DD being a nightmare.

[woodpops]

DD was a brilliant baby and slept through from day 1. Now she's in a bed and is playing up big time. She wakes several times in the night and just calls for mummy and daddy. We've put a stairgate on her bedroom door so she can't wonder in the night. She's really difficult to settle back to sleep. Me and dh are both exhausted now as this has been going on for months and months. Tried putting her back in her cot. She doesn't want to. She wants a big girls bed. I think I've tried about 3 different nightlight, wind up music things, leaving the door open, closing the door, leaving the landing light on, leaving the bathroom light on. Nothing works. What can we do???

how old is she?

Have you tried sleeping in her room - save you having to get up and down from your own bed. This might help reassure her (especially if you are away from her during the day, she may be missing you) and after awhile she might settle more.

What made you decide to put her in a bed woodpops? How old is she?

She'll be 2 23rd Dec. She went into a bed because she was climbing out of the cot. She started climbing out of her cot at 14 months!!!

Wouldn't sleeping in her room with her make more problems i.e she'd expect us to sleep in there all of the time?

Woodpops, sorry to hear about your experience. I do sympathise. Ok this may or may not work. Try actually explaining to her before she goes to bed that it is night time and that if she wakes in the night as a big girl she should just give her teddy a cuddle, close her eyes and go back to sleep. I remember someone else on another thread tried it and it seemed to work.

Good luck

I will try it. TBH I'll try anything at the minute. We're both getting that exhausted. I've also told nursery not to let her have a sleep today. I suppose I'm a bit spoilt really. Because she slept through from day 1. Now that she's not sleeping properly I feel like I've been hit by a ton of brocks!!!!

So did you move her into a bed as soon as she started climbing out? Or is the move to a bed recent and coinciding with the current problem?

My dd's 2 as well and fortunately not the most physical of kiddies so hasn't even got the idea of trying to climb out yet ... phew ... We've had a couple of sleep problems with her but like yours we were incredibly lucky as she slept well from the beginning. I'd hate to have to deal with her refusing to sleep and being out of the cot.

As she's 2 I think yingers, my sleep-problem advice colleage, is probably right that talking to her is the key. Is she very verbal herself? My dd is very talkative and I could even get her to tell me why she was crying when I put her to bed and then we could make sense of it together.

Personally I try to avoid doing all those things like sleeping on the floor but that's just my feelings. Sometimes the things we do to help can make things worse rather than better, you start with one problem and end with a handful. Do you think she's really tired when she goes to bed? Or over-tired? How much does she sleep in the night and day? Have you looked at Christopher Green's Toddler Taming? He has some good advice for 'escaping' toddlers.

Good luck!

She moved into her bed about 4 months ago and was perfectly fine in there at 1st. I also have a ds who is only 16 months older than dd that's where I think she got the climbing thing from.

I totally agree with you about the sleeping in her room thing. She'd expect it every night then.

DD can be quite good with her speach but she can also be quite lazy. I don't think she could tell me what the problem was. Ds often speaks for dd. Who'd have them so close together???