My 3 year old doesn’t sleep through the night.

[Courtax]

My daughter is 3 years old soon to be 4, she still doesn’t sleep through the night. It’s only occasionally that she will but every/most nights she’s getting up 2/3 times, and it can just be for a cuddle with me. As much as that’s lovely and I love her to bits it’s starting to take its toll as I’m so tired and also due to have a baby in March so need to nip it in the bud somehow. She’s started preschool and as much as thats a long day and I tire her out taking her for walks/bike/scooter she still doesn’t sleep through. She has a night light, door open, block out blind for light coming through in the brighter morning and also she has water for bed but nothing works. I need some good advice please x

No advice, just wanted to say my son is the same. We've taken the approach of any sleep is sleep. We had such an awful time as a baby with reflux and vomiting and he wouldn't sleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time, so we've just tried to sleep wherever we can. He is a lot more settled now, but does the same as your daughter, in that he'll wake in the night to come through to us for a cuddle. We just let him into the bed. Or if he's got into our bed before one of us has fallen asleep, one of us gets into his bed. It really doesn't bother us where we sleep so long as we all get sleep.

I remember when I was a kid and I was so frightened when I'd wake up in the night in the dark alone and I'd always go and get into my big brother's bed so I wasn't alone, and I think DS feels the same. On the nights where he's slept with one of us for the full night (like if DP is away with work), he sleeps through. So we just give him that comfort until he stops needing it. We are starting to get longer stretches before he comes into our bed so I think eventually he'll just sleep through.

I appreciate what works for us doesn't work for everybody though x

Our son went to bed perfectly every night and slept fine until 1-5am, this is when the waking occurred, we were sometimes up 10 times a night.
We were referred to a sleep clinic, the following was what we had to do and it worked within a fortnight.

Exactly the same bath/bed routine, same time, same story, same good night words etc.
Leave the room if the child wakes, screams return, no eye contact no physical contact just calm words of reassurance in a low voice.
Never bring the child downstairs or into another room, they must remain in their room.
For our son it was night terrors that caused the problem, this is when the minds awake but the bodies asleep.
He was a wonderful sleeper and a much happier child once we established the routine.

Thank you!
my daughter goes to bed perfectly fine on her own and gets herself to sleep but will wake between 1-5am but just shout me from her bed until I go in (which startles me most of the time) I do remember what it was like waking in the night I’d just want my mom and go into her bedroom. My daughter is grumpy and cries out for me when dropping her off to nursery because she’s so tired which breaks my heart. Just a vicious circle.

We had a brief phase of this. Firstly we got a cheap digital alarm clock so she could see what time it was. After all when the mornings are dark middle of the night looks just like 6am. Then we did a sticker chart- a sticker for every night where she stayed quietly in bed until 6am, 5 stickers (we wanted it to be achievable) got a trip to the toy shop. It resolved very quickly and we phased out the stickers.

Hello @Courtax Sorry to revive an old thread! Just wondering if you ever solved this as I'm having exactly the same issue with my 3 year old!