Pregnant, 2.5 year old sleep regression. Please tell me I’ll sleep again

[Peonyyyy]

I’m 17 weeks pregnant and haven’t slept well since becoming pregnant. This has now got worse as I can’t sleep on my front or back, I really struggle to sleep on my side and have tried a few different pillows and positions. I am probably getting about 4 hours a night between turning over due to hip pain, needing the toilet and general pregnancy insomnia.

On top of all this our 2.5 year old appears to be having a sleep regression. It started with nap refusal, this has improved but now he is tricky at bedtime. It’s the constant ‘one more’ story, cuddle, hand hold etc. we have had a very consistent bedtime routine which has evolved with his needs over time but he has always been a pretty good sleeper, happy to go to bed and self settles at bedtime and through the night.

His latest thing is when he wakes up in the night he calls for us. We go in and it’s ‘need a cuddle’ ‘need a drink’ ‘need a hand hold’ and it’s getting longer and longer, sometimes he asks for a story too. We stay firm but reassuring and try to make it quick but sometimes if we don’t do what he asks he gets hysterical and doesn’t calm down. So it’s very hard to know how to deal with.

he doesn’t sleep if we bring him into our bed, same if we stay in his room with him. He’s so used to us leaving while he’s awake and self settling that when we’re there he thinks it’s playtime. It doesn’t matter how much we ignore him or tell him to sleep, he just won’t when we’re with him.

it’s the fact we can’t leave him when he’s in his cot if he’s upset, he gets hysterical and tries to climb out. We haven’t changed to a toddler bed because we know he would just come in our room and not sleep.

we take turns to go to him but in our house you can hear everything all over so neither of us sleep no matter who goes in to him.

Please tell me this phase ends and I’ll sleep again? This alongside pregnancy is too much and I’m worried about having a newborn as well. Do we just need to get through it? We don’t want to create bad habits so he always needs us through the night for reassurance, but also we can’t leave him crying. Please tell me this sorts itself out and he’ll go back to sleeping through? I’m so tired 😭

Just realised this is probably better suited to the parenting section. This is how tired I am! Please move it if so x

My little one has been in a single floor bed with an extra high guard since he was 10 months and hasn't climbed out so is that something you can possibly do so he's got more room to be comfy without being able to climb out and come to your room. I've only got one so don't know how to navigate it with two. Hopefully this bumps you so you get more replies 😊

Thank you @Devilsmommy i didn’t realise they existed, I will look into it! How old is your child now?

He's 22 months now and though he can climb everything else, he still hasn't got over the guard. Most of them are 45-60cm tall but I went for a 90cm one and it's brilliant. Got it from Amazon, £20/£25 iirc

Yes, he will sleep again. I have a 4 year old so can say this for certain! I'm wondering if maybe you could try dropping the nap on some days and putting him to bed a bit earlier? My son dropped his nap about that time and if he had a nap he wouldn't be tired when it came to going to bed so would take agggges to go to sleep, and would also wake up in the night/super early. Dropping naps is a horrible transition!

Our house is the same and I use earplugs along with a Bluetooth sleeping headphones and play rain sounds with my ear plugs in as well and that generally cuts out the sounds enough for me to sleep. I know my DP is with our son so I try and relax as much as I can and my mantra is 'at least I'm resting' even if I'm not going back to sleep.

I contacted my health visitor after my son was asking for 'one more thing' and his bed time routine got ridiculously long and she told me about 'the kissing game' sleep 'training' which is where you go back and keep giving them kisses to get them out the habit of feeling like they need to ask you for a million things to make sure you come back, because they learn that you will come back anyway. It's worked really well for him. If you google it, it'll tell you how to do it.

This phase will pass!! I promise!

Friends of mine experienced similar and put a stair gate on toddlers bedroom door and then had to re-do sleep training.

Remember it's very hard to be a good mum when you're an exhausted mum so please don't feel any guilt in doing what has to be done.
Have you tried ear plugs so your partner can share the load and hopefully get you a bit more sleep whilst you are in this period of heavy demand on your body?

He doesn’t need any if those things. It’s attention seeking.’It’s bedtime’ in a firm voice

@otravezempezamos thank you, we do do this, but it sometimes it results in a meltdown where he gets hysterical and it doesn’t end. He gets himself into a right state. Often we will do a cuddle and a sip of water then say it’s bedtime now, night night or it’s still night time, night night. Sometimes this will work and other times he will go hysterical. We don’t want to give in so we continue to go (not both of us together, me and my husband take turns ) but he tries to climb over the cot sometimes and just works himself up so much he can’t calm down.

