Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

Flip

Original poster

26 month old suddenly not going to sleep easily

22 replies

CountessDracula · 17/11/2004 20:51

dd has ever since 8 months settled without a murmur.

The past week she has (a) refused to go to sleep for ages and kept demanding more water/bottle/cuddles etc and (b) woken up in the night.

She has recently started asking for her bedroom door to be left open and I am sure this is causing it. However, if I shut it she throws a total wobbler.

Any suggestions? Should I cc her again (which I did at 8 months with great success).

OP posts:

enid · 17/11/2004 20:58

ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyy goooooooddddd - have started thread exactly the same as this here .

Tonight I read toddler taming while she was in the bath and then got dh to read her a story. He put her in her cot and she immediately started faffing - not the right cup, wants a bottle, pillow not in the right place. I went in, said night night, gave her a cup of water and left. She went bloody MENTAL, hysterical. we left her for 3 mins then I went in and said night night again, picked her up, cuddles, as soon as she stopped put her down again. Immediate hysteria. Left her for 5 mins (sat on stairs close to tears) then went in, picked her up, she stopped, put her back, she immediately said she wanted her door open. I said OK, propped door open, said night night again and left. She went straight to sleep.

About an hour and half later she woke up and started calling/crying out, I went in and said night night again and she went back to sleep.

So...its working so far - although I know shes going to do it again at 3.30am and dont know whether I'll be so strong then.

My dd was 2 in October so roughly the same age...

prefernot · 17/11/2004 20:58

How about daytime sleeps CD? There's no possibility she's ill or in any kind of pain or anxious about something new? Dd's done this twice after also being a great sleeper. One time when she was 15 months it got worse and worse and we did cc. The other time when she was 23 months she seemed to be afraid of being left and we just did lots of reassurance and no cc and it worked. If she's a verbal kind of child maybe try to work out from her what's the problem? We worked out from talking to dd that she was becoming afraid of certain things in her stories 'giants, kings, and windows' she said tearfully to me one night.

enid · 17/11/2004 21:00

Prefernot! I remember that - the windows! dd2 says she doesnt like the Christmas man or the spooky tree but quite honestly I can't sit with her all night (which is what she wants).

prefernot · 17/11/2004 21:33

Hi enid. Dd was born on 10 Oct, how about yours?

I honestly think they seem to have these little phases of sleep-rejection at various points. When dd had hers at 23 months a few people were posting on a thread called 'why do toddlers suddenly start waking at night?' there were about 7 of us with kids a similar age. They all stopped waking at night as quickly as they started it. I think the best thing to do is to not create a new problem in the way you deal with the current one. If that makes sense.

enid · 17/11/2004 21:35

19 Oct.

She keeps waking up briefly and going back to sleep. I should go to bed really as I may be up half the night - she really goes for it about 3.30. In fact last week we ended up getting up at 5am and watching videos for 2 hours until everyone else got up

prefernot · 17/11/2004 21:44

enid, you don't think there might be anything wrong with her do you?

prefernot · 17/11/2004 21:44

I mean a viral thing or something like that?

enid · 17/11/2004 21:46

well I have thought of that, but this has been going on for about a week now and she seems fine (if a little stroppy) during the day.

I think it is because she gave up her bottle in bed at night (it kept leaking - water - and we swapped it for an anyway up cup) she seemed fine about it but it seems to have triggered this. Very tempted to give the bottle back but it does make her bed wet...

prefernot · 17/11/2004 21:56

Give the bottle back! Or replace it with a non-leaky new one?

enid · 17/11/2004 22:00

dh and I are having this very discussion at the moment! I am tempted just to give it back but it does leak. I could take her shopping tomorrow and buy her another one which may not leak. She does love her little old bottle though. Dh says of course, no, dont give it back we've got to get through it - yeah right dont see him slumped in a chair in dd2s room shivering wrapped in a blanket at 4am

prefernot · 17/11/2004 22:02

Well if that little bottle is to her what my dd's cuddly toy 'Wolfy' is, she'd never go to sleep without it. It may be her comfort object?

enid · 17/11/2004 22:06

yes. it may be. I have secretly found it and am about to wash it, fill it with water in readiness for the night waking .

dh has now lost interest in the whole thing so he may never know

wordsmith · 17/11/2004 22:07

My DS1 was a fab sleeper until about 26 months then suddenly became manic - absolutely petrified at bedtime, even climbed over the stairgate that we had put on his bedroom door. We greased it with vaseline to stop him getting a grip but he did it again (sounds pathetic but we were desperate!!) Previously he had gone to sleep on his own in the pitch dark with the briefest of goodnights from us so this was a total 180 degree turnaround and we were comletely flummoxed. We changed his cot for a bed, moved his room layout around, put nightlights in different places, took down all the mobiles and posters (in case they were giving him nightmares which apparently kids often start getting at about 2 yrs). Nothing worked. he would only go to sleep with me or DH in the room with him. Then if he woke up in the night the same thing happened. It would take at least half hour to get him back to sleep. After a couple of weeks at the end of our collective thether and having read all the baby sleep books we could get our hands on, the HV suggested the 'disappearing chair' routine - basically sit on the bed on night 1, then move a few cm away on night 2, then off the bed and into a chair on night 3, then move the chair about 6cm further away on night 4, and so on and so on until you're by the door. Then you sit with the door open and gradually close it inch by inch on consecutive nights (sorry abt mixing metric and imperial!) until you are outside with door virtually closed. The you sit by the door to reassure them you're still there. It took us about 3 months to get back to something resembling normal. Still it was a good way to get some reading done and I found that by the end (when I was sitting outside the door at the top of the stairs) it was a good chance to do the Guardian quick crossword.

