My two year old sleeps like a newborn and I can't cope anymore

[LaserShark]

Except I've been saying I can't cope for two and a half years now and I don't have any choice but to carry on anyway. He has always, always woken multiple times in the night every night and it has never got any better. We co slept for two years, which I hated. He woke me just as frequently and I couldn't sleep well with him wriggling around all night and I'd ache all over in the morning from lying so still not daring to move when he was actually asleep. But he is exactly the same now he's in his own room and now one of us has to get out of bed to go to him - all he wants is a cuddle and sometimes for us to retrieve his dummy and he falls back asleep straight away but it's so frequent, it feels like every time I fall asleep he drags me out of it. I have a stressful job and I'm exhausted. My memory and functioning during the day is in shreds. I'm slow and stupid and so, so angry all the time. I have a permanent headache.

We live in a tiny terraced house and have a five year old (who sleeps perfectly) and I don't see how we could try anything like controlled crying without waking him as well.

I just don't see an end to this. I wish away his childhood every day, desperate for him to be older so that even if he doesn't sleep it won't be my problem anymore. I love him so very much, but I have wished so many times that I hadn't had a second child - obviously I wouldn't be without him now but I have found life so difficult since he was born. I'm no good at the toddler stage anyway and the tantrums and relentless unreasonableness of a two year old just grind me down - I have so little tether remaining that I'm constantly at the end of it. My job is very hard work but I'm so relieved to go there and have actually increased my hours recently because I'd rather be at work than looking after my own child. If I could sleep, I could handle it. If he would just sleep, everything would be manageable.

He has a daytime nap most days - never, ever in his bed - always in the buggy or the sofa when he just conks out. I make sure he is awake by 3pm at the latest, usually before, and that he doesn't nap for more than two hours maximum in the day. There is no difference to his sleep at night that I have ever been able to discern whether he has the nap or not or however long it is. Don't bath him every night but always do his eczema cream (which he hates and screams and cries about), pjs, teeth, a million stories after about an hour of which he will fall asleep. Only falls asleep with one of us in the room, preferably he likes to be cuddling up to whichever of us has the misfortune to be doing bedtime.

I just keep thinking that it has to get better and it never does. I don't know what to do. I have elaborate fantasies of winning the lottery and buying a massive house where he can have his own wing and a team of night nannies who can bring him to me in the morning when I will feel like I can be a decent mother because I have slept all night every night and I feel like an actual human being again. In the event of that not happening, what can I do? Will controlled crying work or will it just wake up my other child and cause even more misery? We don't have any spare money but shall we get a sleep consultant somehow, using a credit card or something? I really can't carry on like this, except I will have to because there isn't any alternative.

(I have always indulged in that fantasy of a hospital stay so that I could have a break, by the way and I did get it, a few months ago. It was as joyous as I've always dreamed and after two weeks of lovely, uninterrupted rest I was like a new woman - so full of zest and energy and capable of everything. Unfortunately, that's just a distant memory now but it's depressing to realise that the best I have felt in two and a half years was when I was recovering from surgery).

Right. Thanks MN, I really needed some outside perspective and stories of what has worked for others as it's just been our 'normal' for so long. This has helped me clarify in my head what I already knew really- we have got to leave the room while he is awake and he has got to learn to put himself to sleep. Rapid return sounds like it is going to push me closer to the edge at first but if it works, it has got to be worth it. We got him into his own room. We can do this. DH is immeasurably more patient than me and he will stick to it so I need to as well.

HalfStar you have articulated it exactly. And my tolerance for noise - something about his cry reverberates through me and makes me want to scream and tear my hair out. He was inconsolable when he was born - I remember the midwife passing him to me and he was screaming and screaming and I wanted to give him back! I was so tired and dazed and I wanted to have a rest and some peace but I had this screaming baby howling at me and I remember thinking that everyone would be shocked if I said I didn't want to hold my own newborn but that if I could just have a couple of hours recovery then I would be so much better able to cope - it's like that feeling has never left me, I feel as though I've been stuck there ever since. When my eldest cried, I could handle it (obviously I didn't exactly like it!) but something about ds2 crying sets off a physical reaction all the way through me and feels like torture (except his before-giving-into-sleep cry, which I know signals that he is about to surrender). Somehow, I feel that he and I are much more in a power struggle and he keeps winning! He is absolutely adorable and I love him very much, but he is SUCH hard work!

