2.5yr old DD gets up in 1 or 2 times every night

[BruceyTheDaddy]

Hi, I'm having a really tricky problem with my 2.5 yr old DD. Every night for the last 2 months she has been getting out of bed at any time between 12am and 2am, once or twice a night. The wife and I are in the loft room, and can hear her door open, she then sits on out stairs at the bottom and starts crying, so we get up and put her back to bed without saying anything.
We can't leave her there because she'll wake her sister up who's in the next room. She is out of nappies and isn't going for a wee until morning. She doesn't have a lunch time nap, and she goes to bed a 7pm.
It is driving us nuts and really disrupting our sleep, PLEASE HELP!
I am contemplating keeping her in her room with a stair gate or similar just to try and break the habit.........

hi there,
definitely do the stair gate thing, it works for us! our 2.5 year old DD is still in a cot (doesn't want to go in a big girls bed!) and shares a room with her 3 year old sister who is in a bed. we put the stair gate on as soon as DD1 went into a bed, and every night i still say to her 'don't get out of bed unless you need a wee, and get straight back in again'. she's never got out of bed at night (apart from to sit on potty which is next to her bed), and has never wet the bed. we tell them that the stair gate is 'to keep them nice and safe'! having said that DD2 (the 2.5 year old) has always been a night-waker and we do go through a few weeks of nighttime wailing every now and then, for which we use pick up/put down, going in at intervals and saying firmly 'go to sleep'. i think with DD2 it is temporary separation anxiety, maybe that's what your DD is going through? the Pu/Pd really works for this. also i have found that rather than cutting out the lunchtime nap, at times when DD2 is night-waking i reinstitute the nap (esp on thursdays and fridays when she's really tired), for half and hour or so, and this seems to make her more settled at nights.
does she give a reason why she's crying? is it nightmares or just wanting mummy and daddy?
hope this helps!

I'm always shocked when parents recognize their children are waking due to 'separation anxiety' then treat this by locking the child in with a stairgate!
Night time can be a frightening time for a child. What's wrong with a reassuring cuddle?
Op the image of your child crying on the stairs and you leading her back to bed in silence is just heartbreaking. Why not comfort her?

....its more like she is going for a wonder after getting into the routine of waking up in the middle of the night. Sometimes she isn't crying, just sitting on our stairs doing. If we do say go back to bed, she usually stands up and trundled back off the bed closing her own door. She doesn't appear sad or had a bad dream, just waking up and having a wonder...

Oh well that's different and I can stop feeling bad for your dd!
Is she sleepwalking? Perhaps a stairgate may be worth a trial then for her own safety.
Anyway, I'm in no position to give advice. I haven't had a full nights sleep for 4 years.
Good luck, you've just got to do whTevever works for you I guess.