WHY do toddlers wake in the night?!

[Beakysmum]

Help please! I am feeling very tired /grumpy today as my ds (21m) has started waking 3-4 times every night over the last few weeks. WHY?!

We had got him into a really good pattern, but now he wakes and screams /shouts "Mummy, cuddle!" whatever the time. I think it might be to do with him starting to have tantrums in general over the past few weeks and also that we just bought him a duvet rather than a Grobag this winter.

But I don't know what to do.... we have always used controlled crying in the past, fairly successfully, but now he just gets hotter and hotter and angrier and angrier, lasting up to 50 mins before we completely give in. This is not good at 3.30am!!!!!

Any ideas?

My 2.2yo wakes at least three times every night, he doesn't need anything other than a stroke, pat and "Sshhhhh sweetheart" and occasionally his dummy put back in - but he will cry and wail if he doesn't get that. I don't know when - or if - it will stop, he is a very happy, sociable, confident little boy so I don't think there's anything wrong as such - it's just the way he is. I'm not prepared to let him cry himself back to sleep, so it will stop when he's ready I suppose

I had this recently with ds (who was 22 months when it started). What worked was leaving the room and telling him I would be back in a minute which I duly did. I would then potter around in the next room so he knew I was still around and would then pop back in at increasing intervals. As he was a bit older he could understand me telling him I would be back and it seemed to work.
I also gave him a night light and told him it was his "mummy light" and that seems to have helped.

Best of luck - it's a bummer when it starts up again after getting used to them sleeping through!

CC can take longer than 50 minutes with strong willed toddlers.
DS (18 mo) needs CC 'reinstalling' about every 3/4 months. I find the first night he can go for up to 90 minutes. I don't ever go more than 20 minutes before checking him when he is yelling and I always go in if he sound scared or in pain, but his yelling is very much along the lines of 'mama, here no, play with me' type demans. I do think they need to learn that 3am isn't the time for playing!

I'd go back to a growbag if you can - it restricts their movements and makes them feel like its still sleepy time.

Whats his daytime routine like?

In general I found that we just have to grit our teeth and stick to exactly the same routine at bedtime and in the night, we go in as soon as he starts yelling or screaming, check he is okay, give him a small drink of water and cuddle, change his nappy then back in his cot with one verse of each peach pear plum (its his nighttime rhyme)
Then I leave the room saying 'goodnight, sleepy time'.
Then we're into the CC routine. He can get VERY cross with us but after 3 nights he gets the message and the bags under his eyes dissapear.

I really wouldn't give in I know 50 minutes seems like forever but at this age i'd say you need to expect 1-2hrs at first. I go and make a cup of tea the second waiting period so i'm not tempted to go in.

BTW i found i have to do CC and teach him to go to sleep on his own for my sanity, dh ability to work the next day and DS not to have huge bags under his eyes! If he went back to sleep after a quick cuddle or dummy popped back in it might be different but he gets awake and STAYS awake for up to 4 hrs, resulting in very very tired family.

Good luck, if you want to CAT me do so and we can share how it went last night!

My dd (2.5) is being a bit of a PITA at night at the moment, she'll wake up sometimes wanting juice, sometimes wanting me, sometimes wanting the toilet (at the moment she still wears a nappy at night but I will take her to toilet if she wakes up as want to encourage her).

I am not really sure what to do about it.

I don't have any trouble settling my ds2 to sleep in the first place, it's just that he always has about 3 awakenings every night. He only requires one little visit each time he wakes up, then goes off again. I don't think in his case it is a "strong-willed" thing, I think he just needs the reassurance.

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Mine only started sleeping all the way through when he started school. He still sometimes wakes up. DD was always a good sleeper but DS always wanted me to cuddle him through the night. Its mind destroying I know.

ds1 started waking because of 'the ghosters in my room'.
He got used to dh lying with him just to shut him up, incase he woke ds2 up, and now its a very bad habit we need to break (or dh does; i'm taking no responsibility for that one! )

Also, he did kick his covers off alot, so I've just put him into fleece things with feet, so even if there's no cover on he's still warm, and that has helped to a degree.

DS went through this at a similar age and it drove me demented too - dd was only a few weeks old and I was so sleep deprived I could barely function. I suspect with him it was because of dd's arrival but he still does it occasionally, for a few weeks then stops.

We dealt with it by going in, giving him a pat and a kiss, staying beside him for a couple of mins, then telling him we had to go and have a wee/ put the bin out/ feed the cat (he had no concept of what hour of the night it was) and saying we'd be back in a second. To start with we would go back in almost immediately and stay until he went to sleep, then we started stretching it out gradually so he'd get back into a sleepy state without us there, until we were just going in and giving him a kiss and going straight back to bed. Eventually it got to the point where we could ignore the moans for a couple of minutes and he'd go offto sleep again without us having to get up. He was never really distressed though, as soon as he'd seen us he was fine again and didn't seem to mind us popping out of the room as long as he thought we'd come back.

Would agree with what someone else said about putting him back in a grobag again, it might eliminate the possibility that he's getting chilly or just doesn't feel as cosy as he did in his bags. Ds is now 2.10 and has only just started sleeping under a duvet because he out grew his bags. He loved them and definitely slept better in them.

ARGH.

Well dd slept till 4.44am. I heard her start crying, got up almost immediately but she was already up and nearly out the door by the time I got to her room. She was very distressed and I brought her in with me.

Little good it did, I don't think she went back to sleep until about 7am (until 8.30am) which was okay today but if I have uni at 9 we have to be out the door at 8 and we would both have been knackered!!

ARGH. Again.

I found that planning to be up at 5am helped me deal with the sleep deprivation, I do everything I can to hlep him sleep til 6 or 7am but I also make sure I'm in bed by 10pm, that way even if he does wake at 4.45/5am (which he also did this morning) I've had 7 hrs sleep.

Hi; thanks so much to everyone for the advice and support. Good to know I'm not the only one with a child around 2yrs who seems to go through this. Must admit I've started going to sleep at 10pm myself to get the hours of zzzzzzz in.

Great news though.... I bought a Grobag yesterday and apart from one minor wakening about 1am, he slept through to 6.45am!!!!! Hooray!!!! If only I had known sooner he was cold presumably. Hopefully no controlled crying to do. Ah well, fingers crossed for tonight (-:

yay for growbags!