone and when I leave the room I scream in frustration. Tonight I even threw my phone and went downstairs and screamed in the kitchen.

this is followed by lots of self loathing that I can’t keep it together, but I’m just so tired and scared about having a newborn soon with this going on. I just need it to end. I feel like I just want to leave the house and not come back as his crying makes me so angry.

He’s an intelligent boy I don’t know if explaining it to him in the day will help or something.

we have tried bringing him in our bed and he NEVER sleeps, just wriggles around and gets annoyed and wants to go downstairs.

it’s now 5.30 and I can still hear my husband dealing with him. I said we can’t give in to this but honestly what else can we do? He goes hysterical and cries for hours.

It doesn’t matter whether he naps or not. It doesn’t matter what his bedtime is. He just wakes up and doesn’t feel tired and therefore makes us do things with him.

At the moment it feels like life is hell. I have to go to work in 2 hours. I hate myself for getting so angry but in these moments I just hate him. I feel like the extreme anger I’m feeling probably comes from my childhood. My mum has told me that from about 1 year old I wanted to get up with my mum, one night she left me and I cried until the morning (for like 5 hours). I wonder if it’s history repeating. I feel like a terrible mother because I have always been quick to anger and can’t calm down, I mostly keep this in check and I’m very gentle and understanding with him, but when this happens at night I really struggle and I lose it and hate myself.

When he’s not doing this he is a wonderful, kind, gentle and sensitive child, not in any way crazy like some toddlers.

He is overtired from today because he was back at nursery after a holiday and I know he is over tired but how the hell do you get a toddler to just bloody sleep at night when they are over tired?!?! At my wits end

Make a thing of the change to the new bed, like it's a really special bed just for him and that it's so incredibly comfortable. It's a magic bed and takes you to a special dreamy sleep world. It's not fir babies - only special older boys can sleep in it
He might buy into it 😉

Solidarity, it's so fucking hard. When I was pregnant I was getting up with my 2 year old at 5am and they would watch cartoons while I slept on the sofa next to them in and out of morning sickness. It was survival and horrible. And the anger, omg the anger! That is sleep deprivation and sheer exhaustion 😩

Another vote for grown up bed and stair gate on door. Make a big thing of it all and combine this with explanations that you are not going to keep coming back at bedtime. Be really boring when you do respond to him and leave the room again.

It won't last forever but that line never really helped me in the moment so instead I will say that I feel your pain and you are only human.

If it's any help, I felt exactly like you when pregnant with dc2, I thought dc2 would be like a rerun of dc1 PLUS a toddler to deal with. I built it into an impossible boss fight in my mind.

Actually dc2 was an easier baby and I knew how to look after a baby and didn't have the head fuck of transitioning into motherhood. It wasn't easy but less hard than I imagined. Dealing with a toddler was the hard part.

Any chance he could be falling asleep at nursery (even briefly)? That would always ruin my 3 year olds sleep in the way you describe. Even 5 minutes of a nap was lethal.

My daughter was also in a cot until over 3, I’m big on ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and it was working for her. But for you, I’d say it’s not working as lots of these little issues would be resolved if he could get out of bed himself. You may need a door gate on his bedroom door though!!

I also understand your feelings of anger. I’m generally a calm person when well rested but if we have a bad run of nights then I can feel my anger building up as I’m just SO. TIRED.

The nightlight might just be developmental…I’m sure I read somewhere children hit a certain age and become afraid of the dark, something to do with their imaginations developing. My daughter never had one but now at 5 it is essential.

we’ve got a Yoto player, it has the nightlight built in, and she has some cards in her room which she can listen to when she wakes either in the night or before it’s time to get up. Might this work for your son? I definitely wouldn’t be letting him have phone videos in the night, the light phones admit is dreadful for sleep and it sets a precedent. A Yoto or toniebox would give him some stimulation but at a lower level and might help him go back to sleep. It works wonders for my daughter (who is admittedly a good sleeper on the whole) but also my nephews, who aren’t.

I'm baffled by all the questions about the cot. My son is 3 and still in a cot and sleeps beautifully 12 hours straight every night.

I don't know any just turned 3 year olds who are waking in the night to go to the toilet. Every child we know is still in pull ups at night at that age and sleeping through.

OP has a cot bed like I do where the sides come off to convert to a bed. Maybe that would help her situation, maybe not. Either way it's not strange for a 3 year old to be still in a cot. I'd say letting a child watch programmes on your phone in the middle of the night is the real problem here.

