3.5 YEAR old still not sleeping through the night...

[WindUpBird]

That's right, my 3.5 year old DD still wakes up every single night. We have had possibly a total of 3 weeks of her sleeping through since she was born but never more than 2 or 3 consecutive days.

She's always had sleep issues of one kind or another, sometimes she would settle herself to sleep but wake in the night. Other times she was a nightmare to get to bed (taking approx 2 hours of screaming) but sleep ok at night. When she used to go to day nursery (11 months - 18 months) she refused to nap during the day there and got so overtired that by the time she came home she couldn't 'switch off' at bedtime and couldn't do anything but scream. Needless to say she stopped going to nursery. The staff said she was the only baby that wouldn't sleep in the day.

At the moment, she wakes up in the night at least 2 or 3 times shouting or moaning. Sometimes all it takes is for us to go in, rearrange her duvet and walk out again. Other times, though less often, she wakes up properly, announces she's 'not tired' and will be wide awake for a couple of hours. Often we bring her into our bed if she's wide awake otherwise she just lies in her bed shouting for us and we don't want her to wake DS up!

I just don't know where to go from here. Clearly we all need help with this now as it's not getting any better by itself. (We used to wonder if it was our parenting that led to these sleep problems, but DS, at 17 months started sleeping 11 solid hours at night with no problem, loves going to bed etc). So.....has anyone tried Millpond or any other sleep clinics, do you think from what I have said they would be able to help? What about cranial osteopathy or homeopathy??? Any miracle cures I can buy?! There must be something we can do!

My DD started sleeping through at 3yr9ms. We had tried everything to get her stop waking, sleep in her own bed etc etc.
In the end we realised we needed to break that waking habit. She was waking every night out of habit, then taking herself off into our bed which was safer, warmer and had us in it. We wanted an easy life so at 3am, we would give in. Taking her back to bed meant she would cry and cry and we'd get no where. The 'silent return' method was far from silent!

So... we moved into her room!

DH and I put the camp beds on her bedroom floor and slept in with her. She'd wake in the night expecting to come in with us, but seeing us in the room meant it was easier to get her back into her bed. After about 5 nights, her nightly wakings went from 4 or 5 to just 1. Another few nights saw her stop waking altogether. DH and I then moved out of her room but left the campbed set up, so if she did wake, she would see a vague outline of what looked like us sleeping on her floor! We did this nearly a year ago and in that year she has not slept in our bed once.

You have my total sympathy! My 17 month old is getting worse and worse sleep wise and I am 6mnths preg and really exhausted. I have tried everything - even going to the length of paying £250 to Millpond for advice.
This is my first time on here so I am not sure how this works but I would happily email you the sleep plan the clinic gave to me if you would like it? There were def some v helpful tips in there that I continue to use -my baby did improve drastically for a while but has now regressed. Millpond say they have a 97% success rate but I dont know how they measure this as noone from the clinic has ever followed up with me to check if my baby now sleeps? I have read every single baby sleep book going and feel like a theoretical expert on this subject but have so far failed miserably to get my baby to sleep well day or night and I am so frustrated,stressed and exhausted.

Thanks for your replies. Dan34, poor you being pregnant and sleep-deprived. It is a complete nightmare. I just keep thinking how much easier life would be with some uninterrupted sleep every now and again! That's interesting that you're not sure the Millpond experience was worth it. I did look at their site and was disappointed that a consultation was done over the phone, not face-to-face.
usernametaken I like your idea of staying in DD's room. We could try that, though her room is so tiny there's only just about enough space to lie on a mat on the floor, so not very comfy. Tempting if it works though. It's just that she wakes up to grumpy, can't get back to sleep again and then is so tired during the day time. Yet if she has even a 20 min nap, that puts her bedtime back by 2 hours!

my dd only slept through consistently when she started school aged 4.2. sorry! no daytime naps since she turned 2. however, school has exhausted her.... what has made the evenings 1000 times better is an ipod full of fairy stories which she'll quite happily stay in bed listening to. so i don't have to run up stairs a lot getting cross. also, a real bed not a toddler one made all the difference.

DD was up hourly from 2.30am last night. She's 3.6 years old, has had periods where she sleeps ok, but this isn't one of them. I have no answers, I just cross my fingers that this too, will pass.