Month long night waking - 3.5 years

[MrsNuckyThompson]

Please help. DH and I are absolutely on our knees here with exhaustion.

DS has always been a decent sleeper. Was going down around 7.30- 7.45 and sleeping through consistently until around 6.30. Until recently he also still had a lunchtime nap of 2 hours. Occasionally we'd have periods of very early mornings - ie 5.45-6am - but it never lasted and often he'd sleep til 7.

About 2 months ago he stared really faffing at bed time and being up and down until 9pm. I eventually concluded perhaps the nap had to go. We reduced to an hour but it didn't seem to help and we just canned it. Bedtimes became much easier and all seemed well.

Then about a month ago DS started waking 2-3 times every night. Not crying or upset, just coming through to our room and sometimes saying he was scared (but not visibly so). He settles again very quickly but this is still happening every night.

I should mention that we have recently moved house and he has started kindergarten 5 mornings. However he is otherwise settled in the house and happy - we've never had issues with visiting different places etc. His room is very similar to it was before. He also seems happy at k'garten. Skips in there in the morning without a backward glance. Not sure if either or both factors are relevant. I think it could contribute to him being unsettled but for over a month?

I'm 12 weeks pregnant with number 2 (DS not aware) and totally exhausted. We both work full time and are so very tired. This morning slumped on the sofa at 7 watching a film with DS I totally lost my shit when he jumped on me and accidentally punched my face. I screamed at him and told him he was being horrible for not letting us sleep (I have apologised to him and were snuggled up
Together now). He's just a boisterous little boy and he is probably also very tired. I feel my physical and emotional resilience is at rock bottom.

Can anyone offer any wisdom please?

I would guess at an overtired issue. My 2.5 year old wouldn't nap for three days straight last week, the first night he woke once (normal for him), the second night he woke 4 times - one of those was a night terror which is a classic symptom of overtiredness then the third night he was awake for 2 hours in the night and was absolutely exhausted but could settle back down. (Thankfully he has napped every day since then and nights have settled again!)

So in your situation I would maybe try reinstating the nap in some form, either 30 - 45 minutes once a day finishing no later than 2/2.30pm or a longer nap every other day just so he has chance to catch up on any sleep debt.

We had this when my older son was about the same age as yours. He'd just moved nursery and also had a 6 month old baby brother. To be honest, at the time we were so shattered getting up with the baby all the time (he woke every 1-2 hours until he was 10 months old) that we barely noticed the sudden night waking of our older son, but he did what you describe. Was a fantastic sleeper from a tiny age and then suddenly up at night. For a few months (not sure, was so sleep deprived) he would just ask for the toilet a lot or say he'd lost something or that he was too hot or his tummy hurt etc etc). But settle back very quickly. And then without me really noticing it just stopped. Now he's 4 and 3/4 and has just started school, and is waking at 5.30am instead of 7.30am. I'm sort of so used to this now that I just assume it'll stop once he's settled. This is not necessarily helpful, but it could well be just some unsettledness due to change and will probably settle down soon enough. I wouldn't try to do anything about it as he clearly needs more comforting at the moment and to try to stop that might prolong the issue? Not sure. It's so hard when you're pregnant! Hope it settles soon. It doesn't seem to me to be a very unusual occurrence and if he's fairly happy and settles back, I'm pretty sure it'll just stop as quickly as it started.

Thank you mumhmc that's very reassuring to hear!!