Just a post asking other people's advice/ experience really...
2 DC - 5 year old sometimes sleeps through but lately calls us most nights.
But the 2 year old 🤯 they literally wake every single night, without fail, and then cry until they get us. Usually around 11pm-1am, so I think it's as they change sleep cycles.
We have tried, quite literally, EVERYTHING. They go to sleep in their room quite well so it's not a room problem. Tried a Blackout blind, white noise, earlier nap, later nap, no nap, full belly, not-so full belly. There are no external factors like noise, or adverse temperature. Even a sleep consultant had no further suggestions for us.
Granted, they go back to sleep for the rest of the night when we join them, so we have to be grateful for that, but still, it's really hard to have disturbed sleep every single night and to never be able to sleep in your own bed. On the off chance that 2 y/o has a better night, 5 y/o is bellowing instead.
We have even bought an extra double bed so that everyone has a place to sleep together 🤦🏻♀️
However we don't really want to just co-sleep the whole night because the kids are fine going to sleep in their own rooms, plus it's nice to have evenings to ourselves when we can (until the inevitable wakes!)
Don't want to do Cry It Out or Controlled Crying because if they do want the comfort then of course we want to be there for them.
So..... is there something else we can do to try and get our kids sleeping through the night in their own beds?
Or is this normal, and our kids just want the comfort of us being there, and this is just our life for the moment?