Working through a two and a half year old's sleep issues

[Abbyssleepymommy]

Ok so I read BW when Abbyy was little and we followed everything. She did not always sleep through the night of course, but with BW we were able to get a hold of things. Well, life and AP happens and we got away from an official bedtime routine. SHE actually got to where she would get her paci and pooh blanket and crawl into our laps. Typically within 10 minutes, she was sound asleep. We would take her upstairs to bed and life was grand. Recently though, she has started waking and coming to our bedroom. She sometimes manages to climb in bed without our even realizing. We have even come to the point of making a pallet in our room with her mattress and little tent trying to get her to sleep through. Well, last night, after being run out of bed, I found this site. Needless to say, I am kinda thinking you goofball, why did you ever leave the bedtime routine. So tonight, we are going to try to go back to BW ideas. when she was little, we would do the bedtime routine, she would go to sleep easily. She could self-soothe but did sometimes need our attn during the night. We have tried going into her room to resettle her and usually after about 5 minutes, she would be asleep. But for nearly the last month, when she comes to our room, we would walk her back to bed, her crying,resettle her and come back to bed. Sometimes we wouldn't even get 30 minutes before she was back in the room. So we would be so tired we would give in. At this point, do we just do WI/WO or do we need to do the slowl transition part (like wher the site talks about the tickling"
TIA for all advice!! I hope to be able to share myself soon

[becky1969]

Welcome back to bW!

Yes, time to get back to basics! So I'd start out establishing a very firm nighttime routine and wind down.  Even at 2.5 (especially?) they need a wind down routine that is predictable and help marks the difference between Activity and Sleep time.  Sounds like you used to do this, so you may just want to bring that back and be consistent with it, no matter what.

Since she's 2.5 you can also talk to her about what's going on.  Something like "Honey, you're a big girl and we're going to start a big girl bedtime routine!" You can even ask for her input: does she want 3 stories or 4? Does she want to brush teeth and then jammies, or jammies and then brush teeth?  Give her a little choice, make her feel a part of the process.

At this age you can also institute a reward chart.  Works FANTASTIC at this age.  Stickers all by themselves are great rewards for toddlers! And then you can add a bonus reward for every 3 stickers she earns.  You want to reward her frequently so that she stays motivated.  Waiting for a bigger reward to occur after 5 stickers is too long for toddler to remember.  Also, when you do a reward chart they need to SEE chart and sticker before they go to bed.  Just talking about it isn't enough motivation. 

What to reward depends on where you are in this process.  For instance, if you're having trouble with her getting in and out of bed right at bedtime, then at first you give rewards for not doing that even if she's up and down all night.  After she's mastered going to bed, but is still waking in the night, then you give rewards for staying in her bed at night (or at least out of yours!).  For instance, you can give a sticker even if she comes gets you, but not if she climbs in bed with you. 

WI/WO is probably your best bet at this phase.  The first 3 nights will be the worst.  And then you should see massive improvement.  So just prepare yourselves! Divide the labor between you and DH.  So, maybe you do 1 night and he does the next.  Make it fun for the 2 of you -- if you know you're going to be in and out of her room a lot, get a good book on tape or music you enjoy and put it on your ipod so that you can be listening to it while you do an hour of WI/WO with your DD.  If you're distracted and not so focussed on her then you won't get as frustrated.  Also, if you KNOW that you're going to have 3 nights of disrupted sleep it helps to stay on track.

This problem won't fix itself! And as you can see, one AP move often leads to another until you have a life that you do not want at all.  So show your DD what you want nights to look like and teach her how to achieve that.  You're going to teach her with gentle reminders and by taking her back to bed each and every time.

You might also want to give her a small flashlight or a special stuffed animal to cuddle if she wakes in the night.  My son developed some night fears around age 3 and so we started talking about how his blankey stays awake all night just to watch over him.  He LOVES that idea and it completely eliminated some of the fearful NWs we were having.  Your DD isn't nec. fearful but she needs some way to soothe herself during those natural wakings everyone gets.  She's staying awake because to do so is rewarded by climbing in bed with mommy and daddy which is snuggly and warm and makes her feel caretaken.  Take that reward away and those NWs will disappear.

If you want to discuss her daily routine as well we can.  There's always the possibility that she's OT at bedtime which is causing additional wakings.

[Sarahboosmom]

Hi there!  I just want to second everything that becky said!  Especially the reward chart.  I started doing that 2 weeks ago for behaivor encouragement.  At the end of the day (4 stars on the chart on the fridge) she gets a sweet treat of her choice.  I included naptime on the chart, explaining the rules of lying still, closing eyes.  I had struggled since she turned 2 with her wanting to play at naptime, and wouldn't you know it, these last two weeks are the first weeks with CONSECUTIVE napts EVERYDAY!!!!!

I also let her draw her star on the board each time she earns one.  It is so awesome to see the pride she takes in earning her star! 

Good luck!  Stick with it and it will work!

[Abbyssleepymommy]

Thank you both for your input. Last night, we did the bedtime routine and I went back to the nightlight on, radio on and this time I gave her a bunny to sleep with. She has had a blanket since she was around 6 months but I thought maybe something a little bigger. Tonight I will deffinitely try the idea that the bunny stays awake to watch over her. She did sleep all night too!!
Oh and something else that may have played into this, Last saturday she had a fever. We went to the doctor b/c she has a history of a bladder infection at 22 months. Everything tested negative, so they assumed she was likely dealing with a virus. Well she was fever free by Sunday night. That is the night when things seemed to start getting worse. I did not equate the 2 b/c she was finally fever free. She was a bit more whiney this last week. Well I have said all this to say that my DH and I were home sick today. We both feel horrible. Praise God she slept all night last night. But we are wondering if this was a big contributor to the issue, especially if she felt as bad as we do. But we both agree we want to continue with the bedtime routine.