The little b**ger's now nearly 5 and sleeping v. well again, although he still pushes it at bedtime occasionally!

enid · 18/11/2004 08:32

she woke in the night, I gave her the bottle, she looked absolutely thrilled and went back to sleep without a murmur. She now will not be separated from it this morning so it looks like its very much back on the agenda - much to dh's disapproval .

we'll have to see whether she goes off happily tonight.

CD, sorry to have hijacked your thread. How did it go last night for you and yours? I have to say cc was working for us - nice to have some 'rules' to cling to in the midst of the madness!

Missmibaby · 18/11/2004 09:40

I started a similar thread to this. Our DS whi is 20mths old and still in a cot has suddenly started protesting at being left at bedtime and started waking in the middle of the night. I can do the cc at bedtime but at 3am my will is weaker and last night after 45mins of backrubbing, leaving, returning, reassuring. Anyway in the end I brought him into our bed. vvvv baaad. Enid or prefernot how did you resolve the middle of the night thingy??

Pidge · 18/11/2004 10:03

Spooky - dd aged 2yrs 4 months has also started doing this! From 5.5 months she has gone down without a murmur at 7pm and slept through 12 hours. I can count the times she's woken in the night on one hand. But just this last week she has been shouting from her bedroom for up to an hour and a half after us putting her down. Not demanding anything particularly, just jumping about in her cot and singing and shouting. She's not waking in the night, just taking 1 1/2 hours to go to sleep.

I'll be really interested to see how you all get on - we are just adopting a strategy of going up there every 20 minutes or so to tell her to pipe down and get snoozing. She is in no way distressed - just wide awake! And she doesn't expect us to stay in the room.

Had a right palaver the other night when dp went up to see her and pulled the door handle off her door - so then we spent 10 minutes crashing around outside with toolbox and screwdrivers trying to get in whilst dd shouted "Mummy, open the door". I guess this didn't help our cause!

alibo · 18/11/2004 11:38

hello pidge, hope you don't think i'm stalking again! real probs at moment with ds waking up at night, and he usually seems hungry. have you seen my threads on 9mth old and tea, and on purplehaze's thread on her 9mth waking at 4am? could you remember what your dd was eating and rough amounts at that age? as you know, we're still avoiding wheat etc. sorry to hijack thread, but we are so in need of an unbroken night!!

Pidge · 18/11/2004 11:52

No worries alibo - have just posted on your other thread, though not very useful I'm afraid. These babes and their sleep habits are sent to try us!

prefernot · 18/11/2004 21:35

Missmibaby, my dd never really had a bad middle of the night waking problem, her issues were more to do with being put to bed in the beginning and at nap times. The first time (15 months) when she had a problem and we did cc we also did it in the night and I remember one night that was AWFUL, she stood in the cot saying 'mummy ... mummy' from 4-6am!!! But after that it got better. Basically you have to sweat it out. Her other problem at 23 months we didn't really do cc as we thought it had a different origin, i.e. it seemed to be real anxiety rather than just not wanting to be left so we treated her very gently and reassuringly and it worked really well very quickly.

enid, I'm glad you gave her the bottle. What does it matter if she's attached to it? If it was full of milk maybe, but a little bottle of water's quite sweet ...

enid · 18/11/2004 21:43

prefernot, she has gone to bed with her bottle tonight with nary a whisper of complaint.

Sounds mad that we didnt give her her bottle in the first place but she seemed genuinely happy to have a cup instead (for the first couple of nights).

Now our stress is that it is a French bottle, very little with a hole in the middle to make a handle, and she won't countenance any other sort...we may have to make a special trip over to stock up . thanks so much for the support, I hope CD (original thread starter) is working her dd out x E

Missmibaby · 19/11/2004 14:14

Prefernot - he slept through last night, so hopefully the night-time waking isn't going to be a regular thing. I think my ds is feeling a bit anxious about being left - suddenly separation theory is starting to come into practice. Thanks for your tips.

prefernot · 19/11/2004 21:20

That's great, enid. Can you try to get a new bottle for her over the net? Or take her shopping for a bottle she might like to chose for herself?

Missmibaby, that's good he slept through. If there is an underlying anxiety I think it's almost better (at this age) to give them the benefit of the doubt. It worked with dd last time to just immediately respond to her fears and lie with her or spend time reassuring her. Within a week or so she was settling again fine.

Flip