@SouthwestSis thank you, I’m so tired I feel nauseous and I’m so forgetful it’s unreal. I also keep banging into things and have bruises on both legs. It’s crazy! My husband takes turns with me, and we both wear ear plugs but can still hear it all. I think I will try white noise in our room too. We just can’t switch off while things are like this. We both work too and there’s nothing worse when people without kids rock up in a morning saying ‘oh I’m so tired, I’ve been up since 6! And you have to fight the urge to punch them.

why on Earth people have loads of children is beyond me. After this one, I’m done. Sleep deprivation is really no joke. I can cope up to a point but at the moment we’re both broken and depressed, with the new baby’s due date a marker of the further struggles to come.

@UrsulaSings123 thank you, this gives me hope. I will look into this method.

When you say it doesn’t end OP, how ling are we talking? Because guaranteed he would burn himself out eventually. Nobody can holler for a whole night.
Obviously you need to make sure he is safe and can’t hurt himself climbing but you mustn’t give in. Zero communication if you have to put him back. It’s a really hard stage to go through but after a few hellish nights he will learn.

@otravezempezamos we have waited half an hour before. The problem is he will fall out of the cot head first and hurt himself badly. We are definitely not ready to get rid of the cot. And he just gets beyond hysterical.

we have done sleep training before, when he was a baby, and he would cry a bit and then give up and self settle. But toddlers have much more stubbornness in them to not stop.

my mum told me once when I was a toddler she was so fed up of going in and out that she left me to cry and I cried for the rest of the night, until morning. Toddlers just don’t stop if they don’t want to, it’s much harder than with a baby.

Wow you must have had some stamina! A whole night! But did you keep that up for many many nights or did you eventually learn that nighttime was for sleeping and not messing about? Half an hour is really nothing though. You need to somehow make his bed safe so he can’t hurt himself, even if that means a real bed and then you just walk him back in total silence each time he leaves until he gets the message.
This must be very hard but you need to do whatever it takes to crack it, even if it’s not what you want to do and it goes against instincts. You have work the next day that you need to perform well at, I guess at least one of you is driving a car or using hot things like ovens, kettles etc - without sleep that is dangerous, way more dangerous than letting a child cry.

Does he still nap in the day, and if so for how long? Cutting out or reducing the daytime nap should increase sleep pressure which might make him settle more easily for nighttime and overnight. At 2.5 he may be ready to drop the nap or reduce to an hour or less.

Or if he no longer naps at all, perhaps trying a slightly later bedtime for a few weeks?

We experienced something like this when toddler was 25 months and I was 4 months pregnant. Our main issue was massive preference for me, and meltdown otherwise. We're now 6 months on and after much trial and error hindsight is very helpful: our toddler was apparently in the process of dropping their nap (yay for us...), this did not in fact affect bedtime however which is still 9pm for us (def low sleep needs), and it took about 2 months to introduce a new bedtime routine (not the few days or week the internet likes to suggest).

We've had to be very consistent and persistent with a few rules, like not coming to sleep in our bed any more (not against it, but was very uncomfortable heavily pregnant), and only reading stories with daddy. We still do the bedtime routine altogether, but during bath time I say goodnight and leave, and this seems to be an acceptable compromise.

What's really helped us is giving up on the cot entirely, and switching to a double floor bed. For us, not for toddler lol. We cuddle to sleep and it's just better for our own sleep and backs. Yep, toddler can get out and get into our room... And does so about half the week. But we're now finally at a stage where they'll take daddy's hand and walk back to own bed and go back to sleep.

You'll sleep again!

Oh my I could have written this myself! I'm 12 weeks pregnant, and I swear from the day we found out I was pregnant our nearly 3YO decided she didn't want to sleep anymore. We have been truly blessed with a great sleeper until now, and really finding the ordeal getting her to sleep and then constants wakes through the night rough! I have no words of wisdom other than you are not alone and I feel your pain 😅

@WildeWalker omg exact same!! Today I swear is the most tired I’ve ever been. Hoping for a better night tonight. It’s good to know it’s not just us!! Hope you get some sleep tonight and this phase ends soon, it’s so brutal 😭 xx