Sleep Problems both my kids 2 & 3 year old.

[DottyDottyD]

Hi. I have two children. A 2.4 year old and a 3.9 year old. Sleep with the 3 year old had never been great. Many all nighters as we just didn't know how to get her back to sleep. She didn't want to sleep with us in our bed either. At the age of 2.11 years we converted her cot to a big bed. Thing is she won't stay in her bed unless we lay on the floor until she falls asleep. Tried everything, reward charts, gradual moving towards the door each night, we have a normal bedtime routine. Someone told me it was a phase. But that's us been lying on her floor for nearly a year now. She gets hysterical if we leave and wakes her little brother up. So that's that problem but now our son age two, have just made his cot into his big bed and he is exactly the same as his sister. Nothing works. So there is me on his floor and daddy on her floor every night. We just don't know how to break this cycle! Help.

Firstly - don't make your 2yo's cot into a bed. Keep it a cot. You dont need to, there is no reason you must move to a bed and life will be much easier not transitioning to a bed until he has the emotional regulation needed to stay put in the bed. I kept mine in cots until around 3-4years old. If cot-climbing is an issue, you can deal with that much more easily than overcoming the issues with moving to a bed too early. So I'd put your youngest back into a cot.

Regarding your eldest, maintaining the status quo (ie always sitting by the bed, because that works) is not helping anyone. But leaving her room before she's ready for you to do that is also not helping.

The way to approach gradual withdrawal is to always stay until she's fully asleep, but week-on-week be a little further away than the last week. But don't try to make a move away from where you are until she's fully and completely asleep.

As an aside - my eldest two children (I have four) have a 14 month age gap, so I understand the stress of having two toddlers. It does get easier!