Sleep probelms - i can't go on like this any longer.........

[saintshar]

My Ds, who is two and a half, is getting worse and worse sleeping the older he gets.
He has had bad spells before, but i have always been able to sort it by doing C/C.
The problem we have now is that he can climb over his gate that he has on his bedroom door. Last Week he climbed over the other gate that we have at the top of the stairs as well, and fell down stairs, the first thing we knew was when we found him screeming at the bottom of the stairs. Thankfully he wasn't hurt.
My MIL said when my DH was little, he did the same thing, so she put a chain on his door - the type you have on front doors so that you don't have to fully open them.
After much debate, we decided to try it as we are scared that he will seriously hurt himself next time he falls downstairs.
But last night he got so angry during C/C that he snapped the chain off! (he is very big and strong for a two Year old!)
I am really at a loss as to what to do next. No one is getting any sleep. We have tried everything we can to try to get him to sleep better - going to bed later, earlier, stopping afternoon naps etc.
Has anyone got ANY ideas of something to try, i will try anything. I have been really upset about it all today, i just can't go on like this........

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My daughter was exactly the same 2 years ago when she was 2 and a half. I put a chain on the door and she broke it off too. Reading your post takes me right back to that time. It was awful. I was a single parent who also had a 6 month old who was attached to the breast and wouldn't go to sleep either. I couldn't believe that it would ever get better.

But it did get better, somewhat at least. She still (at almost 5) gets out of bed most nights before she goes to sleep, even if she is really tired. But she's better than she was.

I tried the star chart, but she was too young to really understand it. I tried trying to explain rationally why she needed to go to sleep. I tried pleading with her. The only 2 things that made a difference were 1) she and her baby sister got older, and 2) I stopped making a big deal out of it. It was all about the power struggle. Once I realised that I couldn't physically force her to stay in bed and go to sleep (although I tried) my attitude changed. Now, if I think she really is having trouble getting to sleep, I let her look at a book in bed or play with a toy. As long as she stays in bed. Otherwise I pretty much ignore her. I tell her that she needs to go to bed and then I get on with what I'm doing. Sometimes she falls asleep on the floor, but more often than not these days she decides she's ready for bed and takes herself back there. And it's usually not too long (less than an hour) after I originally put her to bed. I think she just likes the fact that she gets to decide when it is. It's not ideal, but it's working for us.

As for the middle of the night, I've given up on that. 2 out of 3 nights she'll stay in her own bed all night. The other night she'll come into my bed in the middle of the night. My rule now is that she has to go to sleep in her bed, but if she comes in in the middle of the night then it's no big deal. I tried putting her back to bed a few times, but a big power struggle at 4am is not worth it to me. Maybe if I was sharing a bed with someone else it might be different...

I have been reading this thread with interest! My dd (nearly 3) has started coming in to our bed the last couple of months. At first it would be if she woke at say 4 in the morning she would get out of bed and come in to us. Because ds is only a little baby (5 months)and had just started sleeping through we let her to avoid her making noise that woke him. Also it seemed that we could get a bit later sleep out of her (she has always been an early riser (normally around 6), she started sleeping until 6.30 or 7 in our bed so it seemed like a good option. But recently, in the last few weeks she has been waking earlier and earlier in the night and so we set a rule that she couldn't come in before 3. So we would put her back to bed if she woke before. She goes back to sleep normally no fuss first or second time but after that she keeps getting out every 20 mins or so. I don't know what to do. DH thinks it's not too big a deal and she'll grow out of it (anything for sleep) but I think that before a certain time (ideally 5 actually) she shouldn't come in. She seems to have got worse and worse with her night waking. If she just woke the once and came in I wouldn't have minded so much but the fact that she is now disturbing us several times in the night is starting to get me down. I think that we need to break the habit and have thought about the chain on the door which I see mentioned here. The thing I dread is her waking up ds which no doubt she will if she is left to scream (and she gets quite angry and hysterical) and he is doing well with his sleep but if woken in the night tends to be awake for some considerable time (like anything between 1 and 2 hours !!) and that's a real pain. If I knew she would grow out of it in a few months I would put up with it but Im petrified of having a child that sleeps in our bed every night until she's 10 or whatever !!! Any advice ?