2.9 year old, night waking.

[kjaysmum]

Hello all, My Ds, 2.9 has started night waking. We have always closed his door at night as the bedrooms are off the living rooms. He has started waking in the night and bashing hard on his door, screaming and shouting. I have started opening his bedroom door at night so now he comes into our room. I put him back to bed but so far cannot even make it to the door of his room before hes up again. Should I just continue putting him into bed, will he start to stay there, I have tried looking in the archives but my eyes are very tired, I'm not sure of the technique at this age. Any help please?

Just talking it through with DP...so...he gets highly upset and hysterical when repeating the act of putting him back to bed, I don't know what I should do then, I can sit with him to calm him, but then that isn't consistant or repetative to trying to get him to settle himself, I 'm a tad confused

I am online this morning (southern hemesphere) hoping there is some advice out there for us. He woke up five times last night at present I am taking him back to bed and standing at a distance quietly and it seems as long as I am in the room he goes back to sleep but I crumbled at 4.30 and climbed into bed with him and we slept till 6.30. He is still taking a daytime nap which I think we we try stopping.

talking to myself now maybe, but what the heck, gotta stay sane somehow!? I just read an excellent piece of advice by mother peculiar back in 2005, if your still around MP thanks and I shall try it tonight!

Hi FioFio, just had a quick scan for Olive oils thread and can't see it, got to take my Ds to daycare now, can you tell me what thread she was chatting in? Oh and thanks for the reply

Hi... most people that I have chatted to re sleep (and believe me - that is my only topic of conversation since not having decent sleep since JUNE 2006) say that their little ones have given up daytime nap by 2.5 ish ish ish.
Some by 2 - some by 3... it depends.

I tried cutting my girls sleep to 1 hour strict daytime sleep 1pm - 2pm and then bed at 7pm (wake about 6am) and this defintely helped. If we do have night waking (which we do at the moment with one of them) we lie on their floor on a matress, which we move further away from them each few nights, til they don't need us. Also give stickers as a reward for going back to sleep without fuss.

I hope that this helps you. Stickers are a miracle worker. They have sorted out some serious sleep problems for us. Still working on it - but getting there much quicker now.

Thanks Twinmumma, I am using stickers with Ds but haven't tried it for sleep yet, I definately shall.
Ds went without his nap altogether today and was spark out by 7 this evening so we shall see tonight what effect this has. Fingers crossed. Ds is really pushing his boundries at the moment and my instinct is saying that I should stop pussyfooting around this issue and do some CC with him, of course this is the last thing I want to do, but it's making life incredably difficult at home, so needs must....

Is it night terrors, do you think? Or is he semiconscious when he wakes up? I think that it's around this age that they start to develop nightmares and such. However, night terrors are something completely different (the child is not awake, but still screaming etc.) I don't really have any experience with night terrors, but you could do a search, as I'm sure there have been threads on them.

Kjaysmum, how's it going? you're not alone!
Incentives sound like a plan. I've tried a sort of controlled crying but I'm not sure it works so well with a toddler (not with mine, anyway). Could it be night terrors? If it is I think that subsides, from memory. Is he happy when you go in to him?
My dd2 (3 in May) has been waking from anything between 2 and 4 hours in the night on and off for months now. I'm not really dealing with it very well atm, in that I go in once she's been crying for a little while and usually DH or I end up staying in her room until shes goes back to sleep. Sometimes that means we fall asleep while she stays awake! Last night she was up from 11 - 1.30 and has now been awake since 6. When we dropped the daytime nap, that seemed to work for a while but now it makes no difference - although when she DOES fall asleep during the day we have no chance of her staying asleep at night.

Let me know how you're getting on .

Off the top of my head

• Does he have a night light?
• Spend time with him before bed, story, alot of reassurance that you are nearby, cuddles etc.
• If you think it might be too much sleep in the day, then cutting out day nap good idea.

As you have just been away I would say he is unsettled. I notice this with ds who is very clingy when the environment is changed.

Have you a spare bed to sleep in his room if you get too tired? Did you notice any triggers last time when he woke up lots?

X

Say hi to your dp from me Will have to come visit sometime soon.

Hello and thanks for the replies, yes he has a night light and I don't think he's too hot or cold as I go in to him so add a blanket or whatever as he needs. Night terrors, could be but he gets out of bed and bangs on the door and says things to me I think he has just lost the nack of settling himself. I think we may have seen some improvement last night where after the second round of CC he put himself back to bed and was quiet but still woke up and cried again on the next sleep phase. Was awfull at 5 this morning really distressed and screaming for breakfast but I am insisting on 6am as the earliest up time. I am pretty resolved for CC with his door closed at the moment as we feel we can't live like this so shall try again tonight and hope for improvement.

what an terrible night last night was, I'm not sure I can keep this up.
CC is pretty hardcore, I have decided to give it another try tonight I put him to bed ten minutes ago he was shouting that he didn't want to sleepin his room. It's so hard to distingish if he is just in a habit of not settling himself or if he's genuinely freaked out by something. I hate this, I just want my little boy to be happy...

I am just tring something new suggested by his daycare teacher, leaving the door to his room open a little and saying if he stays in bed I shall leave it open but if he gets up I shall close it, so far I've closed twice and here he is again so it has to be closed

well after last night I am strongly swayed to thinking that Ds hasn't got nightmares or terrors and that it is not an external influence which is keeping him awake or waking him. He confessed last night to not wanting to sleep in his bed but in Mum and Dad's or the buggy or the car or even the sofa. He tried needing a drink (he already had his water bottle next to him as always) being hungry he even managed to have a poo at 5am (very unusual for him).
It was just too much little fella. He is starting to get back into bed himself by the 11 minute gap in CC although is still coming through almost every sleep cycle and pretty much awake from 4 am onwards, he's always been prone to early waking so although I am leaving him until six it is the night waking which concerns me most.

Hi kyjaysmum, trying to solve something similar myself. We've spent a couple of weekends away where DS (2.6) has shared a bed with me and he's now frequently demanding to come into our bed, not settling well, night-waking, trotting through to us and getting really upset when I return him. When I try to leave him he keeps saying 'just stay, just stay,' which is heart-breaking! A friend has advised getting a canopy to go over his bed to make it feel cosy and to make his bed feel special again so we'll see how that goes. I know what you mean about worrying that there must be something Really Serious waking him (or cold/hot/ill etc) because he seems so upset, but my feeling is that he's just confused and befuddled about why he's awake.