2 Year Old Sleep Hell

[Rowlie]

My DS has recently turned 2 and has stopped sleeping (literally). He’s probably getting 4 broken hours a night. He has always been able to self settle since small for bedtime and naps. Would happily go to sleep on his own in his cot.

In the past week all hell has broken loose. He cries as soon as we leave the room, gradual retreat/timed intervals doesn’t work. He gets hysterical to the point of being sick screaming for us - I can’t do it. Even if he passes out from tiredness he wakes up every hour through the night. I have also tried staying with him reassuring, patting, holding hand - he still doesn’t go to sleep. He doesn’t cry if you’re there with him, but he still doesn’t go to sleep. Same for his nap.

DH and I are broken. We are getting barely any sleep. DH doesn’t want him in the bed and I tend to agree as don’t think we’d get him out easily again. I don’t know what’s happened and I’m feeling so down. This can’t be normal surely. It’s like a switch has flicked in him.

is there anything I can do?

Usually a bit of a sleep regression at this age because there is so much going on developmentally e.g speech and language as well as sometimes the start of night terrors.

Try a night light in the bedroom that may help.
is there space for you to sleep on the floor next to him, this may be an option at
present until this phase passes. Then slowly start to retreat.
they start to understand things on the tv more at this age too so maybe having a look at the shows he watches and switch to some low stimulating ones.

Agree with previous poster - night terrors and sleep regression as that's what we had at the same age. Only difference being mine had never been a good sleeper, had never slept through the night and couldn't get themself to sleep either so I was less affected by a bit of extra sleep deprivation I suppose! It was about 6w I guess because self-soothing and sleeping through the night happened afterwards and I remember exactly when that happened it was celebratory!

If I left the hall/landing light on it would help but if I turned it off screams would start again.

Are they in a bed or cot? Can you or your DH get into his bed with him rather than the other way around?

I feel your pain, I’ve been there.

Some of my strategies were:

Playing relaxing music with the whole album on repeat. It took a bit of trial and error to find the music that worked for dd. Nursery rhymes didn’t work for her but Bob Marley did. Then she grew tired of that CD and it was a guitar instrumental to ocean sounds, then it was Women Around the World cd, Putumayo World Music etc.

I tried a few different night lights one that projected stars worked for a bit before it broke then another that had a soft red glow (avoid any blue lights).

I also stuck with her bedtime routine of stories before bed. And made sure she had wind down time before bedtime.

Eventually it helped, but it took time.

Getting outside and getting sunlight in the morning to help regulate melatonin levels.

I'm in a very similar situation with my almost 2 year old DD. I posted a thread the other day but for the past 5 months she'll take ages to fall asleep at night, then wake up around 3am and stay awake til midday no matter what we do. She used to sleep through the night no problem, but things changed after she had a short illness and since then she's slept poorly. It used to be 1-2x a week but it's got worse and she's been waking up every night 3am for a week now and it's awful.

Sorry I don't have advice as nothing I've tried has worked either. Just offering empathy and solidarity with you ❤️

Just in case it's useful, we've co-slept since before all this started up and continue to now.

My DS turned 2 in August and I feel like his sleep has taken a bit of a step back as well. He's waking upset at about 10/11pm now and then up for the day at 4:20am. Again he's upset and there's no resettling him.

I think we possibly need to look at the amount of tv he's having before bed. It's difficult though as he's usually tired from nursery so just wants to relax for a bit plus it's too dark/cold now for park/outside.

I'm going to try a nightlight as a previous poster suggested and see if that helps.

@Tiredmummy101 yes definitely true as I have noticed big developments in the last few weeks too. He does also watch quite a bit of tv as that’s the only way he’ll eat so I will be careful about what he’a consuming. Mainly it is toddler friendly stuff though like In the Night Garden, Paddington, Ms Rachel, etc. Could try a night light also, he’s always slept in pitch black so I do wonder if it would be more of a distraction. Could try leaving his bedroom door open but he cries as soon as you leave the room whether it’s open or not tbh.

@Toddler101 He’s in a cot still, so if we wanted to sleep with him we’d either need to put a mattress in his room or put him in our bed (which DH is adamant is last option). Could consider getting a toddler bed so one of us can lay with him but I’m loathe to do anything too drastic to his norm whilst this is going on for fear of making things worse.

@ImustLearn2Cook he has white noise so I think songs wouldn’t work at this stage as completely new and I think would distract. I could try a tonie box maybe so he listens to a story but I feel he’s still a bit too young. He gets outside every day. It’s worth noting this has coincided with general anxiety and clingyness to me. He cries at the childminder drop off now, when previously was fine. He’s never gone through a separation anxiety phase before.

@MayMi sorry you’re getting bad sleep too. I’m so tired I can barely function and we all fee ill from it including my DS. I can see in his face how exhausted he is and is reflected in his behaviour too. We have never co-slept (apart from when he was newborn for a bit). I agree having him in our bed may help or sleeping in his room room him but my DH says this is an absolute last resort.

If you have tried everything else and it’s still not making a difference, try getting rid of the white noise completely. Sleep changes for toddlers, they don’t really need that constant noise anymore so it is possible that the white noise is actually just annoying him now. Worth a shot :)

Hi @Rowlie I know its been a while but how did you get on in the end? We are going through the same with our DD who is 25 months. This all started after she got poorly around her 2nd birthday and since then has been expecting us to sit with her in her room while she falls asleep. We did try sitting in her room and gradual retreat as well but it works for a few days and then its all back to where it was. Also, the night wakings are a terrifying. Even if we sit with her at bed time she will end up waking up multiple times during the night and the lack of sleep is catching up on us now :(