3 year old constantly gets out of bed at night

[Lindsay07]

Hi all!
I've read over a lot of posts here and am hoping someone can help me!!
My 3 year old son goes to bed very well....bedtime routine is down pat and he falls asleep on his own.  The problem comes around 12-2:00am, when he gets out of bed.  All we need to do is walk him back to bed, we don't even have to say anything most of the time, he gets in, we put his covers back on and he goes back to sleep.  Then, it happens again - all through the night.  It can happen from 2-6 times per night!  No one in our family is getting more than a 1-2 hour stretch of sleep at night and we're ALL exhausted!  Sometimes he has bouts of insomnia that will leave him wide awake for an hour or more.  He gets in and out of bed wanting us to lay with him, rub his back, sing him a song etc.  We usually say no, but sometimes, when we all have to get up early, we give in.  When my husband goes to work super early, I'll let him come into our bed (usually around 4-5am) so I don't have to keep getting out of bed.  What I think is happening is that when he wakes up at night, he doesn't roll over and go back to sleep like most of us do, he just gets out of bed.  We've tried everything, not going in there (he just comes out), we've tried not talking to him, we've gotten mad at him and we're one step away from locking him in!  I feel like we're doing the walk in/walk out method, but all night long and he's never going to do it independently!
He does nap occasionally but that's when he's so tired from not sleeping at night, and if he does we don't let him sleep longer than an hour.  When he naps, he goes to bed at 9pm, when he doesn't it's 8pm.
I NEVER thought, three years in would I STILL not be sleeping through the night!  I am desperate for help as I am 7 months pregnant and work full time... I'm exhausted and grumpy ALL the time!  PLEASE help me!

[Lolly]

Have you tried a gate on his doorway - would he get back into bed himself if he couldn't get out? What time does he wake in the day - does an earlier bedtime make a difference? I know with my DS if he is overtired or goes to bed too late it still means a disturbed night.

I would also stop letting him into your bed when your DH goes to work early. I totally get why you are doing it, but it is probably confusing the issue that he can come in with you sometimes but not others.

Have you ever tried wake to sleep to see if that would reset his sleep cycle and stop the initial wake up?

Sorry for all the questions but it will be useful to know what you have already tried and what his routine is like!

Laura

[Lindsay07]

Hi Laura,
Thanks for replying so quickly!
No, we haven't tried a gate on his door...He has trouble pulling his blanket back on, but he can get back into bed...  So if we were to put a gate on his door, and he gets out of bed and calls us, do we just ignore him?  Or tell him to go back to bed but don't go to him?  How long should he be at the gate calling/crying before we do anything?  I see that going on for hours!  (He does sometimes have to go to the bathroom when he wakes, but he has a potty in his room that he uses independently).

We have tried an earlier bed time, but that just means waking for the day earlier... he's currently up between 6-7am.
Ahhh, I KNOW I shouldn't let him in bed with me!  We buckled down for almost a month a while back and didn't do anything for him, like talking, getting into bed with him or him in with me and nothing changed... it was SO discouraging so to get at least a few hours sleep, we've gone back to doing that.... we just didn't see any change in his sleeping through the night and it's SO exhausting!
I haven't tried wake to sleep since he was a baby... I'll consider trying it.  Would I do that around 10-11pm? Or right before he wakes (cause I'm so exhausted by the end of the day, I'm not up that late!)

[Purplecattypants]

How are things?

We're having the exact same problem with out 3 yr old!! If we shut the gate he just cries, wakes up properly and stays awake for ages. If we leave it open he's in and out of our bed 4+ times per night. Yawn!

I put it down to moving house in November, but it's not calmed down and has actually got worse over the past few weeks, from once per night when we first moved in, to multiple times now. But it seems quite common at this age?

I was so desperate for sleep I even made him a little makeshift bed on our floor...worked great for the first few nights, he came in quietly and slept on it for the rest of the night wihtout disturbing us. Now, he comes and gets into it 3-4 hours after going to sleep, then gets in and out of our bed for the rest of the night, often going back to his own bed at some point too.

We are knackered, as is he, and it shows in his behaviour!

I know we need to nip it in the bud and just shut the gate and get up to him, but I can't bring myself to do it yet. We're going away for a week next week and he will have to sleep in our room, so maybe when we get home.....