NW that last for several hours

[2greatboys]

My oldest son Kyle will be 3 yrs. at the end of April.  He gave up naps right before he was 2.5 yrs.  I was also pregnant with my second son.  I thought Kyle giving up naps was natural at this age, not sure if it was because I was due in three weeks and physically could not do all the activities that we had done.  Kyle is very active and was walking independently at 9 months.  Since then we have had a routine of going to parks, bounce places, story times and the such.  Our schedule is not as active now because I have a 4 month old that needs his naps, and because it is winter we can not go outside as much, we live in Maryland.  My husband has a somewhat dangerous job and needs his sleep; he works long hours but does have the weekends off.  He and Kyle spend time with just the two of them every weekend as well as family time.  When my husband is home he puts Kyle to bed at night so he can spend more time with him.  When Eric, my youngest, naps, Kyle and I spend quality time together too.  For the past 5 months Kyle has been waking in the middle of the night, usually between 1AM and 4AM.  He wants to sleep in our bed, we do not want him to.  We take him back to his room and put him to bed.  This can go on for hours, sometimes as long as 3 hours !!!!  At times, Kyle screams when we put him back in bed because he does not want to be there.  We have taken his favorite things away, telling him if he stays in bed all night he can watch his favorite train movie the next day.  We've done this with his other favorite toys and favorite cartoons as well, it doesn't seem to be working.  It's clear these night wakings have become habitual.  We've seen a therapist and have tried Benadryl, nothing has helped.  My husband and I are sleep deprived.  It's sad the only one in the house getting great sleep is our 4 month old.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated !!!

[babybarr]

What about a gate at his door?  I know there are several people on this board who have had success with this. 

[2greatboys]

A gate would not work.  Kyle would try, and most likely succeed, in climbing over it.  We had to take the gate at the top of the stairs down because several times he tried climbing over it when it was closed.  Even if we found a gate tall enough he'd most likely just stand there and scream until one of us came to him. Flipping the lock around on the door made things 10 times worse.  He just kicked the door and screamed.  He kicked the door so hard he bruised his foot and limped for a few days.  We can't put him back in his crib because he can climb out.  I'm afraid we're going to have to resort to using a medication, last night was miserable.

[mmom]

There are gates that are high enough that LO's can't climb over them.  Maybe that is your best bet, rather than medicating.

[babybarr]

Agree with Kara (mmom) about the medicating - think that really should be a last resot.  It is hard I know, my LO is awake most nights too.

Have you tried putting the nap back in to see if that makes any difference - even if it's just a short one...  All the time spent awake at night must be catching up with him and maybe it's become a vicious circle.  If it's been going on almost since giving up his nap I do *think* it may be linked.  Worth a try?

[2greatboys]

The gates we have are 44" tall, I can't find any that are taller. 

I have tried many times to get Kyle to nap again.  Epic fail.  I have a 4 month old as well.  We do our normal nap routine and he immediatley gets out of bed as soon as I leave if I'm lucky.  Other days it starts with him screaming before I even leave the room.  If I put him back in bed, that is all I will do until I decide to stop it; and just about the entire time he's screaming and then my 4 month starts screaming.  It's pointless.  Yesterday he took a nap on his own on the couch.  I'm fine with him napping on the couch.  Since we've started giving him the allergy medication, it's not Benadryl; that does nothing for him, in addition to Melatonin, he stays in bed til 4AM.  Every morning he's up at 4AM, more allergy meds, it may take an hour to get him to stay in his room again, then he may sleep til about 6 or so.  Between him getting up and my youngest getting up at 3AM to nurse I do not get much sleep, nor does my husband.  My husband is the one Kyle wants when he wakes in the middle of the night beccause he's not home much and sadly the kids don't see him much during the week; it's clearly taking a toll on poor Kyle.  What's worse is there is nothing we can do to change my husbnad's schedule.  Thank you for your advice, I was hoping to find someone who has experienced something like this and hoped they had a few ideas we had not tried.

[babybarr]

Big hugs, I'm sure you must be exhausted.  Could it be to do with having a new bub in the house? 

[~Emma~]

 Could he be having nightmares? Have you tried talking to him about why it is he feels the needs to get out of bed, perhaps he is scared of something and needs some reassurance. Scared of the dark maybe?

 A new bub in the house must also have a huge impact too, perhaps he feels overshadowed by the new addition?

 I understand its hard but really dont think that you should medicate your child in order to get him to sleep.


 ((((((((hugs))))))))

[Peek-a-boo]

Goodness, that all sounds exhausting!