The only advise I can give, for what it is worth, is that no matter how bad you feel it does pass. You won’t remember this in 10 years time and so sometimes just accepting you will be going through this for a short while does make it a bit easier

my eldest didn’t sleep though until they were 3 and screamed most of the night until they were 2 will reflux. Both my DH and I ended up hallucinating from lack of sleep. I honestly thought we couldn’t get any worse… and then we had our next one.

fed every hour for the first year, then cried repeatedly through the night for several years . Then basically didn’t sleep through through until they were about 8. I was up down at least 3-4 times a night for about 5-6 years. Sometimes I had the cots in my room, sometimes I slept on the floor with them, sometimes by DH was pounding the street at 3am with them- basically anything we could do to get sleep and they work up at 5am every morning without fail no matter we did..

I went back to work at 5 months for with both of them so was a walking zombie

But I have lived to tell the tale (and have repeatedly told them they owe me for this!) my advice is- Get a sleep trainer to help advise so see if they can give some hints. (Big regret of mine we didn’t!) Let your child come into bed with you whenever they want. They honestly won’t be doing it at 18! You will cope with 2 even if the nights are horrendous. Plan for the bad nights ( I often went to bed at 8pm to front load sleep).

i honestly don’t know how I made it though those years but I did and they are good sleepers now. Seems like a different world. Try not to stress and remind yourself it will pass. But if you can get help (my mum was a godsend who would stay over in their room to give us a night’s peace) then take it.

He needs to be in a bed. If a teddy falls out of cot he has no choice but to get help from you.
I have said this on another thread, but what we did was to put a small mattress at the foot of our bed with its own duvet and pillow and DD was allowed to creep in during the night if she needed company ... the rule was she should not wake us up ... we treated that as a game/challenge. We would wake up.in the morning and do the "Goodness me what can this be on our floor!? . is it a monster/rabbit/whatever?!"
If he is trapped in his cot he has no choice but to make demands on you.
As to your anger issues. I can see you have tried lots of ways to address the.. I guess it has to be continuing work in progress. But you are not alone in getting angry with with the challenges of parenthood.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! So sleeping beautifully for 12 hours definitely don’t mess with the cot. But waking you up because he can’t reach things that he could in a bed means it’s time to shake it up and try something else.

And 4 is the average age to be dry at night so loads 2-3YOs are out of night pull ups and need access to the loo. DS was dry bang on his 3rd birthday and chatting to other nursery mums about a third were the same or earlier. He sleeps through but morning is a mad dash upon waking that he wouldn’t make if he had to wait for us to get him up!

Yes, ours is the same. We just leave it on all night now and they sleep through. If they wake up, they see the light is on and go back to sleep.

On the other hand, teddies are less likely to fall out of a cot, aren't they? And if they fall out of bed they go under or down the sides and you still get the screeches. Plus when DC first went in a bed they'd topple out then roll under the bed or into the corner etc.

They need to come out of a cot at some point, but I left it til they worked out how to climb out. Or in the base of dc2, sibling taught him how!

If it helps, it’s a real physiological thing that empathy reduces when you are tired.

You genuinely aren’t able to have your normal empathy.

I've got an almost 3 year old and we're at the end of something similar. He also slept in total darkness, door closed until a few months ago. Now the door is wide open and he has a nightlight on the landing on all night, I think it's normal for this age.

We moved him into a single bed 4 months before his baby sister came along, he has a gro clock as well, we're back to 7-7.

Re potty training, he is dry at night so has a potty in his room, it took a bit of practice but he can get himself up for a wee and then back in bed and off to sleep again.

Try one of these OP.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CS6W8RS6/ref=sspa_mw_detail_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWwp13NParams

It was an absolute game changer for us. My daughter is 2 and a half and now knows it's still night time if it's yellow.

We still have the odd wake up for a quick cuddle or missing rabbit, but I was starting my day at 5am at least once a week because she'd get up at 3.30/4.00 and that was it, she would not go back down. As a previous poster said, if push comes to shove take them downstairs. TV on but no other play or stimulation and try and relax on the sofa.

It's relentless dealing with a toddler and a pregnancy. I'm currently going through the same thing so you have my sympathies.

