2 year old doesn’t sleep

[Mumofonexo]

Hi everyone. My sons just turned 2 and for the past 4/5 months his sleep has been absolutely awful. As a baby he was such a sleepy boy and would sleep for hours. Now he’s up at 4/4:30 am every morning. Today he was up at 3am and wouldn’t go back to sleep.

We’ve tried changing his bedtime so it’s later on in the evening and it makes no difference.

I’ve tried cutting his naps back but he refuses to wake up and will just carry on sleeping. He naps for 1/2 hours.

Even on the 3 days he attends nursery for a full day he still won’t sleep through the night.

this is really starting to take a toll on me and my husband as we both work.

any suggestions for knackered parents please x

That sounds so hard. One of mine struggled to sleep but one thing we were firm on was not TV or entertainment and, if possible, no getting out of bed. So we perhaps took her out of the cot and moved to the living room but that would be in the dark, in silence, no TV and nothing to do. Sometimes we had success when putting her back to bed after half an hour or ao. We tried not to engage in conversation and just repeat it was still night time and we werent ready to be awake. And before resorting to all that, we just sushed softly and gave her a soft toy or two in the cot but no lights on. After a few weeks of that, she started to wake up later. She ended up waking up no earlier than 7:30am. Saying that, she never woke up at 3am to get up and would go back to sleep if so. She was attempting to get up at 5:30-6am and we ended up extending her sleep by about 2-3h.

However, there might be an underlying cause and it would be worth checking. What does your child want to do when he is awake? Eat? He might be hungry and need more food/solods at night, perhaps try porridge and banana as last meal of the day. Restless? He might have some pains and could be bad digestion or something. Wide awake? He might not tire himself enough during the day or might be ready to stop napping. Is he scared of something? Mine had a vivid imagination and shadows or outside noises very easily transformed into ghosts, monsters and robbers. What time does he go to bed? Mine used to go to sleep at 8pm, so they got a good 11+ hours sleep nevertheless but if you put him in bed a lot earlier, they will wake up also a lot earlier at this age.

Sleep deprivation is hell. Mine woke up every 2.5-3 hours in the night at some point and even though she went back to sleep after feeding, I swear i couldn't function the next day from interrupted sleep. Give yourselves one lie in at the weekend each (eg. one takes Saturdays and one Sundays), take naps if you can in your lunch hour, try to get some time to mentally rest and decompress in the day. It will pass eventually. A lot of sympathy though. Can you afford to take half days holidays? You could take one morning a month just to sleep. It's like 6 full days a year and you probably don't need a full year. can you have one evening a week when one of you is responsible for your son and the other can have a bath, sleep, be in bed, whatever? Those pockets of rest really help and add up to give you some sense of relief here and there. I was so grateful of my Saturday mornings at the time! Good luck OP.