2.5 year old has never slept through the night.

[Beeloux]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice. Ds2 has never slept through the night. He usually wakes every 3 hours. He will wake up crying butusually settles back down after a drink. If he’s ill then he will be up most of the night.

He stopped napping well before 2. He will only nap in the buggy or car seat for 30 mins max but this is a rare occasion.

He wakes around 6am and I try and get him to sleep for 6/6:30. He had a 30 min nap at midday and has only just went to sleep now after trying for 1 hour.

We are out everyday walking or the park/activities/playgroups. He eats well and we have the same routine every evening. Dinner, bath, story time and bed. It still takes him at least an hour of me being there and him faffing around before he falls asleep.

He has a low floor double bed and I usually end up in it with him. Leaving him to fall asleep alone isn’t really an option as he throws himself around and is very unsteady on his feet (being assessed for hypermobility) so I worry he will hurt himself.

He had his tonsils removed (very enlarged and recurrent tonsillitis a few months ago. Naively I thought his sleep would improve but it hasn’t. He has just been diagnosed with a severe egg allergy, has eczema and a barky cough some nights so I’m not sure if this is all related.

Any advice appreciated! I’m a lone parent and haven’t slept a full night in 2.5 years.

No advice but posting to say how tough that sounds💐

Yes most likely related. Allergies can cause sleep disruption. They are also associated with ADHD.

Hypermobility is also associated with ADHD.

I would be considering this as a potential issue too.

DS didn't sleep without waking multiple times (sometimes up to four times a night) until he was 6. He would faff for ages before going to bed. I would spent hours with him until he feel asleep because I couldn't leave him. As soon as he was old enough I did and just left him to it - no toys in his bedroom. Otherwise he just used me for attention - any stimulus at all from me ultimately was just another thing to keep him awake.

In the end I took to doing whatever I could to merely survive. Even if that meant him sleeping with me so I was disturbed less. He had a white noise machine which helped a bit. The other thing was to stop making it a battle ground. That just wound us both up and made the problem worse. Sometimes we had to just let him get on with it and leave him in his room once he was 4 or 5. I wish I'd known this sooner tbh. If he was up late, so be it, as long as I got sleep. My sleep was the priority. He would sleep eventually.

No magic solution from me. And yes DS has ADHD.

Sorry no advice either but wanted to show you some support. My eldest daughter, now 17, was a terrible sleeper too which was a massive shock to the system after my eldest son who did 12 hours from about 3 months old. She didn’t go to sleep until late (10/11pm) and then after a couple of hours would wake up and wander off downstairs so I’d regularly wake to find her sat on the sofa watching tv at 3am! I ended up putting a baby gate on her doorway of her bedroom to stop that but she just seemed to be a child who went to bed late, would muck about up and down hourly throughout the night then be up for the day around 4am. I remember being on my absolute knees with it at one point and I genuinely don’t know what happened but one day she just stopped.
Now she’s a teen and lives in her bed 🤣
I know it sounds cliche but it will pass one day however it is a bit shit while you’re in the middle of it!
I now also have a one year old who’s gone from sleeping through back to 4 or 5 wake ups a night and I’m bloody struggling this week!

Thanks all for your replies

It was a shock to the system as ds1 slept through since 12 weeks 😩

I have wondered if it may be related to SEN. He is extremely sensitive. Will not be babysat by any close family members, high pitch screams if you tell him no, gets distressed at busy places. If he is ill (even just a cold) he will non stop cry and throw himself on the floor.

He also tiptoe walks but not sure if it’s related to the hypermobility.

DS1 was still waking 8 times a night aged 3 and didn't sleep through until he was 7. Diagnosed with ADHD aged 9.

DS2- I coslept from the beginning cos I was on my knees from DS1! It was the only way I got some rest.

DS2 woke less frequently but didn't sleep through until he was 11...YEARS! Diagnosed with ADHD aged 7.

Huge sympathy from me - I really know how hard it is. I really wish someone had told me to just cosleep with DS1.

As it was, we played musical beds for years just trying to get the maximum amount of sleep for everyone.

