I just can't cope with the tiredness anymore, it's almost every single night. He either wakes us in the early hours shouting, just wants tucking back in again or he's up anywhere from 5am onwards and won't go back to sleep. On a bad night like last night its both. I feel 10 years older than I should and am spending my days tired and irritable, shouting at the DCs and snapping at DH with no patience for anything. I think I've turned into a horrible person.
He has always had a good bedtime routine and there's no problem getting him to bed and to sleep, he just won't sleep all night. His twin sister does 12 hours straight without a murmour.
We have a sleep trainer clock, he knows he's not supposed to get out of bed or shout for us until the light goes off at 7am. He ignores it.
We've tried positive reinforcement with a reward chard where he gets a star for sleeping through and gets a treat if he gets 7 stars. It takes weeks to get to 7 and more by fluke than anything else, by which time I don't think he's relating the treat to having slept through.
We've tried streches of just tucking him back in without a word, i.e. reassure him we're still there in the hope he'll stop feeling the need to wake.
We've tried negative consequences of various types e.g. if you wake us in the night, we won't do . Has no effect.
We've tried getting cross with him and frogmarching him back into his own bed, threatening to remove toys, shut his bedroom door etc.
All in all, I think over the last 3 years we've tried every different approach we can think of for a decent amount of time, to give it chance to work - nothing seems to make any difference. We just can not seem to get through to him that if he does wake in the night he needs to go straight back to sleep instead of insisting on waking us too. Or better still, I wish he'd just stop waking up!! There's no need for it, he doesn't need the toilet or anything - he just wakes up for no apparent reason and I don't know what to do anymore. The lack of sleep is taking it's toll on all of us.
He's already at school full time (kindergarten), I've had alot of people saying it will sort itself out when he starts school because he'll be tired. It hasn't made any difference.
Has anyone else been through this and have any advice to offer? Any ideas why he just keeps waking? Is it normal for some children to just be poor sleepers, regardless of what tactics the parents try - do I just have to live with this?
Any advice greatly appreciated, thanks.