DD desperately needs to sleep, should I let her?

[pavlovthecat]

DD (2.5yo) is desperately tired. She has been under the weather this week, including stupidly high fever on friday and although is better has a cough and is not sleeping in a routine. She has been waking lots in the day, and consequently is very tired in the day. We have tried to get her to take an early nap so as not to effect her night time sleeping but its just not working and she has been wanting to nap at around 3pm.

Unfortunately, we are all a bit poorly and yesterday we went for a lovely afternoon nap, DD, DH and I and did not wake until 5pm . DD did not go to sleep until almost midnight, and only then with me in our bed. But then she woke at 6:30am, after waking about 3 times.

Today, she has been tired all day but refused to nap, and now she is so so desperately tired. I have put Curious George on and she fell asleep. So I woke her gently and said we would have snuggles instead of sleep. But she threw the biggest tantrum ever, still looks unwell, cough is not good. And after crying for 10 mins has just passed out on the sofa.

Should I wake her? Or just let her sleep? She will not sleep tonight if I let her sleep. How do I break this cycle?

mumonthenet - its ok, eventually after much protesting, she let me sing her twinkle little star until she went to sleep. I think she was sooooo overtired, she need me to help her. She started off with 'NOOOOOOO NO Twinkle STAR! No Up SKY!' and lots of leg kicking. I just carried on with it, ducking and diving the head kicking and then she grabbed her milk bottle, shoved it in her mouth and closed her eyes. i finished and asked if she wanted me to sing it again, and she nodded. I sang it another 3 times, and the she was asleep.

I just want her back to normal. She hates being like this. We are not so happy either, although we know it is not her.

Thanks for postng back though! If she is up before 5am, i am not going into work. If she is up after 5am I am. I still feel like poo so tired and poo is not good. (prob is, I slept for 2 hours this afternoon so cant sleep right now!)

oh sorry pavlov.
fwiw i can't get ds2 to sleep this evening.
he has chicken pox and will not settle.
so i might be up for a while too.
if i disappear though, it's cause i've gone off to bed.

Dragon - how is ds2 this morning? Hope he is better. DD woke 3 times in the night, but settled again and woke at 7.30am, so here is hoping! She seems better apart from a stinking cough, and refusal to eat food, but DH and i have felt better...typical eh?

he's been up most of the night and is really miserable. dh and i growling at each other too. only got a few more weeks to go once ds1 gets it too. wahey

Oh dear you poor thing

Weirdest thing happened today...DD went out with daddy while I mumsnetted recovered from my bug. She fell asleep at 11:00am in the car, slept for 45 mins? They went to Chagford. She then slept for same again on the way home at about 4pm. Then, she came running into my arms, all happy, laid her head on my shoulder and said 'i tired mummy'.

She was in bed, her own bed with hardly any fuss by 7:15pm, and only that late as she needed to go for a poo just as she started dozing off just before 7pm! I also think she would have been asleep earlier if we let her! I guess the last weeks chaos has caught up with her?

I hope it calms down a bit for you my lovely.

So far so good in this house.
Boys in bed at 8.
Fingers crossed for a quiet night.

Tis me btw.

I guessed it was you. Love the name btw

another rough night last night.
we're giving the piriton a miss tonight to see if he actually sleeps better.

Sorry did not catch you yesterday. Sorry you had a shit night . Us too. DD up from 3am - 6am and I had a training event, important one which I had to drive to. And last night too, up for 3 hours which was hard as DH was asleep for the whole lot and I had a really busy day with running groups and such today. I woke to the alarm clock, I wanted to chuck it across the room! DD was sick in the car today while out with DH for the day, not sure if was just the food went down the wrong way or she is still unwell. BUT she keeps saying she is sleepy and wants bed which is unusual for her. And she keeps losing things which is also unusual for her (like, she got off her stool in the kitchen, which she was standing on to 'cook' with us, so she could go get her stool to stand on, so she could 'cook' with us, and got upset she could not find it....she was on it!).

Tonight, fingers crossed, I hope you have a good night too lovely, and that he sleeps well.

When they are all doing better, we should meet for coffee, watch the sharks, run after children...

definitely.
fingers crossed for tonight.
it's been a week now.

Hey dragon - how is going? Good news for us. For the first time in so long I just cannot remember, DD slept for almost 12 hours without waking up. Even when she is well she does not sleep this long! She went to bed and was asleep by 7:30pm and woke at 7:15am, not a peep all night. There is a vague possibility that DH got up and I was so tired I did not here a thing, but she must have not been awake long and he must have snuck out and back in. Er, did I just say he might have been quiet? Impossible. I always wake up. But I am giving him a lie in anyway as he he let me sleep until 10am yesterday as I have been sooooooo grumpy.

