3 y/o wakes every night for hours - strange behaviour

[UKmumtobe]

Hello,

I am posting in hope of someone else going through something similar or someone might be able to help me understand what is going on with my 3 year old.

Gently sleep trained at 10 months and she slept through every night until.... age 2 yrs 3 months which is when she started preschool and then a new baby arrived at 2 yrs 5 months. She is now 3 yrs 4 months. I assumed this was why her sleep changed so I didn't worry for a while.

No day nap. She dropped it when she was 2.5. self settles, bed time normally 6:30/7pm depending on how tired she is.

She wakes every night and can be awake for hours at a time. Last night she woke 11pm-4am. Came into our room and said she wanted to sleep with us. Try to put her back in bed over and over until dad went into her bed with her . Still didn't sleep after hours. I then took her into parent bed and she settled after 2 hours of me trying to stroke her, ignore her, talk to her. This in itself is worrying as some nights it's 5 hours awake other nights it's 1 hour.

Other nights she will be awake in her room chatting, laughing, fiddling with her comforter. Easier on us but I know she's awake.

She has a weird behaviour though which I've noticed if we get her into our bed and one of us is directly next to her. She will jerk her legs, do funny things with her fingers, like stretch them out a few at a time, blink a lot, open her mouth and close it, shout a little something out. Then she will go back to tossing and turning or just lying there with her eyes open. It just doesn't feel quite right.

Please, if anyone has any advice or knows what might be going on I would love to hear from you

Thanks xx

We had a similar sleep interruption type thing at that age. Lasted maybe 2-3 months. Hard going but survivable! The movements sound like normal self settling stuff to me, mine just turned 4 and he wriggles, mumbles, kicks his legs etc when he’s trying to sleep. I understand you’re saying it feels weird and maybe have some sort of instinct thing going on but the movements themselves sound okay from your description.

@SpicePearl thanks for your reply. It just seems so strange what she's doing like she's not in control of the actions? During the day she doesn't show any kind of odd tic like behaviour.

I'm also concerned because this has been going on for over a year now. People say it's likely "habitual" but I think it's more than that - noone can withstand nightly wakings for this long for that length of time, surely? She doesn't nap in the day either.

She does sleep through the odd night. And when she does she even says mummy I slept all night! As though it's a surprise to her also.

She doesn't verbalise what's going in the night. Sometimes she says she was hot or just not tired but that can't be the reason why she's been doing this for so long!
Xx

Happens to mine when I put him to bed to early. Lies awake for hours. Always the 6.30/7pm bedtime. I try and keep him up longer.

@MrsLemonySnicket Sadly makes no difference what time she goes to bed. Last night she went to bed at 8pm and she was up for 5 hours.

Have you considered Tourette's syndrome? It normally starts from around 2 years old...

@UKmumtobe Hi!! Are you talking about my son?? Ohh god it literally happened last night to us!! My son is 3.10 last night he was doing ALL the above you mentioned!! Im a worrier in general..i tend to read into things a lot..matbe going through a developmental stage? I would love to hear other moms as well,if thats normal :) xx

@mommycarol I have no idea what it is but it's been going on for 12 months now and I just don't know how to stop it. She must be so tired. I worry what's going through her mind to be awake for so long too. Xx

@UKmumtobe Hi there :) so is been happening every single night with all the things you mentioned?? Did you talk with your pediatrician about it?

I saw a programme about 7 years ago about a child like this.

Becayse she was so sleep deprived she was permanently in the first stage of sleep ( l think) all night. She behaved in a similar way, sort of awake, but not awake.

I don’t have any advice though. She saw a sleep specialist, who said the problem was she was sleeping with her parents. When they put her in her own room the problem resolved.

l would speak to your doctor.

Have you ever tried putting her to bed really, really late? I know that's the advice for adults with sleep problems. To go to bed at the point of complete fatigue, the gradually bring your bed time forwards once the body is more used to a long stretch of sleep in the night.

I guess for an adult it would be 2am but for a toddler it would be more like 10pm? Also wake her at a consistent normal time in the morning and not let her sleep in so she can't catch up then. Sort of a reset?

I only say this as I get split nights myself if I've gone to bed too early. Got to be worth a try if you haven't already?

@UKmumtobe Hows you daughter op?

Thanks @LGBirmingham it's worth considering.

@mommycarol She has "slept through" these past two nights but up at 6ish, despite going to bed around 8pm. I don't think she woke in the night but she could have done and just not woken us up! I haven't spoken to a Dr about it yet as 1) I won't be given an appointment until next year no doubt, and 2) I just don't think they'll help? What can they really do?

She has always slept in her own room since 6 months @ArseInTheCoOpWindow and we rarely humour her if she wants to be with us. Since having a sibling though it does make it harder as we don't want to disturb him with any drama in the middle of the night! So we have caved a few times and let her get in our bed or I've gone into hers for 5 mins to stroke her head and say night night again.

Sometimes I think her brain is just on overdrive all the time, it's like she can't switch off. She doesn't get tired from preschool and never needs downtime after lunch like so many other 3 year olds do??

If she can’t switch off it will be overproduction if corsidol caused by lack of sleep.

Theres some charity that deals with this stuff. Let me see if l can find it.

This is it.

thesleepcharity.org.uk/

Thanks @ArseInTheCoOpWindow I'll take a look X

@UKmumtobe Sorry for asking..as i dont live in England,but why get an appointment a year later? Is that how the health system works there?@UKmumtobe

This is probably unhelpful but I have been like this all my life. It was very reassuring to me when I learned at university that actually this used to be the normal sleep pattern for everyone.

bakadesuyo.com/2012/08/were-we-meant-to-sleep-in-two-chunks/

I generally sleep about 10-12 and then 3-8. It still comes out to about 7 hours and I’m not tired during the day.

My older son did something a bit like this as a toddler, where he would be happily awake sometimes for 2-3 hours, I found this website quite helpful:

www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/09/09/the-split-night-why-some-babies-are-awake-for-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-how

he did just grow out of it after a few months do, it didn’t persist.

however I don’t know about the other behaviour you describe, my younger son used to look at his fingers and fling his legs up and down when going off to sleep and I put it down to normal developmental curiosity about his body, he doesn’t do it anymore at 3.5. he occasionally has what I would describe as “normal” bad dreams.

I guess health visitor for initial advice? Sorry it sounds tough x

What has your GP said about it?

It was tongue in cheek sadly as it's extremely difficult to get a GP appointment in the UK at the moment, let alone any follow up treatment.

This brings back memories. My first was a dreadful sleeper and gradually a 45 minute wake up turned to 1.5 hours and then 3 hours a night. She also couldn’t stop twiddling my hair in that time so it was torture. I don’t know what to tell you except it did stop and a couple of years later she does sleep through and go to sleep on her own.

Hi, I know this is a really old thread but did you ever find out what this was or how to fix it? We are having exactly the same problem with our 3 year old daughter and the involuntary movements and sounds are getting worse. She has been referred to paeds by the GP but I have no idea how long that’s going to take! xx