3-year-old wakes and is up for hours at night

[Daddyneedsadvice]

Hi all, a very tired and stressed out dad here so I’ve taken to the internet. Well, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. My daughter is 3 and has a sleep pattern of 8:30 pm – 12:30 am sleeping, 12:30 am – 4 am awake and then sleep until 8 am-ish. She is speech delayed and has some sensory issues. She has already been prescribed Melatonin which does help her drop off, but she just will not stay asleep. We do need to cuddle her to sleep and then escape but that is the only thing that settles her down to induce sleep. She’s a right little livewire and has lots of energy during the day, she also attends an excellent nursery. I’m so sleep-deprived it's unreal, almost to the point where I feel I might have a car crash driving into work. We have a bedtime routine of bath (every other night) stories with milk (added Melatonin) and then a cuddle. I’m writing this in work on 2 hours sleep ☹ any question or advice would be great. Thanks for your time fellow non sleepers!

Does she have a day time nap? My son went through similar and I worked out he was awake for the amount of time that he was awake during the day, we dropped his nap and asked nursery to do the same and he stopped waking.

Have you tried a weighted blanket with her?

What do you do when she is awake? It was no where near as bad but I put DD in a child proof room, no toys and I would just go to sleep on the bed. Eventually she must have snuggled in and feel asleep to.

Hi all yes, we have a weighted blanket, but it doesn’t seem to make that much of a difference, to be honest. My daughter doesn’t nap when she’s in the nursery as there’s so much going on but does nap at weekends when in her own environment.

When she wakes, we walk/carry her back to bed and attempt to snuggle her back to sleep with mixed results. Last night I lay in her bed whilst she was walking about in her room crying and trying to ignore her but that didn’t seem to work either. I only try this after all options have been explored like cuddles, songs, milk silence etc. She takes my hand and wants to go downstairs. Sometimes I give in and take her down and give her milk and watch a bit of Peppa as that does settle her. It’s hard as I don’t want to encourage “getting up gets Peppa” but is the only way to calm her at times.

Hi, do you think her mind is over working? The reason I ask is if Peppa is working and calms her she may need to focus her mind on one thing to be able to switch off (as adults we get it sometimes when we go over our day or what we need to do the next day and in turn we can not sleep). My son got like this before bedtime and he used to watch Mr Tumbles Nursery rhymes which helped him switch off. Maybe try a night mobile that projects lights in the ceiling but changes as staying the same won’t help her switch off, if that doesn’t work personally I would give her Peppa pig if you can in her room so she goes back to sleep up there and you make get abit if sleep while she is watching it. Also maybe start and wake her at 7 so she is more tired and skips the wake up.

Sounds like my 18 month old. Although only occasionally!

We have started putting her down in her cot wide awake with her iPad and hey duggee on. She sits quietly and then eventually goes to sleep on her own. So we do the exact same at night as well if she wakes.

Hi, do you think her mind is overworking?

Yes, I do, I do feel like sometimes shes cannot switch off. I will dig out her old sensory projection light and see if that chills her. Maybe we took it away a little to early for her.

If that does not work if it was me I would let her watch Peppa pig, with my son when his mind overworked it helped for him to focus on something, whether it was mr tumble or videos of himself! Then he’d fall asleep, as he got older he didn’t need it.