@InTheRainOnATrain

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! So sleeping beautifully for 12 hours definitely don’t mess with the cot. But waking you up because he can’t reach things that he could in a bed means it’s time to shake it up and try something else.

Yes, as I said, it might help OP's situation. It might not. But I think the "3 years old and still in a cot?!" comments on this thread are daft. I know plenty of parents who've taken their children out of cots for some notion that "they're too old for it now" and it's royally bitten them on the bum. Horses for courses.

Agree with others re proper bed and stair gate on the door.

Two of mine didn't like being in darkness so we got plug in night lights. They give off a tiny bit of light, but it's enough to be soothing when kids wake in the night.

thanks for all these messages, I appreciate it, I feel like crying but it’s prob cos I’m so tired and feeling like a failure.

regarding empathy that’s good to know - I always feel like I must be a terrible mother because when it feels bad like this I feel nothing but rage for him. Obviously I love him deep down and I don’t hurt him but I just feel nothing but rage and just want him to be quiet and leave me alone! It’s very hard to remember he’s only young and it’s not his fault when in the moment.

I keep going back and forth on the bed. He is potty trained in the day but has pull ups at night. In the morning (if he has slept til 6ish) he might say he needs a poo and we’ll get up for the day then and take him to the toilet. I feel like letting him loose might mean he gets more distracted at night, even with a lot of things removed from his cot, and might end up having poor quality sleep in the middle of the floor rather than his bed because he’s been up playing. There’s no way to know without trying it, but as there’s no going back once we’ve done it maybe we ought to try the other things first.

*bedroom not cot sorry

I get terrible tiredness induced feelings of rage - people don't like to talk about it but doubt it's that unusual. I never remember feeling angry like this pre kids.

In general, it's worth making their bedroom their sanctuary, so if they're not sleeping they're doing sleeping calm like playing quietly, looking at picture books, drawing, listening to music etc. teaching them to be happy alone is helpful to everyone.

My son had the sides off his cot at 18 months so I could lay with him, it really helped his sleep. And he was out nappies totally before 2.5 but I appreciate that's just a hormone thing, we sure as hell didn't "night train" of anything, but at 3 he would definitely be up sometimes to use the toilet.

Op, I'd go for a proper bed so on bad nights (especially with the baby too!) you or your husband can lay with him to try and settle him back down. Audio books work well for this too.

But yeah sometimes they just start their day early. It'll level out after a bit. I wouldn't worry about him at nursery - my son would often go all day at nursery from waking at 4/5am they're so busy there he wasn't bothered at all. Sometimes he'd have a little sleep in the book nook but mostly not. We'd just do early tea and no bath that evening and hope he was tired enough to catch up on his sleep!

I get you wanting to settle him back down but honestly 90 mins of all 3 of you getting worked up is just not sustainable. Try for half an hour, then just admit defeat and have 2 breakfasts and a bit of telly on the sofa. You'll feel much saner for it probably!

My DS has always been a really poor sleeper, and we found he improved so much when we took the bars off and turned his cot into a "big boy bed". Get him involved in buying his own bedding set so he can be excited about staying in his big boy bed all night.

Highly recommend reading How To Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber, which is full of useful advice even if you don't got for full-on sleep training. You have to take into account what you guys want and need as well as him - you are not the best parents if you are both horribly sleep deprived, and you need to get him sorted before the baby arrives, if only so he knows what the expected routine is even if it gets a bit disrupted. If you're planning on getting him out of a cot, do it all at once, and well in advance of a new baby so he doesn't associate it with the baby arriving. Personally, I would just tuck him back in and keep going back into him occasionally to reassure him, but not interact at all until it's a time you're happy to get up at. I'd also consider putting him to bed much earlier, if only so you have the option of going to bed earlier too. It's a crappy stage, much sympathy

Should add that we sleep trained both our children as per Ferber, and they're both completely fine (16 and 11 now), and became excellent sleepers!

I also think you're setting up a potential conflict if you leave him in the cot, and then the cot goes straight to the baby. He may resent the baby for "taking" his cot.

It sounds like you've tried a lot of things already really. Why not try a bed? Ime sleep improves with a bed, and lots of posters say the same.

Does he nap at all? Total nap ban required.

He is overtired and confused. You need to sleep train him and deal with around a week of tough nights. But do it now before the baby comes or you’ll really be in a pickle.

do not move him to a bed unless he is able to climb out of the cot. If he can then it’s a safety issue and a bed is necessary.