two and a half years and only a handful of "full nights" sleep

[carlywilson]

Our two and a half year old has always been really bad when it comes to sleeping, she dropped naps in the day herself very young and has not slept for more than a couple of hours at a time at night since she was born. She falls asleep with a bottle of water, this is a pretty quick process, but it's keeping her asleep that we struggle with. I feel like we've tried absolutely everything, just as we get her out of one bad nighttime habit she starts a new one and as much as family and friends say it'll get better I don't feel like it's ever going to! I'm due to give birth in less than a month and we're both beyond exhausted 😔 I honestly don't know what else to try and I feel like we're running out of time to try and get her sleeping better before the baby arrives and we start all over again! 😔

Just out of interest, has she ever been diagnosed with tongue tie? Only asking as our DS has a tt and never really slept much either.

I would do the m-chat test to try and rule out ASD and I'd also try the ]]www.amazon.co.uk/No-Cry-Sleep-Solution-Toddlers-Preschoolers/dp/0071444912 No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers & Preschoolers]].

If she's waking for water, have you tried giving her a no spill cup and a night light? Upping her fluid intake in the day should help too so some nice drinks in the morning like diluted fruit juice, milk and hot chocolate.

she hasn't, no, we thought she had it when she was first born but it wasn't the case!

she's got a no-spill cup and night light, we've tried white noise too! she's pretty good at drinking in the day, she goes through a fair amount of fluid!

I will definitely have a look at the test and the book though, thank you for your help! ☺️

How’s her day routine ? What’s the nightime routine and what happens when she wakes?

@OnlyFoolsnMothers daytime - she'll get up naturally at between 6:30am and 7:00am, downstairs and have some breakfast, then she'll play and run around like a nutter until lunch, cbeebies on tele maybe and more playing, then dinner, wind down time and in bed and asleep between 7:30pm-8:00pm (we start the process at 7:30)

she'll wake up within a couple of hours crying out for us so we'll put her back to bed and she'll fall back asleep, then she'll carry on with this every couple of hours, running into our room hysterical wanting water or to have someone go with her into her room to go back to sleep - we've tried white noise to get her to self settle, night lights, a special going to bed soft toy, lavender sprays, changing bed time, a non-spill "big girl cup", you name it I feel like we've tried it 😖

This is exactly why we didn’t have another child. In the end we found that a late bedtime (10-11pm) was the only way to ensure a solid few hours sleep. Our kid is just not wired to go down for the night at 7pm.

Sounds hellish OP, what happens if you don’t run into her when she wakes?
How long does settling take?
How’s her eating/ drinking?

Would she sleep better in with you? On a little mattress on the floor? A baby will probably make things very unsettled for her, so I would change your direction a bit. I think I aiming to get her to sleep through may be too ambitious for now.

I have one daughter who has always struggled with this, but will settle if cosleeping with me or a sibling.

I should have added: My dd has possible asd and related anxiety. She always suffered badly with separation anxiety.

No panacea here but you are not alone. Both our DSs don’t need much sleep and had broken nights (DS1 until he started school, DS2 until 3 and a bit). Sticker chart worked with both eventually.

My first was like this. She started sleeping through at 3 years, nearly on the dot. But won't go to bed/sleep until 9pm though, up at 7am, only seems to need that much sleep. We tried everything too to get her to sleep through, nothing worked...In the end she just got there herself. Annoyingly my mum was right, she has 7 kids and is adamant it's developmental and kids will sleep through when they're ready, you can't rush it.
I'm not going to lie there were some tough times. It nearly broke me. I seriously googled if I could die of sleep deprivation at one point.
And my son was born when she was 19 months old so we had a good year or so of two kids up at night. You just sleep when you can and take all the help you can get. And, if you can time a drive so they'll both fall asleep in the car then pull over somewhere safe and nap too. I did a fair bit of napping in my driveway with them in the back.
I do know people who have had success with the groclock around this age though, so might be worth a try. Or, if she's coming in for company maybe just put a little mattress next to your bed and see will she then sleep through if she wakes up & knows you are there? Neither worked for my sleep dodger but I've heard others have had success with both....
Best of luck. You will get through it. I did.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers we'd be lucky if she didn't kick off for an hour+, she can take anything from fifteen minutes to an hour to settle, it varies so much 😖 she's great with drinking and eating, has plenty!

@Greenmarmalade she'll happily sleep in with us, it's just got a bit snug with how pregnant I am now haha! but that might be worth a thought, I guess any sleep right now is better than no sleep!
My little girl had separation anxiety when she was about eight months/one year old, it seemed to fade out as she got a bit older but maybe there's remnants of that left!

@DelurkingAJ @Mylittlepony374 it's good to know we're not alone, you start feeling like it's something you've done wrong! hopefully it's something she will just grow out of then! It might be worth us having her in with us like you say, so she's settled, get any sleep we can until she's ready to go through the night in her own bed 🤞🏻 not sure how much longer me and my husband can function on the little sleep we're getting, especially with baby number two due so soon!

thank you so much everyone for all your help!