3.5 year old up multiple times in middle of the night exhausted parents

[Starlight17]

That’s it basically. Our 3.5 year old DS has been waking up multiple times a night for the past 3 weeks. Some context around this is that we are moving house in a few weeks time and he had tonsillitis last week. He’s been involved in the house move packing and going to see his new room etc and was on antibiotics for his to tonsillitis which has now cleared up. My question is how on earth do we get him back to sleep at night? He hasn’t slept through every night since he turned 3 years old but would consistently have 1-2 nights sleeping through and waking only once and straight back to sleep on the other nights before this which we could handle. Now we both take turns to go to him in the night and take him straight back to bed, no speaking etc and tell him to go to sleep but he continues to get up and knock on our door and cry at the door until we go to him again. Last night DH ended up sleeping on his bedroom floor (again) and I ended up crying in bed at 2am in frustration. Exhausted today is an understatement and he has started waking his DD. We’ve also tried letting him nap in the day for 30 mins to try catch up on sleep and putting him to bed earlier but it makes no difference and he’s still up. He is still in night time nappies which are wet every morning and plan on trying to help him get dry in the night after we move (too many new things at once otherwise). So what do you think, could it be the house move unsettling him? I knew we might have trouble when we moved but not before. Maybe he’s gotten into a routine of getting up? I did try the wake to sleep one night and ended up waking him fully! I’m not sure what to do next but any advice would be great as we are all running on empty and really need some energy again. Thanks

My eldest had a lot of sleep issues. We just took the power struggle out and let him sleep with us if he wanted to. If that's what he needs let him crack on it's just a phase in my view.

There are a lot of things going on right now and I do think he must be anxious/excited about the move. I will try to talk to him about it more and try to play it down in terms of how it will affect us as a family. We’ve already let him pick out his bedroom duvet and accessories etc and have got him to help pack up some of his toys but we have been doing some of it while he’s at preschool so maybe it’s a shock coming home to more things packed up each day.

@Starlight17

That’s it basically. Our 3.5 year old DS has been waking up multiple times a night for the past 3 weeks. Some context around this is that we are moving house in a few weeks time and he had tonsillitis last week. He’s been involved in the house move packing and going to see his new room etc and was on antibiotics for his to tonsillitis which has now cleared up. My question is how on earth do we get him back to sleep at night? He hasn’t slept through every night since he turned 3 years old but would consistently have 1-2 nights sleeping through and waking only once and straight back to sleep on the other nights before this which we could handle. Now we both take turns to go to him in the night and take him straight back to bed, no speaking etc and tell him to go to sleep but he continues to get up and knock on our door and cry at the door until we go to him again. Last night DH ended up sleeping on his bedroom floor (again) and I ended up crying in bed at 2am in frustration. Exhausted today is an understatement and he has started waking his DD. We’ve also tried letting him nap in the day for 30 mins to try catch up on sleep and putting him to bed earlier but it makes no difference and he’s still up. He is still in night time nappies which are wet every morning and plan on trying to help him get dry in the night after we move (too many new things at once otherwise). So what do you think, could it be the house move unsettling him? I knew we might have trouble when we moved but not before. Maybe he’s gotten into a routine of getting up? I did try the wake to sleep one night and ended up waking him fully! I’m not sure what to do next but any advice would be great as we are all running on empty and really need some energy again. Thanks

Hey! We had this with our son a few months ago! We introduced the gro clock ans honestly changed him overnight. Also told him he could have a present ( small Toy) if hw stayed in his big boy bed all night. We did this for about a week then stopped lol it started getting expensive... but you'd do anything for sleep right! lol x

Yes I understand as he’s been through a lot of these phases as most children do. It definitely feels like a power struggle and none of us need that at 3am!