2 year old is chronically sleep deprived and always miserable. Is there ANYTHING I can try? Doctor?

[JJ456]

I won’t bore you with the details but needless to say my daughter has never been a good sleeper. I don’t mean early rising or catnapping I mean being up for 3 or 4 hours in the night or waking every half hour or both since birth with no real improvement.

She’s now 2 and 3m and continues to sleep badly and has also dropped naps so she really needs that night sleep.

Since dropping the naps I can see she’s really miserable. She’s too tired to function and it makes her grumpy and sad. I can see it making her life really hard she just cries and rubs her eyes and says ‘I want a nap’ but won’t nap. No matter how tired she gets it’s the same. Wakes up 1 or 2 times but for 2 hours minimum but still up early. Gets about 8-10 hours in 24.

I am obviously exhausted too and mental health been on the floor for 2 years but as an adult I can at least accept that. I hate seeing her like this I just want her to be happy.

I rang the health visitor and was bombarded with pseudoscience about bananas before bed, limited screen time and ‘winding down’ all of which I’ve tried and it did nothing.

Has anyone successfully intervened with toddler sleep? Can a GP or some sort of specialist do something?

I’d really appreciate not getting comments about toddlers always being cranky or it being something else - I know lt own child and I know this is it.

don't they enforce nap time? Even if she is in the cot just resting. Surely they don't let her decide at 13 months no I want to play instead

Thank you. No matter what I do I get behavioural advice. She has a happy kid who ostensibly likes sleeping, doesn’t protest bedtime, doesn’t want to sleep in our bed she enjoys spending time in her room and in her bed with her toys. In the morning she sits and chats for hours. She does not have excessive screen time and none in the evening. She is extremely active and gets tons of exercise. It is nice to have just one person who does not think a long walk and a bowl of porridge is going to solve the hell I’ve been through (though I’ve of course tried all these things!)

as I said we’ve already been told adenoids look enlarged so I’ll make a GP appointment and get the ball rolling as I’m sure it’s years to wait!

@JJ456 definitely call the GP on Monday to sort the referral, and also call the ENT department at the hospital to see how long the referral typically takes. They will be able to tell you roughly in weeks. If it's ages I'd strongly suggest paying for a private consultation with a consultant who also does NHS work (a lot do). Often this means you can get the initial consultation done within a week or two and then go onto their NHS waitlist for surgery, saving months and months of wait. The consultation is usually around £200.

Go privately to an ear, nose and throat specialist. Do not sit on a waiting list for three years waiting to be seen.

Absolutely this.

Seeing GP regarding adenoids sounds like a good idea. After this I highly recommend an excellent book by a renowned Australian paediatrician Dr Green. It's called New Toddler Taming. It is full of sensible advice including sleep. I personally would avoid Ferber. I read his book. He sounds like a very cold man. I wouldn't trust cold doctors with my children no matter how good their methods might be

Agree with this. If you can, please don't wait years for the nhs referral!

I've come to the sad realisation that my kids need less sleep than other kids. So I've moved bedtime later to accommodate them. In the summer, we go to the playgroup in the evening until late so they're exhausted for bed. Obviously that's harder for winter, but we do occasionally have a walk around the block in the dark. Was nice spotting Halloween decorations while they were up and hopefully people will start putting their Christmas lights on soon.

Is there any history of food allergies? DC3 had a milk allergy as a baby, and we thought he'd outgrown it and successfully passed the milk ladder by 18 months. Age 2-3 he was an awful sleeper, he'd wake up in the middle of the night and it would take hours to get him to sleep. We trialled going dairy free again age 3.5 on the advice of a consultant (who we saw because he for constipation). Within about 4 weeks he went from being an awful sleeper to sleeping through.

If you there's any chance of there being an allergy, trialling dairy elimination for a few weeks is something you can easily do whilst waiting for GP / specialist appointments.

