26 month old terrible sleeper, never slept through. Where can I turn for proper help? We have tried everything the books and YouTube recommend!

[DarkGreen]

So tired and just want some kind of quality of life back and for our child to not be so short on sleep too.

Bed 7, asleep by 7.30. Wakes once or twice in night will only settle for me. Wakes between 3 and 4am every morning without fail.

There must be something or someone that can help?

Waking once or twice sounds pretty normal.

Mines the same age and wakes every 1-2 hours

Sorry sent too early

Mine also only seethes for me but the waking at 3/4am isn't great! Do they nap?

Settles*

DD is climbing on me

Nothing we try gets him back to sleep at 4am. If we try to keep him in his room and keep it calm either treating it as night time or quiet time he loses it completely until we have to get him up to calm him down and give him a drink!

Naps for 1.5 or sometimes 2 hours every day

DD won't tolerate being in a different room to me so that wouldnt work here either 🙄

The FB The Beyond The Sleep Training Project is very supportive and helpful. I found out about the Possums sleep program there which I think for you would be something like waking up at the same time every day, lots of activity in the day (I'm Crap at this), possibly capping that nap at 40-60 mins and then they sleep when they sleep rather than you putting them down at the first tired signs.

Basically knackering them in the day to build sleep pressure for night time and moving more sleep to night time

They're napping for too long; can you not wake them after an hour? When is the nap?

My son is the same age. Recently dropped his nap and its been a god send, has been sleeping 7 to 7. Except this morning when he was up at 5am yelling for Blippi. But I'll take that once in a while rather than the previous 2-3x a night wake ups.

Sorry, not same age, I useless at the months thing. My son is 29 months...

Nap is 12 to 2 ish between that time usually not shorter than 1.5 hours and average around 2 hours.

My problem he is waking at 3.30am most days so he's up for around 8 hours before his nap! We did try a cat nap in the morning then a shorter regular nap but makes no difference to his wake up time. We've done a month or so of earlier bed time same for later bed. Seems he is just programmed for 4am but because of his crying and hystericalness at 4 its so impossible to train him to sleep later

I personally would set up somewhere comfy In his room. Go in at 4am and just sit it out. The problem is that you need to break the habit of getting up that early as it will just reoccur.

Alternatively get him into your bed at that time.

My favourite sleep books - and I read a lot - was 'teach your child to sleep'. It has loads of suggestions for solutions to different sleep problems so may have one for you.

I would limit the nap to 1hr and put them to bed really really flippin early to compensate. I mean any time from 5pm. Early waking is a classic sign of overtiredness and having run up a sleep debt.

I feel your pain op. I ended up working with a sleep consultant with my second child at age 14m I think (it's all a blur) and then after that got her to help with my then nearly 5yo. Best money I've spent. Because it got me and dh on the same page and gave us a plan. It was about £250 I think and she went over and above.

The irony of me typing this message to you is not list on me, I'm here stalking the sleep board for ideas to stop my nearly 4yr old waking me and the rest of the house up every morning at 5:30am by singing and humming!!! Zzz

At 4am I would either sit with him but not interact or pop in and out offering reassurance but interacting as little as you possibly can. I would prefer sitting in a way because you're doing less.

I have bad sleepers of different sorts (getting / staying asleep /waking early) and a daytime nap by the age of 2 made bad nights disastrous.... my current two year old is allowed 20 minutes if she falls asleep in the buggy or car but that’s it...

I’m sorry, it’s a killer.

Our 28 month old is in the process of dropping all daytime naps so I think your child is having too much daytime sleep. Its really hard right now, as entertaining for such a long time with no activities open is so boring, but DS sleep is better for it. We have thd occasional car nap if he's especially tired, but its limited to 20 min only!

DS had dropped his nap by that age as it was the only way to get him to go to sleep at a decent hour without bouncing off the walls for 90+ minutes.

It's really hard isn't it. My little boy woke at 4.30 on the dot until he was 3.5. We tried everything. The catch 22 was that he would need a decent day sleep to make up for the early morning so you'd end up in a vicious cycle. Try cutting the nap 10 mins for a few days then 10 mins more etc. He clearly won't make it to bedtime if he's been up from 3.30 without a nap so I'd say you would be best trying to adjust the routine gradually.

It does get better, my son is 4 now and sleeps until 6.30 and stays in his room until 7 with his gro clock. Hang in there.