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Toddler night wakings - help!

  1. #1
    lisa88 is offline Registered User
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    Toddler night wakings - help!

    My 19 month girl has been sleeping in her own room since she was 6 months old, with a baby monitor for us to respond to when she calls/cries. She is now in a cotbed, with a safety gate at the door. The past few weeks, she has been waking up in the middle of the night about 50% of the time, between 1AM and 4AM, and wanted one or both of the following:

    1) won't sleep alone, wants someone to lie with her on the spare mattress next to her cotbed
    2) wants to chat and sing, read her books for 1-2 hours

    1) is obviously regressive as she has been quite independent. Obviously I don't want my live in helper to start sharing the same room with my girl (I don't think the helper is too keen either). I don't want to move to my girl's room or her to our room

    2) we don't have much choice but to keep telling bub 'ssshhhhh' and keep the lights out and hope that she falls asleep soon, but the activity could go on for 2 hours. It means interrupted sleep for whoever goes to bub's room.

    Help! suggestions?


  2. #2
    TNT
    TNT is offline Banned
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    I know this may not be much help but 'this too shall pass'. Our daughter has had phases of this at various times, still does occasionally (she is now almost 4) and eventually it stops, doesn't usually last too long. I found that lying down with her was the quickest way to get her back to sleep, it might mean sleeping part of the night in her room (whoever got up usually fell asleep in there and stayed there the rest of the night, but everyone got more sleep and she got the reassurance she seemed to need. Did you recently move her to a cotbed? Or have other changes eg. moving, new helper, dad being away etc etc? I find our daughter wakes up when dad is away and comes into our room, sometimes she will settle back in her bed but others gets in with me. Overall she is a good sleeper soI can handle these things OK. The fact that she is not doing it every night suggests it will soon disappear-good luck!


  3. #3
    southside852 is offline Registered User
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    yep, i've posted my experience before with this with our now 34 month year old son. he's been sleeping in a bed since 20 months w/ a gate. Like TNT mentioned, this is just a phase, but in my experience, you just need to re-sleep train her. We had the same problem and sleeping with her in her room just perpetuates the problem - it's ok for you to be in there. She's 19 months old so old enough and strong enough to cry it out. We sleep trained my son with this at about 25 months (was getting up 2-3 times a night) and the first night he cried for 1.5 hours by the gate, the 2nd night was 45 minutes, the 3rd night was 20 mins and the 4th night was nothing.

    It's called tough love. You must put a stop to it immediately as you, your child and your family will just be exhausted the next day.


  4. #4
    lisa88 is offline Registered User
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    Thank you both. Yes the past few nights we have tried reassuring her in the middle of the night then leaving her to fall back asleep on her own. Some fussing but no major tantrums, which is an improvement on staying up for hours in the middle of the night. Let's see if things improve. I did have a hunch that this is a phase that (hopefully) will not take too long to pass. She is very alert during the day, learning to talk and rapidly improving her developmental skills, so maybe at night she wants to do the same. She naps very little during the day, although falling asleep by 8pm (with rituals) is no problem.


  5. #5
    putput is offline Registered User
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    I am piggy-backing off this thread. I'm way past being able to cope here. I have a 2.5 year old daughter, once a champion sleeper, who wakes 2-3 times a night. She fears the dark, and the idea of somebody coming to get her. I've tried every approach possible apart from CIO purely because I know she has fears and I'm hesitant to make matters worse. I also believe she is, despite her evident love for her baby sister, insecure about the fact that her baby sister (4.5 mths) sleeps in her cot in our room. To top it all off, my baby girl wakes every hour due to indigestion as she only has one bowel movement a week so gets uncomfortable. Sleep deprivation has turned me into a bitter and resentful mother, mainly towards my toddler, and those negative feelings and my hard, frustrated rants are having a horrible effect on my toddler. Last night, I (foolishly) thought bringing my toddler's cot into our room so both girls are there would help but they took turns to wake each other up and my screaming and shouting at my toddler unsettled my baby. Somebody please help me.


  6. #6
    Gataloca's Avatar
    Gataloca is offline Registered User
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    This might be just a temporally solution, but would it help if you allow your toddler to co-sleep in your bed?

    My 4 months old has eczema and some nights he is really fussy, and has a hard time falling back asleep if he woke at night. So I just put him next to me in our bed. He can then sleep and rest better.
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