I just wanted to send Your post really resonated and can remember that awful tiredness and constant rage. Fwiw, we sleep-trained our DS with an older sibling, who wasn't disturbed at all by his rages. And we live in a small new-build with paper-thin walls. It can be done. We found it took less time than we expected, and that to an extent, we were re-invigorated by the sense of doing something about the issue

There's a book called Teach Yourself Baby Sleep which I found helpful. One thing that helped me a bit was the realisation that I would be awake anyway so I might as well be awake and teaching them to sleep. You get so desperate to grab a few minutes sleep that you do anything to get them to go to sleep.
If he's crying when you're holding him surely he might as well cry in his cot? I'm a big fan of the pottering around, pop in and out method.
Have you tried swaddling? As in tucking him in really tight ( put duvet on sideways and tuck under mattress), or using a heavy blanket?
DS, now 6, used to need to be physically restrained as he couldn't calm his body enough to sleep. He's pretty good now and will often pile pillows and teddies on top of himself.

Laser that's intriguing as I had the same visceral response to dc2's cry. Don't get me wrong I didn't like hearing Dc1 cry but there was an extreme physiological response to dc2'a cry which from the start was SO LOUD. And yes I did feel that power struggle/weird symbiotic thing too.

I've about 10 months of decent (ish, no working mother gets quite enough sleep imo!) sleep behind me now and I enjoy Dc2 so much it's incredible. Toddler rage doesn't faze me much by day when we all get sleep at night. But she's just generally much easier and more confident and open in herself too now that she can sleep by herself.

Your child's sleep is destroying you yet you basically can't be bothered to do anything about it

Not terribly helpful as a statement... we've tried everything- hours and hours and even weeks of patiently trying each method. An entire week of awful awful controlled crying. With zero results. The idea we just give in for an easy life is kind of offensive. A method shouldnt break them into submission- I accept there will be tears but after a week of no sleep all night ( none at all, no 'cries for a bit or even a couple of hours then sleeps) we gave up on cc. I'm not entirely sure what we could have done?

Op, your son sounds like mine - tons of energy, needs a lot of comfort. Wear him out mentally and physically in the day - cold air/running around/swimming are all good. I notice you say he has eczema- could discomfort be waking him? We have a frequent wakes and are under the care of a paediatrician at our hospital. She said that frequent waking can be due to physical discomfort as well as habit.

It's very, very hard, I really feel for you. I've been driven to the edge with sleep deprivation this past year and he's not improving at all. I'd certainly get a physical checkup before you embark on the sleep training because you'll be wasting your time if he's waking for physical reasons.

Good luck. Don't discount trying methods you've used before - they can be more receptive as they get older.

Eczema puts a slightly different slant on why you haven't done it earlier. But you have recognised that the short term pain is better than long term issues you have now.

Get a hold of the big perspective, change what you are doing and it will benefit your whole family. Your other child will have a less fraught mummy, your ds will sleep through the night. All for a few days of pain. You can do it!

He sees a dermatologist for his eczema and it will always be an issue in terms of his sleep. He gets more itchy when tired so scratches more, which makes it worse. That gets to be a vicious circle. Currently we have a short course of strong steroid cream which is zapping it - but we can't use it long term. I accept we will always be disturbed to some extent by that, but it's not just his eczema waking him - it's his inability to put himself back to sleep without cuddles. If we can crack that, we will only have the eczema problem at least. Glad it's so much better, Half and good point Elisheva that if I'm awake anyway I might as well use it to teach him self settling.

Gmbk I did a bit of a drip feed re the eczema! I am so grateful for all the sympathy but a bit of harsh truthful phrasing is useful as well, honestly.

Definitely speculate to accumulate (sleep). This is worth borrowing money for or spending on credit card. Get a sleep consultant or a specialist night nanny for 5 days. Even if it costs £500-£1000, the payback in happiness and in turn in greater efficiency at work will be enormous. Interest rates are so low that now is the time to borrow anyway.

The other cheap option I suggest is that one night a week each, you and your parter stays in a local air Bnb with no kids. I air Bnb for work and I can stay in lovely, quiet houses for £20 -30 per night in quite expensive cities. One lovely couple are massage therapists and for an extra £30 I have a massage! I bet there are air bnbs within 5/10 miles of your house and work. I know it is a short term option but if you could just get a proper rest - maybe Thursday and Friday night, one each for you and your partner, to charge for the weekend, you will feel a little more rested for the long slog.

