2 year old sleep issues

[MrsK1989]

Hi everyone,

My DD is 27 months (2 years 3 months) and she has never ever slept through. Health care professionals are very uninterested by her and deem me as a time waster, but we are up for hours overnight with her and its only the past week that she has been settling to sleep by 7.30 (usually it'd be 9pm and a 2 hour slog for us).

Her usual issues are long bedtime routine, crying and screaming about bedtime, waking for milk 2+ times a night, weeing through her nappy and waking distressed etc... Her latest thing that worries us is that she now doesn't cry when she wakes but instead shouts for my husband and if it's my turn to go in, she loses her mind and has a giant screaming fit.

Anyone else have any information or similar stories so that I know we aren't alone?

From a very exhausted mum (^^who should currently be on bed rest awaiting surgery, but is spending her nights being screamed at instead).

This sounds awful but all of us mums would give them Medised at night for a few nights to get them in a settled decent sleeping pattern. On the presumption it could be teething pains keeping them up. I don't think they sell it anymore in which case Calpol / nurofen for babies would be the equivalent for 3-4 nights or so.

This is a behavioural issue.

You'll best solve it by dealing with your DDs sleep by treating it as you would any other unwelcome behaviour - very firm boundaries, clear and simple expectations, then zero tolerance from anything that deviates from your expectations. Then dealing with the screaming tantrums that come as a result with calm inevitability.

So make some rules:

• No milk overnight
• Stay in cot
• Lie down in cot
• Be quiet

Develop a mantra that encompasses all of this. For example "It's sleep time now. You lie down quietly at sleep time. Nan night". Then repeat it a million zillion times.

Every time baby stands, lie her back down and repeat mantra. It will be perpetually constant at first, but keep going.

Every time she's cryibg/shouting - shush and repeat mantra. Again, it will be a constant thing at first. Don't be disheartened, just keep going.

Don't give in, don't negotiate, don't tolerate anything other than lying down and being quiet.

Mine never went to bed before 8 pm, and she doesn’t need milk in the night now. Just sips of water from a cup.

@ThatsWhatI

This sounds awful but all of us mums would give them Medised at night for a few nights to get them in a settled decent sleeping pattern. On the presumption it could be teething pains keeping them up. I don't think they sell it anymore in which case Calpol / nurofen for babies would be the equivalent for 3-4 nights or so.

What the fuck? Are you suggesting the OP gives painkillers in lieu of sleep training? That's disgraceful.

OP, can you tell us a detailed breakdown of what the bedtime routine looks like?
How the child falls asleep at night will be the key to getting them to reduce the night wakings.

Is she still in a cot ?
Again, mine were in a single bed at this age as the cot was waking them when moving about.

Thank you all for the messages.
She's almost 3 now, she's in a full size single bed with a bed guard to prevent her falling. We've even swapped her mattress incase it was uncomfortable.
Her bedtime routine is - we go upstairs at about 6.30pm, straight to the bathroom where we wash or bath, brush teeth and hair and use the toilet (she's potty trained now). We then go to her bedroom where she dresses for bed, she gets into bed where we read two books maximum while she has some bedtime milk, then it's lights off, cuddle and then sleep. She only goes down to sleep easily if she doesn't nap during the day, but she doesn't stay asleep, she will be awake by 11-1am.

At the moment it's the screaming when daddy comes in the room which is killing me - she doesn't relent either, we've waited through 20 mins of top volume full throttle screaming and the only thing that stopped it was me walking into the room.

Please help me.

So our situation with our DS (just turned 3) wasn't quite as bad but there are some similarities. What almost completely resolved ours recently was my DP going away for 4 nights. DS had no choice other than to have me. I used a reward chart and gave him the ownership of it....he would put stickers on it at bedtime when he had done what was asked of him. I was relatively firm but gentle with letting him know the expectations. He was definitely more accepting of me knowing that there was no alternative. By night 3 he was just getting on with it and happy. When DP came home he carried on with the new routine and bedtimes are now really easy. If you have somewhere for one of you to go at bedtimes for a few nights, I'd try that and just persevere.....and get a reward chart. I included my son when making the chart asking him what he thought should go on there too.

And I'd cut the day nap!