DD 2.5 waking every night and coming in to my bed - I need to get her back into her own bed before I expire from fatigue....any tips?

[cananybodyhelp]

I love her in bed with me, but it's not conducive to getting a lot of sleep...in fact quite the opposite as she insists on crawling onto my shoulders and winding my hair round her fingers while thumb-sucking loudly in my ear.

How can I stop this - it's only been happening for a few months so is there hope I can get her back into her own bed??

If I dash into her room as soon as I hear her wake, on occasion I can settle her back down, but more often than not, there is complete hysteria as she realises I am putting her back down, and this can go on for a loong time.

What can I do?

I'm going through this with my 2.4 yr old DS. We do the Supernanny approach of constantly putting him back until he finally gives up and stays put. The first couple of times he gets a cuddle and a "night night" but the times after that there is no talk and no eye contact and he simply gets put back in bed every time he gets up.

It's not a nice thing to do and he does get completely hysterical but we had success with this method (until we went away for a week and everything went back to square one when we returned!!). Good luck!

Oh at least I am not the only one!! My dd just goes nuts - I have just settled her back don, it's as though she is on autopilot - snuffles across for a handful of hair, realises I'm not here and all hell breaks loose.

Seriously though, twenty past ten.....I am lucky if I get three hours to myself in the evenigns atm and I need the evenings to freelance as we are on our own. It's driving me round the twist!

If I go down the supernanny route, what am I looking at (she is a stubborn little beggar) - a few nights of no sleep? How long did it take your DS to get the message?

Oh God, she is up again.

My DD2 is 3.5 now but we had this for a few months at around that same age. It utterly knackered me (DH would not even hear her!) but I had to put her back, put her back, rinse and repeat. We got there in the end. Be strong!

She is back in bed again - I have a day off with her tomorrow so am going to keep putting her back tonight. Thing is, if she gets upset she doesn't stay in there for even ten seconds and I end up having to pretend I'm going to sleep next to her - I'm just making things worse I think!

Cananybodyhelp, yep, it sounds like your DD is just the same as my DS! The Supernanny approach is actually quicker than it sounds. Even if you have to take her back 30 times in a row, it doesn't take that long and she will just get sick of being put back in bed. I did this 4 times last night and it took a shorter amount of time each time we did it.

We are going down this route again as his sleep pattern has gone awry since we got back from hols but the last time we did it he improved in a couple of weeks and only woke once a night and then settled very quickly. I definitely think you have to get out of their room as soon as possible because from experience, the longer you stay with them the longer they need you there and it just gets worse. I used to be afraid to leave the room because I knew he'd start kicking off but now I just do it and put him back into bed over and over again.

I used to stay until he fell asleep but then he needed me there every time he woke up. Ultimately we want them to learn how to sleep without us once again.

Good luck!!