2.5 DS poor sleeper and getting worse..... Help!!!

[MarmMummy]

DS has aways been a poor sleeper (probably not helped by his anxious mother rushing to him at the slightest murmer when a baby!!)and he only sleeps through the night occassionally.

At the moment he wakes at about 3 and says he 'can't get back to sleep'. Me and DH do a range of things from telling off, to sitting with him for a few mins but basically once he's awake that is normally it for 2 hours. He likes his door open and most nights wakes his sister (8 months) which is then an added joy.

We are all sleep deprived (including DS) and incapable of figuring out what to do next.

He tends to go to bed at 7.30 and wakes at 6.15. He doesn't nap during the day anymore as a rule, unless out and about in car and shattered. He's still in a cot.

Anyone else experienced this? He doesn't seem hungry and he has water in his cot.

Oh for a full night's sleep..........!

Bumping for you.

Thanks PuzzleRocks!!!

Well, last night the party was from 3.00 till 4.30, and my DH thought that taking him downstairs to watch TV might be the way forward .

And the quote of the moning from DS is 'I no need to sleep all through the night, I watch telly with my daddy'. Grrrrrr!

Please can anyone help!!!!!

Oh dear. Let's keep this bumped until someone has some good advice.

You poor thing, 2 and a half years of broken sleep is hell. My DS 2.5 yrs also poor sleeper, although he did start to sleep through just before he was two, but any little thing disturbs his sleep and we have a run of bad nights - we've just had twins so have had two years of broken sleep that are not likely to come to an end for a while! I was also one of those anxious mothers that fed my baby at the slightest whimper therefore reinforcing his waking.

If you give us a bit more of an idea how you get your son off to sleep each night and what the usual procedure is to help him get back to sleep, (that's other than watching tv - desperate measures eh!), then hopefully someone can give you some helpful advice.

Thanks!

His bedtime routine is fairly consistent (if maybe a bit long). Bath, downstairs for some TV and a bowl of yoghurt, back upstairs for story and prayer and tuck in. He then likes the person putting him to bed (normally DH) to spend 2 mins sitting on sofa in his room with him in cot. The door is left half open with the landing light on. 90% of the time he is still awake when we leave the room and he gets himself off to sleep. Occassionally he has a few last minute requests for an extra kiss, final potty trip.

When he wakes in the night he calls for us and we go and lie him down in the cot and promise to sit on the sofa for 2 mins again. Sometimes this works and he'll be asleep again very quickly, if not we keep sitting there (and have been known to fall asleep there). If he starts chatting or playing we leave the room. Coming into our bed never works. He plays and twiddles my hair, sometimes will lie quietly but never really sleeps. I have given him a banana recently and I'm not sure but this may work .... or it may just happen to be the last thing we do before he falls asleep.

Ferber's book suggets we may be putting him to bed too early, but he is beyond tired in the day .... and very whingy because of it ... so I'm not convinced.

Thanks again everyone

Our DS is 2 and 5 months and has also had a bad sleeping patch recently. I think they begin to get a bit fearful at this age. Would it help putting him down with all lights off, so that everything is similar to how it will be when he wakes up in the night (bit like Ferber talks about not feeding to sleep because they wake to a different situation ...)?

PS: Thanks so much for posting. I had been feeling very broody tonight (fertile time and DH saying no to No 4), but just the thought of a baby that doesn't sleep for 2.5 years leaves me feeling exhausted! Well done for sounding so calm and chilled about it!

Sounds like you're already doing all the right things, consistent routine, letting him settle himself to sleep. Does he go to bed at 7.30, or is he usually asleep by then? I think most children his age would need 11 or 12 hours at night - you could probably find that info if you googled children's sleep.

Does he have a day time nap? Is he possibly over tired? If my little boy is over tired he never sleeps well at night.

You mention leaving landing light on for him, is it still on at 3 when he wakes?

Is there any chance he could be having bad dreams? My little one has woken 3 times recently having dreamt about spiders.

Sorry I feel I've been no help, but because you seem to be doing the right things, hopefully the night waking will end. Sadly we've ended up not going to our son when he wakes. I always said I'd never leave him to cry, but we got to a stage where the more we went to him the more he woke and screamed for us. Hope it doesn't come to that for you.

Settle him to sleep with a story cd? So that when he wakes up in the night you can pop it back on and leave the room?

Is he old enough for bribery and corruption? Star chart for staying in bed and chatting to teddy rather than calling for mummy & daddy?

Thanks bananaskin! We are pretty used to it, but it still gets to us every so often!

Thanks for all the good thoughts everyone. Yes, landing light still on at 3 - though this is fairly recent.

FP74 - its a good thought about overtiredness, and certainly seems to be true of him in a general sense. He dropped his nap at 2.4 as it was too much of a battle. He still has them about twice a week, but rebranded as 'cosy time' on the sofa under the blanket watching TV! We have decided to start a diary listing everything he eats, does, sleep times etc to see if we can find a link.

gagarin - have toyed with the story CD idea. Might give it a go. We have tried bribery and corruption. It worked with potty training but only a bit of success with this. Mind you he has only slept through the night 5 times in the last 2 months and bribes were involved every time!!

OK, so now for the good news! Last night he slept through!!!!!!! Only the second time this year! Probably too early in our diary keeping to be sure why, but we did put him to bed at 7.45 rather than 7.00 ish. He slept from 8 till 6 and woke up in such a fab mood!!

The "sleeping through" thing is a bit of a misnomer though don't you think?

Because I wake most nights and so does almost everyone I know.

It's more about waking up, rolling over and going back to sleep rather than waking up.... and yelling "mummy!"

Bribery/star charts can maybe influence that bit of behaviour?

Good luck for tonight too.

Well, we are in slight shock, and am wary to post in case I jinx this, but DS has slept through for the last 3 nights!!!!!

Each time the consistent thing seems to have been putting him to bed an hour later.

So instead of doing 7.00 till 6.30 (with an awake period from approx 3.00 till 4.45), we now have a sleep from 8.00 till 6.00 with no calls for mummy or daddy.

Am ready to be 'child free' from 7.00, so finding the evnings a bit drawn out as DD goes down at 6.45 ish, but worth it to get a full nights sleep.

Can it really be that simple?! I hope so!!

Well done, let's hope it lasts.

Is he still sleeping?

Hopeful emoticon