To reassure you, my very small for late dates baby didn’t sleep a whole night till he was over 5 and I was heavily pregnant with number two. I did what you did, mattress on the floor. When older he’d wake and come in.

He was so excited about new baby that I said I had to sleep alone to make sure new baby was also sleeping and he then started sleeping through.

I do remember many parents of reception children still tearing their hair out about lack of sleeping thru the night.

with number two I just slept with him till about 3/4 for my sanity and sleep and he was a much better sleeper. Transitioned to a big boys bed around 3.5 and slept through even though I was actually still bf him a little.

then hit a phase where he had lots of nightmares aged 6 for a while.

Both now doing well at night (well eldest is 14 so goes to bed after me!) and no issues academically or socially.

my eldest had a lot of illnesses when little, including many coughs. Later he was diagnosed with asthma. (Seems much better now) He had iugr. I think some babies need to feel the presence of an adult, especially mum, to sleep well.

Youngest is having a reading regression in that, despite being an early reader and wanting to in read alone in bed from quite young he now wants us to read to him again, aged 8. The super quick bedtime we had is now stretching out again but he clearly needs it so going with it for now.

I think some babies need to feel the presence of an adult,

I actually think we are out of step culturally with other countries on this. We have this notion that we shouldn't sleep with a baby or toddler because of messages about safety. Yet there are ways to do this safely and for some women it's the difference between staying sane and not staying sane.

I got to a point where it was survival and if it works it's works. We tried every sleep method going. None worked. The only thing that worked for us was taking the stress out of it and not worrying about bed times and not worrying about it he ended up in our bed or I ended up in his bed. (Or he ended up in bed with DH because he'd physically kicked me out!).

Some kids don't sleep as much as others. Go with it. Don't stress. Don't make it a drama. Just offer your presence but not your attention.

Yep, DS1 was about 5 when he started letting me sleep through.
When he was 2 his brother arrived. DH dealt with DS1, I bf the newborn. I got more sleep than the previous 2 years!

He's just about to submit an application to study at Cambridge, and still doesn't effing sleep as much as I want. I just leave him to it now (and have for for a long time).

Many sympathies. Its awful - made worse by the well means but soul destroying "yes, i know how you feel, mine has woken at 6am for the past week, and im on my knees. It's worse when you are used to a full night sleep"

I'd try a later bedtime. I don't think many toddlers sleep for 12 hours overnight even when they've stopped napping, i think you're expecting too much sleep. It shouldn't take an hour to go to sleep. My daughter's sleep improved a lot after we kept her night sleep to 11 hours but usually she sleeps 10-10.5 hours overnight, she's nearly 2. If she doesn't nap, she'll sleep 11 hours. Just sleep with him if it gets you all more sleep.

My DS2 started sleeping though at 3yo. Hang in there OP it will happen one day.

yeah, I’d edit that to all babies tbh. Some are just more sensitive to being on their own than others.

yes to later bedtime. Iirc in France they stay up with parents in the evening and go to bed quite late. My non sleeper wouldn’t never go down before 8 in the evening. Built his best train tracks then. Still the same now, does his best Lego creations after 9 pm.

from my memory of baby sleep research studies, “sleeping through the night” means a chunk of 5 hours.

Also some babies wake up, puke, but don’t think to call for mum. And go back to sleep. Not mine. My non sleeper is exceptionally social now as a teen and also exceptionally sensitive to the needs of others. He demanded my presence as a baby but is the first to offer his emotional support to others now.

Thanks all!

I wouldn’t mind a later bedtime if he actually stayed asleep. Last night he was up 4 times. Went to bed just before 8pm and up at 5:30am.

Refused a nap all day today and was still faffing around for a good half an hour at bedtime (just slept now).

At the moment I usually sleep with him once ds1 goes to sleep (around 8:30) and I’m having to wake at 4 to get the chores done. I just wish I could have some down time on an evening. 😩

Going out on a rare occasion this evening with a friend for dinner in 1 hour. DF is babysitting so hoping ds doesnt wake up for a few hours. The last time I went out I had to come straight home within 1 hour as he had woken up and was inconsolable 😢