Toddler waking between 2-4am

[ToykotoLosAngeles]

My DS (just 3) was in hospital 2 weeks ago. It was asthma-related and quite a scary time for all of us. He then got an ear infection, and then an episode of (viral?) hives. He's had nebulisers, bronchodilators via IV, steroids, piriton, antiobiotics and allsorts, including times we had to wake him for meds, so has quite naturally had disturbed sleep.

Unfortunately every other night he is now pinging awake in the middle of the night. Sometimes 2am, then a nap at 5. Sometimes 4am and awake for the day. Because he has been ill we've brought him downstairs in 2-hour shifts and let him play so the other parent can get some sleep. However he is now well and back at nursery so this needs to stop.

Any advice on making sure the wakeups don't last 3 hours? If we go up there and insist it's night time while he loses his temper will this eventually work?

It's so frustrating as he was a 7-7 kid before this.

Sorry not to have any solid advice but came here to commiserate. Have s 2yo that has been ill (nowhere near as your one though, really hard to read how easily things can go downhill :( ).

We have had now a consistent week of refusing to go to bed and when in bed awake middle of the night. What works for us is no talking and just shhhh and sleep. And repeat. Also ours still takes milk and dummy so I abuse that and make him a bottle and then dummy and comfort blanket. Usually it works although we have had the odd night when it just didn't.

What did help was daytime awake - kept him awake for 5 hours, then nap (as long as he wants even 3-4 hours) then again awake for 5-6 hours. And as much outside as possible, scooter, bike, moving running active. Not always but most times this works.

Yes it will eventually work. He's old enough to understand.

Why on earth would you get up and play with him for 3 hours in the middle of the night - no wonder he keeps waking up now you've got him into that routine

Hi OP.
We've recently had this with our 3 year
Old following a bout of tonsillitis.
I've implemented a star chart which is stuck
To his wall in bedroom so when he wakes up he sees it and reminds him of its existence (it had no impact on the fridge!).
This, combined with a gro clock set for 7am has worked. He knows if he stays in bed until his clock wakes up, he gets a star. And that if he gets a weeks worth of stars, he gets a kinder egg.

The first couple of nights it didn't work and he ran in asking for a star and I just reiterated "no you didn't sleep all night" and he soon got the message.

Sometimes he wakes at 5am still and I hear him on his monitor talking to himself saying "it's still blue, back to sleep" in the cutest little matter of fact tone and he goes back off.

We use something like a Gro Clock and DD (3 in Feb) knows that she isn't to get out of bed, unless for a quick wee, until the sun comes up. I think he's old enough to be able to explain it to him and have a conversation about it. I certainly wouldn't be going downstairs or playing at that time of night! It's probably got into a habit for him so you just need to break it and cultivate the new one. I would be firm about not getting out of bed/leaving the bedroom, even if it feels repetitive.

We co-sleep so it's a bit easier but if DD wakes up in the night, the light stays off, and I tell her she can cuddle up to me but it's still nighttime and we have to go back to sleep until the sun comes up.

"Why on earth" we got him up was because for 4 days after he was discharged from hospital having nearly died we had to wake him for 4 hourly ventolin. How fair is it to wake him up with a medication full of adrenaline and then tell him to go back to sleep?

Thank you to those who replied. I have due out the Gro-clock to try.

Thanks for the faux confused face though @crumblebug.

Ventolin is salbutamol - it is not full of adrenaline. The action of salbutamol is 'adrenaline-like' on the lungs only.

So yes it would be fair - and that doesn't explain why for every night after the 4 days of disrupted sleep he was kept awake for hours to play .

Agree with gro clock . You need to get him on a decent schedule.

Every night? Ok.

He was awake at 4 again and promptly started vomiting so I think we're just going to have to ride out this bout of illness. Thanks, guys.

You need to keep him in bed when it's the wee hours.

DS had some nights where he'd be awake for an hour or so. But all we did was make sure he stayed in bed. Lights out, no talking etc.

He has no incentive to go back to sleep if he's up and having one-to-one time with Mum and Dad.

Make it boring for him.

Boredom is your friend. Low lights low voices “ok, all cleaned up (eg if sick), back snuggled into bed now..”, gentle cuddles with him in bed and you/Dh next to him, not in bed with him. Dull, dull, dull and hell soon get back to his 7-7. The last thing you want is for him to make a subconscious connection between being ill and getting lots of attention at the wrong times.

We are having this with are almost two year old at the moment. Happened after illness and is continuing so far.

For the last few days we’ve put him to bed at 9.30pm and then sleep ensues around 10pm (was a 7.30-7am sleeper). So far this is working and he is back to sleeping through although from 10-8 am. We are going to start bringing bedtime down by 30 minutes a night from tonight and see if we can get back to a sensible bed time!

It’s quite a struggle to keep him up but this has been going on 2 weeks now. We have tried earlier but he just wakes up around 2 and is ready to play otherwise.

Good luck to you op, hoping we can get LO asleep by 9.30pm tonight.. sigh.

Our

Thanks. We managed to get him back to sleep at 5 after he was sick at 4, but then he was sick again so it was a pointless exercise with lots of washing!

Poor lad. Hope he gets better soon.