3 Year Old Up Constantly

[ThirtyTwoGoingUnder]

Looking for any help and advice please as I'm at the end of my tether.

3.5 year old has never been a great sleeper but it's never been this bad. There was a thunderstorm around 3 months ago and DS was terrified so got into bed with us (normally don't allow this and he knows this, but he was genuinely terrified and shaking). Since then, months later, he's up several times a night at any sound he hears as he's worried it's going to be thunder. Rain, wind, any noise sends him rushing into our room. When it's not rainy or windy he 'needs a wee' every other hour. This is true sometimes but more often than not, it's night time tactics. The past couple of nights between midnight and 4am he's disturbed us 6 times. He knows he's not allowed in our bed and I take him back to his room and put him back in bed but I know within 30mins he'll be back in our room with some sort of excuse. We've tried -

• A Gro clock - worked brilliantly at first and then he just ignores it now
• Getting him a bedside table and nightlight (didn't work and he played with the drawer all night banging and woke his younger sister
• A toniebox that he can listen to through the night to drown out other sounds (worked for a while but then meant he didn't sleep and was cranky in the morning)
• Removing his toniebox and tonies so he has no nighttime distractions/nothing to play with (has resulted in him coming to us several times a night)
• letting him sleep with the light on (he didn't disturb us all night but didn't sleep and we could hear him banging around not on his bed, again disturbing his sister)
• reasoning with him and asking him why he's not sleeping (he says he's scared of the dark, which resulted in the above, us letting him sleep with light on, but then ended in him not sleeping and then a grumpy, badly behaved child all day)

Can anyone please help? We have a 16 month old who basically sleeps through. I'm almost in tears every night because I know he's going to come in several times and even if he doesn't I'm on edge because everytime I manage to drop off, he comes in and disturbs us.

I think you need to do exactly what's recommended.

It works quickly if you do. You only have to read other threads on here from people who have done it.

You only go in if he's crying AND the requisite number of minutes have gone by, is what I mean.
You don't anticipate, you time what you're doing, go in very briefly, then leave again.

I thought I'd go mad, the first night, but I stuck to it. The second night was quicker, and on the third night, although I was amazed that she just slept through the night.

@ThirtyTwoGoingUnder I feel your pain, I could have written your post it is so similar for us. Our almost 4 year old DS has never been a good sleeper - we have to lie with him until he falls asleep, he usually sleeps until about midnight okay but then is up throughout the night unless I sleep with him. We’ve tried everything - makeshift bed on our bedroom floor, floor bed in his room, tonie box, calpol night light (in case his snoring is waking him). Nothing seems to work so I’m resigned to getting up at least two/three times every night unless I co-sleep permanently 😞 he’s a lot more clingy/unsure than his older brother who sleeps really well.

I’d be really interested to know if the above works for you as I’ve run out of ideas!

Hi OP,
Do you have an update? I'm in the same situation with my 3.5 year old and it's driving me mad. Please tell me you found a solution!

Can you get a double bed in his room and take it in turns to get in bed with him?

@WhosBob I wish I could say we solved it ourselves, but towards the end of January he naturally started sleeping longer and only coming in once or twice and then the past 2 weeks he hasn't come in at all! I can hear him pottering about in the middle of the night sometimes but as long as he isn't coming in to us 5000 times, I can handle that 😂
Sympathies, it's so unbelievably hard 😭