2 year old sleep mess - any advice?

[StrangeGlue]

Dd will be 2 next week. Once she got to about a year she'd sleep through once we got her to sleep. We went through a phase where we just about got her to the put her in the cot and leave stage but that lasted a few weeks and slowly rolled back.

Her sleep has got worse and worse since, at almost 2 we're now back to waking in the night and taking three hours to go back to sleep and taking hours to go to sleep - she's currently been wailing fir 2 hours.

She won't nap and even after a crap night gets up at 7am.

It's so stressful and I don't understand - I'm tired why isn't she?

Any advice and approaches anything gratefully received!

she probably Is exhausted, have you tried n cry sleep solution, there is a toddler versional and a nap version, libraries seem to have them! think maybe getting daytime nap sorted will help, but equally she could be one of those super children who doesn't need one!

Groclock could be worth a try at that age.

What do you do when she's awake for 3 hours in the night?

Also, what time are you putting her to bed if she's already been wailing for 2 hours at 8.30pm?

She hasn't had a day time nap since a year old and honestly isn't tired during the day unless the night was totally horrendous.

When she's awake in the night she's normally not crying she's just awake so we sit next to her cot and stroke her hair.

Will look up no cry solution.

Bed is normally into cot at 6.30 and asleep by 7.

She normally, when not going to sleep, just bibbles around in her cot - the crying tonight is a new treat.

Little bump

How was it last night OP?

I've dusted off a couple of my many sleep books (DS was a rotten sleeper until relatively recently). If she's getting about 12 hours at night, that puts her towards the low end of the normal range - average is about 13 hours total sleep (night+daytime nap).

Once you've ruled out all the obvious things - particularly illness/teething - it seems to come down to routine.

It sounds like she's getting off to sleep okay, but then waking in the night for a long period? DS used to do that too.

Try to keep it all really calm, dark and with no stimulation in the night.

How would you feel about not going to her/not staying with her if she's calm? We tried controlled crying a few times but without any sustained success - it always went wrong again whenever DS was ill, and that seemed to be continuous during the winter half of the year. Our principle is that we will always go to him if he calls in the night. Nowadays (DS is 4.7yo) we will do the monotonous "time for sleep DS", tuck in and leave again pretty quickly.

The Groclock could help, because it gives a really simple cue to her that it's time to be asleep. There's quite a nice story that comes with it which DS seemed to get and enjoy.

I'm slightly loathe to recommend a book, as the whole thing did our heads in. The Millpond sleep clinic book Teach your child to sleep at least has the virtue of being short.

Hope something of this helps.