sleep deprived mum of 3 year old

[kathtwokids]

our son is 3 yrs old. For around five months now he has woken randomly during the night wanting cuddles or getting upset saying he doesn't want to go back to his bed. We've tried asking him why he's upset, cuddling him, ignoring him. I'm getting so knackered/tearful myself now and i feel near the end of my wits with him (sad). Any ideas of how we can solve this problem would be greatly received

Sorry no-one has responded. We had problems with DD aged 3 a few months ago. We ended up getting her a night-light as she wanted the light on all the time/seemed scared of the dark. Do you think your DS might find that comforting? we bought a lumilove animal light which glows different colours.

agree with the nightlight idea. that worked for a while with dd. she still gets up but not as much.

when you say waking up randomly, how often each night, what do you do when he wakes up? is there any pattern to his waking? can you think of anything that happened / or changed before this started?

he does have a little night light which goes into the plug but maybe worth getting a lamp. There doesn't seem to be a pattern and i'm not certain if he's totally awake most of the time. He is either easily settled back to bed and goes straight back to sleep or we have a full tantrum saying doesn't want to go back to his bed?? We've always made bedroom a fun place to be and read stories, played games etc on floor and on his bed so we're not sure where this has come from. He did start pre-school in Sept but was waking before this. I bought a sleeping bag yesterday so i'm going to give that a go tonight. Thanks for reponding

forgot to say: he wakes atleast five times during the night usually at completely different times for eg, 11pm, then 12:30pm, 2:30am, 3am and then maybe 4am. I really don't see a pattern and the times seem to change every night. we mainly deal with this with no eye contact or conversation and pick him up and put him back to bed, when we're having a tantrum that is a bit more tricky but we try and use the same method but not always easy when tired

we ended up getting tough with dd1 when she started doing this. which was hard both for us and her.
if she shouted on us we'd ignore (unless there was something wrong)
is she got out of bed she was put straight back. no talking and no eye contact

took about a week but it all coincided with new baby and dd1 not wanting to wear and pee in nappy at night.

we also put a digitalclock in her room - taught her the number 6 and enforced the idea that she does not get out of bed till there is a 6 at the start. sofar it works fairlt well - though we have just put her clock back by 30 mins to try and get her to sleep longer.

good idea about the clock, i may try that

how about one of those bed tents. we have a dora explorer one on the way

My son (almost 3) has been a bit disrupted during the night, too. Keeps coming into our room at all hours saying he is scared and wants to sleep with us. I have started leaving the light on in his room when he goes to sleep (we have a dimmer switch, so leave it on very low), and it has helped a bit. He comes in less often, at least - I think when he wakes in the night and can't see anything in the pitch black, he panics.