I took DD to bigbury yesterday for a wet and windy stomp and sandcastle making. I think that helped a lot.

How are yours sleeping. Sending positive vibes.

DS2 sleeping much better now. silly me stayed on mumsnet until late last night after falling asleep when i got in from work for a couple of hours.
can't wait for everything to settle again and get back to a normal sleeping pattern.

no sign of chicken pox for DS1 yet though.

Dragon - you need a life though don't you? I hope DS1 does not get it, otherwise you will be doing this all over again!

I spoke too soon getting all excited with DD sleeping through. Stupid me, thinking it would last.

I get insomnia from time to time anyway, and last night was awake between 2-4am. I just settled to sleep, and then woken by DD, she was awake until almost 6am. She wanted milk. I refused to give it to her, and DH was not impressed with this, even though we have already said we would do this now .

Shame, seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Pavlov - I am sorry, bugger for you, DD has just started again sleeping through. We have been putting her to bed later at 9pm as that seems to help her get to 7 without waking up during the night, and so far we have had 5 days on the trot doing this.

5 - we used to put DD to bed at 8pm, this was her normal time. But then she had a nap in the day, and she has started dropping her naps, so going through to 8pm was impossible. So we moved it to 7-7.30pm ish, varied a little, like her bedtime always has.

She has never slept 12 hours straight, but when did did sleep through, it would be 10 hours straight.

Also, she went to bed last night at 9pm as we went to visit friends, and her and her toddler friend stayed up playng (very well to be honest) and she still woke at 4am for two hours. DH talks to her and reads, and I have tried to explain this attention is not working, and he seems to think whatever alternative we try is either instant or not going to work

We also used bribery, I got some cheap toys and said that if she slept all night she would get one and if she didn't one of her DVD's would go which helped, she laughed at reward charts.

I know how you feel about the staying up with her, we did that to start and then got tough and it literally was back in bed otherwise something will go. She also has my ipod in her room and has books running all night so if she does wake up she has something to listen to.

Pavlov have just discovered this thread...I think our DD's might be seperated at birth!

DD also 2.5 dropped her nap in November, approx 4 weeks before DS was born . She has since been okay going to sleep 7/7.30 ish but if we let her nap she is up all night! Like you she has a tendancy to wake in the night which at the moment is just as I finish feeding DS.

We also have a problem in that she won't sleep unless I lie with her. Admitedly it doesn't take too long if she hasn't napped but if she has.....well the number of times DH has found me asleep on her bed and her playing....

So many people have told me its 'rare' for a toddler to be such a bad sleeper...thank god I'm not alone.

5 i like the idea of the ipod, but she is likely to get distracted by playing with it! I might give it a go though. I have started to say to her that if she drinks milk her nappy will leak and she will have a wet bed - which she hates. That seems to be working as in she says 'ok' and rolls over, but just cannot seem to get to sleep. I am hoping that if I leave her again this evening (i go in every 10-15 mins and tuck her back in, or if out of bed, put her in again) it might be less than 2 hours before she sleeps. If DH had his way, he would be up watchin mary poppins, as clearly she is not tired!!!
DH asked her this morning if she remembered waking up and she said 'yes, mama told me 'back to bed' didn't you mama?' and also 'i not wet the bed', so maybe some kind of sanction/reward might be worth trying now she is a little older.

daisy it is absolutely not true that toddlers usually sleep better by this age!..I know a few people with children, and I know of one person who has a 3 almost 4 year old who has been a perfect sleeper since he was a few months old, apart from the odd night, but that is the only person I know who has had it easy. I know several people who have children at 3.5 who still wake up, and a friend whose 6 year old took until he was about 3 to sleep through (we lived with them when he was 2, and that time helps to remind me this is not unusual!) However, that does not make it easier to deal with when we are awake in the middle of the night does it?!! And I do not want her to be waking when she is 3. She needs to learn now, there is no reason why she should be awake, we just cannot figure out how to stop her!!!

pavlovthecat You are right the attention she gets when she wakes up isn't helping - it makes it worth waking up. If she wasn't getting any attention she would (after she knows you mean it and whinging isn't going to help her!!), go back to sleep. So, what I would do is tell her when you put her to bed that she will be staying there tonight, she will not be getting another story, a dvd, cuddles or anything - that night time is for sleeping. When she does wake up take her back to bed, no eye contact, no talking etc. NO reward for waking up. She is able to understand this (each time you just have to remember her being able to tell you this morning that you told her to go to bed in the night last night). It might be tough for a few nights, but it will be better in the long run.

