Hello there,
I've been a member of this board for a long time but I don't know if I've ever posted anything here before. I have a 2 year old daughter and a 2 month old daughter. My 2 month old has so far proved to be a great sleeper thankfully, but unfortunately we have been battling sleep issues with my 2 year old since the very beginning. Right now I am hoping to find help for 2 issues. First, when we transitioned her to a toddler bed she did great for a couple of weeks until she decided it was fun to be able to get out of bed. We've been just sitting in her room until she would fall asleep but lately she has still been climbing in and out of bed and it was taking way too long and I have my other baby to attend to so this is no longer working for us. For the last 4 nights we have been doing our bedtime routine, taking her into bed at 8:00 pm giving her a kiss goodnight and walking out. She keeps getting up and so we just take her back to bed without saying anything. The first night we took her back to bed for over and hour and close to a hundred times. The next day we tried for an hour and a half during naptime but ended up quitting because if she fell asleep it would be too late for a nap so we tried again at bedtime and because she was so exhausted she fell asleep after only 15 minutes. The next day we did the same thing at naptime and the same thing happened so at bedtime it took 30 minutes before she fell asleep. Then today I took her back for again an hour and a half at naptime and when I was just ready to give up she went to sleep (yay, progress). But tonight because she wasn't as exhausted it took close to an hour and a half again to get her to sleep. Will this ever get better? Is there something else that will work better. She is such a good girl other than this but she is so stubborn when it comes to her sleep - she just never wants to!
My second issue is night wakings. At about a year old she started sleeping through the night and did so until about 6 months ago - shortly after we moved. At first I would just go into her (she was still in a crib) and rock her for a minute and she would go back to bed. Then slowly it got worse and worse. I was pregnant and tired and foolish and so I just started bringing her into our bed, giving her a sippy cup with a little bit of milk and she'd go right to sleep. Now every night between 12:30 and 2:30 she comes into our bed, we still have to get her some milk and then she'll go back to sleep. Then again a couple of hours later she wakes up again and will not go to sleep unless we give her more milk. She does this 2 or 3 times every night. The sad thing is she wakes up more often than my newborn. I know that what I should do is walk her back to her bed and just be strong and not give her the milk but she cries so loud that she is going to wake up her sister so I just don't know what to do. Any suggestions? I am really frustrated and looking for whatever help I can get! Thanks.