Op-
If 5 year old is disturbed and you want to try cc you could play white noise to drown out the crying in 5 yo room?

The thing is, this isn't going to change until you change it. That's the bottom line. Waiting and hoping won't work.

My youngest was similar, waking requiring dummy retrieval. The solution that worked for us.... Approx 6 dummies in cot! One in each hand one in her mouth a other's dotted around within reach. It might help if you are desperate for something now....

Gosh it sounds so much like us. What worked for us (with having other children in the house) is to first crack bedtime before you deal with the middle of the night. So bedtime could be stories, cuddles and then sleep. Sit in his room if needed by no milk, dummies or you in the bed. Return him to his bed each time he gets out and say night time now for the first few times and then nothing after. He needs to learn to fall asleep wth the sucking association or being held sensation. Carry on with the middle of the nighjt wake ups as usual. Once you have cracked bedtime move on to the night time ones (they will be less now you have cracked bedtime). Once that is sorted you can move onto gradual retreat at bedtime. It's gentle and works.

George, not sure I 100% agree with that. There may be some things that will help, different approaches work for different families, but yes, it will go away eventually. Children grow, they mature, how they react and what they can cope with changes. Not saying that there aren't things to do that can speed up the process however (although I've never been very good at these )

We have tried sleep consultants. And the specialist service at the hospital. We've followed their advice to the letter and he *still wakes up every twenty minutes^.
The sleep consultants don't have any magic info we found - all the stuff on object permanence/sleep cycles/self soothing/etc is all on the web. There may be something g you're missing and if so then maybe they will help, but we haven't found them useful at all - I was so sure we were just missing one thing or doing something wrong and the pros would point it out, and we'd have a grim week or two of tears then an improvement... but it didn't work like that. They visited us and took really extensive histories and watched us and basically said ' you're already doing what we advise. Some kids just don't sleep.' So gmbk I'm not having a go but it's pretty upsetting to hear someone imply it's just because we can't be arsed sticking with something 😪

We had a similar issue with our 2.3 year old ds when I was pregnant, he couldn't settle himself to sleep at bedtime without us so that meant when he woke at night he needed us to settle him so he ended up in our bed as this was easier for us to ensure we all got some sleep. We decided to sleep train him so that when the baby came he wouldn't be so dependant on us and it really worked.

We read him a story and left the room, he would cry and get up and we would pick him up (no talking or eye contact) and put him back into bed and repeat until he gave in and realised we were not playing ball! This went on for 2.5 hours the first night and gradually decreased over the weeks and now he goes to bed perfectly and settles himself - occasionally he will call out for one of us and we go in lay him down give him a kiss and he goes back to sleep so overall his sleep is so so much better! Just got to tell ds2 (8 weeks old) how to sleep like his older brother

It's hard work initially and it's stressful but so worth it now! He is much happier and sleeps a lot longer than ever before!

Good luck with what ever you choose to do, sleep deprivation is hellish so you have my sympathies and

Not read tfft but gmbk how dare you say to the OP that she 'can't be bothered to do anything about it'! Have you not bothered to read what she has written? Anyone can see she's been pushed to the brink with this. She is just trying to survive. She has done NOTHING wrong.

OP I have no advice but for you. You're going to get through this. You're doing an amazing job.

Your other child will have a less fraught mummy, your ds will sleep through the night

I'm sorry but this isn't necessarily true. Cc doesn't work for all children (though OP I do absolutely think you should try it). We did it with our 6 month old and it worked in a matter of days (though he still wakes at night, but much much less frequently - twice or so as opposed to every 30 mins!) but I believe it's harder the older the child.

I would 100% go cold turkey on the dummy.

Ds1 was a dreadful sleeper, but he had undiagnosed tongue tie and a very high palate which was causing breathing issues.

Absolutely nothing we tried worked. None of it. Well, it wouldn't, would it? Gradual retreat or any of the other methods were not going to sort his breathing!

He got orthodontic treatment starting when he was 7 yo and after a few months, all the breathing issues were sorted and he started sleeping like a log.

None of these issues were picked up by any HCP, it wasn't immediately obvious that he was having problems.

Could there be anything else going on as well as the eczema OP?