Hey yes she has a dairy allergy and a soy allergy. The universe decided to challenge me giving this kid haha lucky she’s cute. Before we eliminated these things her sleep was eeeeven worse was awake every 20 mins or so screaming in pain 🫠 have tried the milk ladder and never made it past step 2

And thanks for the prompts regarding specialist consultation, my work will pay for it so I will get one done :) according to my children’s hospital should shave off 6-8 months or so

Oh that's fabulous! Do keep us posted. I'm sure it will help - it could just rule it out as an issue or it could give you a breakthrough! Will keep you in our prayers!

All these may be true and work for children who don't have a biological issue preventing sleep but they really don't work for children with a genuine sleep issue and it can be so demoralising for parents who really have tried everything week in week out for years to no avail.

My DS2 is autistic, which we didn't realise until he went to secondary school (there is way more awareness in the past decade than there was then) and his autism is relatively mild - no stimming, excellent language skills. But he never slept and never ate. He was a whirring skeleton of excess energy and we were fobbed off for years. The lack of sleep and food affected his height growth and his learning ability.

If I had my time again I would insist on being investigated by a sleep clinic. I would emphasise how damaging the broken sleep was to my own mental health and capability. I would request melatonin, which I know is not a solution but might give us a break. I would genuinely consider remortgaging if necessary to pay for a night nurse twice a week so I could take a sleeping pill and get a full night's sleep.

OP the strain you and your toddler are under is unimaginable to people who haven't been through it. Please focus on advice from people who have. Any suggestions of 'warm bath, snuggle down with her, and a banana as a snack' when you have been doing that for months anyway are...well I know how desperate I used to feel when offered bleedin' obvious advice as if I hadn't already taken it.

Try looking at cranial osteopathy

Yes massively appreciate it. It feels condescending. Like I haven’t considered no screens before bed when I was literally thinking about killing my self because I’m so tired and there’s no end in sight. On top of the probably adenoids and the allergies I do suspect my daughter may have ADHD. Even compared to other 2yo she is extremely hyperactive. She literally never sits down. Literally. And I have all 3 types of ADHD which are only controlled by the highest possible dose of medication.

OP if you are ADHD then the odds are extremely high that she does. We are a ND family.. and yes need less sleep than most and/or find hard to sleep. Weighted blankets and things help. Echo ENT too

That’s not a bad shout. We used when DD a baby

If this is ADHD I highly recommend trying melatonin. It was the only thing that worked with my ADHD child. She started with awful sleep issues at 3, was prescribed the melatonin at 7, and is now 12 and is gradually coming off it (now has normal sleep patterns).

And we had tried EVERYTHING before that!

Don't do cranial osteopathy. If you think it's a physical issue to a paediatric physio.

My ds has cmpa and had the adenoids. I actually suspect he's allergic to something that we haven't pinpointed which causes inflammation of his nose/throat systems but I cannot work out what it could be and we have tried lots of exclusion diets.
His sleep got better after having adenoids out but now has got worse again. Not as worse but he takes an age to fall asleep. We can put him to bed, lights out, at 7 and he will still be awake at 11.

Dairy allergy and large adenoids often go hand in hand

def book private to get the ball rolling and great work will pay for it

yes many on mn push the Co sleeping - yes for some it helps

for others and like with @JJ456 dd it won’t she likes her sleep. Just needs less of sleep and esp if could be adhd then melatonin could be a game changer

Yes have heard of this but I expect she might be too young?? Also so difficult to get any doc to listen about sleep issues. Obviously she’s too young to be sure about ADHD - toddlers are hyper generally - but reminds me of me at that age and I most certainly do.

Honestly DD would be appalled if I suggested sleeping in my bed. She’d just be like but I want to sleep in my room!

Yes, the reality of the book is gentler than its reputation. I stopped driving as I was so sleep deprived . Hard work to implement when you’re sleep deprived yourself but might be useful. I would also try the other suggestions up thread if I had my time again. Hooe you can help her through this💐

Same for mini blondes

shes 8. And has been in my bed prob less fingers than a hand in her lifetime

for when she’s poorly and wants me and comes in 2/3/4am

she then radiates heat - goes to sleep. Fidgets and hogs the bed and I don’t get any sleep 😂