The other thing is, that by going in every 10-15 mins to resettle her you are giving her a reason to keep herself awake. It's better to leave her alone, she's well able to make herself comfortable and sleeping on the floor or whatever for a bit will not hurt her!!

Only you can judge it, but I think at 2.5 she is possibly still needing an early afternoon nap for around 45 mins, just so she doesn't get overtired and may only need it for 2 or 3 afternoons.

Last but not least - BRIBE Big bribes the first few nights, getting smaller then once it is going well, going the other way and having an unpleasant consequence of getting up ie taking away a favourite toy for the day.

Be strong

ChippingIn - thank you so much for your post, very thorough. I agree completely with what you say, and it makes sense...apart from one thing, which perhaps you can add to...

DD refuses to nap, and has done since just before christmas (apart from being sick and jetlag etc when it all went out of the window). Now she has recovered from her bug, she is back to not wanting naps. She will nap, but not until around 4-5pm, and then, if she naps for so much as 20 mins she will not sleep until past 10pm sometimes later. This is why we thought she has dropped her nap. Are you saying to give her a nap for 45 mins 2/3 afternoons out of 7? One place she does sleep is the car, and she will happily fall asleep in the car at 11:30am. In fact, the night she slept through all night, she napped at midday for 45 mins on the way to the beach, the stomped for a good hour.

I know should not go in at night, but she sounds so upset that after 15 mins I worry that she might get frightened if mummy or daddy do not go in to see her.

Thanks again for a great response .

Hi Pavlov... I hope this makes sense as it's been a long day...

Do you mean she refuses to get into bed or that she cannot sleep when you put her there? Two quite different things, I'm not sure which you meant...

If she is refusing to get into bed (or stay there), you need to get a tone of voice (shouting NOT required! )(get it now before she gets any bigger!!) Get.Into.That.Bed.NOW. (growly)and mean it - be the boss, tell her what you expect then expect it and tell her off for not doing as she is told, at her age she is more than capable of it.

If it's that she can't sleep when she is there, then you are going to have to either take her for a drive at 11.30 a few mornings a week to save your sanity or else let her sleep for about 15 mins to half an hour at 4-5 when she is ready, if she's anything like LO 3yrs you'll need to find something she likes to do, to tempt her to wake up in a good humour though!!

Only you can decide how many naps a week she needs, LO 3yrs, needs them occasionally now (1-2 pw depending on her schedule, she is at nursery 5 mornings a week though and it's like proper school, if she was at home instead I doubt she'd need any), she looks wrecked and has dark eyes, other kids just get cranky or weepy whatever their 'break point' is!! LO (21 months) is a PITA if she misses her afternoon sleep (currently still everyday and after missing one this week, I wont be rushing for her to miss another!! Trust me )

Ok, if she is giving you genuine cause to worry and you must go in, do it with no eye contact and no reward (songs, stories, hugs, chats etc)... BUT you must tell her throughout the day that this is how it's going to be, so it doesn't come as a shock to her. The comprehension level of children is often greatly underestimated! As is their ability to manipulate - decide is you really need to do it or if you are being 'played'.

HTH any Q's just ask...

ChippingIn - I did not see your post! It left my inbox! I actually came looking for this thread for some-one else who might benefit from some of the advice given

Good news, with a combination of advice received, yours and a few others, we have almost managed to break the hours at a time. I say almost as some nights she wakes, sometimes able to settle within a few minutes, other times awake for a while, this morning at 5am .

This is what we did/are doing:

Night time milk - refuse. Point. Blank. This has been an enormous fight with DH, who does not get why she cannot have it, does not see the correlation between awake at night and milk. But, with a few arguments, i won he started to take it on board. - I took on board a tip about explaining that she cannot have milk at night as it will make her wet the bed (she has been waking with soaking bed due to too much milk). I explained before bed, and now mostly when she wakes and asks for it, I tell her no and she rolls over nodding her head 'ok mama'.

Night time waking - ignored her! |Just like you said! First time, I went in after about 15 mins, I told her that no more coming in by mummy or daddy, we loved her and sleep well. First couple of nights she screamed the bloody place down and I had to go to the other end of the flat. It took 2 hours at first, then 1.5 hours, then all through the night without waking. Now she wakes and takes between 5 mins and 30 mins on her own accord to get to sleep. Sometimes she will wake and grizzle for a bit.