2.4yrs Not staying in her own bed all night

[lazzaroo]

We moved our DD from cot to bed just after she turned 2 and it went fine. She didn't miss the cot at all. But recently, probably over past 2-3 weeks she has ended up in our bed at some point in the night. Usually about 1-2am she wakes and cries, gets out of bed and comes to our room before we have chance to get up! I have tried to get her back into her bed and lie with her instead but she gets VERY upset. She has been ill, so we've been a bit lapse about it. Added to the fact the DH and I have also been ill so have just succumbed to doing whatever means we all get back to sleep sooner rather than later! Randonly this week she slept all night in her own bed but I can thin of nothing in particular that was different about that day/night. I also tried one night this week to get her to stay in her own bed by lying in it with her when she woke, but it then took her 2 hours to go back to sleep! when she comes into our bed she goes almost instantly back to sleep.

Ww have no problem getting her to go to bed. she settles herself happily in her own bed.

Any ideas?!?!

Is she still having a nap in the day?

Yes, she typically sleeps for about an hour after lunch (1.30pm). It can be less (40mins) or more (yesterday was 2.5hours, then I woke her up!)

It could be that she needs to drop/cut the nap and this is what is causing her to wake in the night and start roaming. If she'd started coming into you immediately after she'd moved from cot to bed, I'd say that was the cause.

My DD dropped all sleep at 2 and was only on 45 mins from 20 months (just to put it into some perspective). Night waking or early morning waking is often linked to the wrong amount of daytime sleep.

Thanks. We have thought about the nap thing. She has gone a few days wihtout sleep for various reasons. The first time she literally fell asleep in her tea at 5pm! then was mad as hell when we woke her!

Some days she's so tired by lunchtime that she won't eat properly and gets real fussy. Or if we have a car journey longer the 10mins she'll fall asleep!

Her daytime sleep has always beena bit of a battle for us and so I panic about any change to be honest!! and most days we are so tired because of the nighttime that I'm desperate for a rest myself!!

Why don't you try giving her a set amount of time at lunchtime and be consistent day in day out? If she's ready to drop her naps but in a transition period, her tolerance will be low so she will be grumpy. But the negative aspect is that her nighttime sleep is being affected which puts you in a vicious circle - she needs the sleep to make up for what is lost at night, but it's the nap in the day that's causing the lost sleep in the first place!

I've been through this quite a lot as my DD never reduced her daytime sleep naturally and we always had night waking, early mornings, or bedtime refusal instead. Since I've controlled the timing of her naps, she's been absolutely brilliant at night.