Toddler wakes after midnight and can't go back to sleep on her own

[lazyemma]

Hi there - hoping someone has had a similar experience or can offer some advice.

My daughter (32 months) has her own bed, and sleeps in it until after midnight with no problems. Bedtimes always follow the same routine, bath, story, song, sleep, and work fine. But at some point in the night she'll wake up and come into our room. We used to just let her climb into bed with us, and to be honest I'd be happy to let this continue until she grew out of it, being of the opinion that she's still very young, and night time can be scary when you're on your own and can't sleep.

But I'm 13 weeks pregnant and my husband has a bad back, so needs a lot of space to make himself comfortable, and when the baby arrives, my daughter will have to be in her own bed, and I don't want her to associate the move with the baby's arrival and end up resenting her younger sibling for shunting her out. So we've decided to start training her to sleep in her own bed now.

This has been going on for nearly a week now, and she wakes at about 1 - 2 am, comes through to our room, at which point I lead her quietly back to her bed. The first few times I'll give her a kiss and a cuddle and talk to her a bit, but then I'll try not to say anything - just consistently the same thing, each time - quietly leading her back and tucking her in. But it doesn't seem to be working! She'll either get straight back up again, or there will be silence for ten minutes (long enough for me to start dropping off) before she starts crying and gets up.

Today I've been mostly awake since 1am (I think she may have slept for an hour or so herself in total) and I am knackered. My daughter is knackered and is in a really clingy but irritable mood, as she has been for the past week. If anything she's getting up more frequently now then she did the first night we started.

I don't think we have any option but to persevere but does anyone think there's anything I could be doing differently? It's so frustrating - I know it's not her fault, it's totally understandable that she wants to be in our bed, as she's so used to it. But she's so tenacious! It's beginning to feel like a battle of wills, and it's a real effort to keep being calm and patient when I'm up and down all night like a jack-in-the-box.

anyone? I'd really appreciate even just some vaguely sympathetic words, here!

Hi emma - couldn't ignore your message as it reminded me so much of how I was with dd1. She had never slept through the night at four and a half and was waking dd2 up as well. When I was pregnant with dd3 I had to do exactly what you're doing with both of them. DD2 was relatively easy and stopped getting up after about 5 nights but dd1 took nearly three weeks! I would persevere as you are probably near the breakthrough with your little girl but much sympathy - you must be shattered.

I have just been reading the No Cry Sleep Solution and there is an idea in there that might help. This will sound a bit mad but how about making a little book with her - you get a photo of when you were pregnant (or a scan picture) and on the first page write something like "Before DD was born, she slept inside her mummy's tummy. It was very cosy in there." Let her do the sticking or choose between 2 or 3 photos or decorate the pages with stickers etc.

Then page 2 is her as a newborn (asleep!) and you write something like "When DD was born, she was very small. Her mummy and daddy were very happy. They loved her very much. She slept in a moses basket/mummy & daddy's bed"

Then a few more pages with pictures of her growing up, sleeping in different places, doing progressively more grown up things (like crawling, cruising & walking, drinking milk, being spoonfed, eating food in her highchair & sitting at the table) and captions saying how quickly she has grown up and how mummy and daddy love her very much. - You can include as many stages as you think she would cope with reading through, but the sleeping one is the most important!

Then the last page is a picture of her now, and a picture of her asleep in her bed. "DD is nearly 3. She is a very grown up girl now. She goes to nursery and sleeps in her big girl's bed with special princess covers. (or whatever!) If she wakes in the night she has a drink of water, cuddles her teddy and closes her eyes. (ie set out your expectations in the book) - then read it every day before bed (and in the day if she wants to as well).

If you want to you could also make the book in a small ring binder or similar so you can add pages to it as she gets older, e.g. when the baby arrives.

Thanks so much for your replies. Kate - argh! 3 weeks! That must have been horrendous, but glad you cracked it in the end. I can see it taking that long with my daughter to be honest but it's good to know there will hopefully be an end in sight and that we're not the only ones to be in this pickle.

Bertie - that's a great idea and really worth exploring, so thank you. All I'd been able to find ideas-wise online is star charts, which I'm not sure would work for my daughter just yet. We do have lots of pictures and scan photos etc so it would be easy (and fun) to put something together with her.