Sorry, to dump a bunch of questions on you, but it might help if we understand a little more about the situation . . .

What time are you putting him to bed?  What does his bed time routine look like?  Is he falling asleep independently with you out of the room?

On a typical night how much actual sleep is he ending up getting (subtracting out any time he's spending up during the night)?

In desperation, does he sometimes end up in your bed during the middle of the night?  Or do you always eventually get him resettled in his own bed?

Also, you mention giving allergy medication.  Does he actually have allergies?  Or are you giving that because it helps make him drowsy and settle more easily?

[Lolly]

We have been through stages of being awake for hours at night. It is awful. With my DS it was linked to his reflux not being under control and definitly to being way over tired. We eventually did a set bedtime and whatever happened that was the time he went to bed after bath and stories. He had been fighting bedtime but when that settled it did help the night wakes as did growing out of the reflux in our case.

Laura

[2greatboys]

I was worried that having a new baby would upset Kyle, DS1, a bit.  He stopped napping 3 weeks before I delivered DS2.  I physically could not do all the things we use to do at that point.  I thought that age, DS1 was almost 2.5 yrs., and decrease in activity had to do with him not napping.  He actually did well without naps, he wasn't cranky.  Kyle is extremely active and we had a routine of going to two different libraries for story time and various parks for play dates each week.  When Eric, DS2, came along, Kyle was very welcoming; and still is.  He tells his brother he loves him all the time, gives kisses & hugs, shares toys with him, and has even asked for more babies !!  3 weeks after having DS2 I decided to potty train DS1 since he seemed ok with having a new sibling.  2 months prior to DS2 arriving DS1 had been telling us when he soiled his diaper.  I was reluctant to potty train then b/c I didn't want a set back when DS2 came along.  It took 6 weeks to potty train DS1.  At 2.5 yrs. he potty trained in 6 weeks, I was thrilled !!!  However, he was still NW.  My husband and I both have asked DS1 many times if he's having bad dreams and he always says no.  He sleeps with a night light on and always has.  I turn a 2nd night light on so I can read to him, he use to always turn it off before he went to bed.  For the past 3 months or so he's been wanting to leave it on and we let him.  I've asked him if he wants the "big light" on and he says no.  I try to make him feel included as much as possible when it comes to Eric.  I let DS1 pick help pick out DS2 clothes, he joins us in tummy time, DS2 even "flys" to chase DS1 when we play.  DS1 even helps give DS2 a bath, he washes his feet . 

I put DS1 to bed at 8pm.  He's been going to bed at 8pm since he was about 14 months old.  Prior to that he was going to bed at 7.  About 7:00 or 7:15 we head upstairs for a bath.  He brushes his teeth, has a bath, we read a book, give hugs & kisses, and he's in bed by 7:45 - 8.  Now that DS2 is here.  We head upstairs about 6, give DS2 a bath, while I'm putting DS2 to bed DS1 may watch 15 mins or so of TV.  DS2 is usually in bed and asleep by 6:30 or 7.  DS1 and I head back down stairs, feed the dog, then go back upstairs to feed the cat and get ready for bed.  Before going back upstairs I give him Melatonin.  This was suggested by our pediatrician b/c Kyle was coming out of his room for up to 2 hours after we put him to bed.  In the past we could just leave the room and he would fall asleep on his own.  Since he's been taking the Melatonin he doesn't get out of bed when we put him down and we are able to leave the room and he will fall asleep on his own.  However, he's very drowsy now when  we leave his room, in the past he could be fairly awake and there were no problems.  He's getting about 9-10 hours of sleep a night; now that we're using the allergy medication.  Prior to that, he was getting 7-8 maybe.  There were some nights he only got about 6 hours of sleep.  He does not have allergies this time of year.  He had some in the spring.  The nights he does not sleep well at all I have put him to bed as early as 6:30; trying to avoid him becoming even more over tired.  At this point I attempt a bedtime of 7:30-8.  DS1 does get into our bed at night and we take him back to his bed right away.  There have been a few occasions where he's been able to sneak into our bed without waking us.  The few times it happend he either fell asleep or annoyed us until we woke up; sticking fingers in our eyes & ears, pulling our hair, etc.  We are determined not to have him sleep in our bed.  That's why some nights we've spent up to 3 hours getting him to stay in his bed.  My husband isn't home much during the week.  Most nights I am putting the kids to bed by myself.  Sometimes DH comes home as I'm getting ready to give DS1 his bath.  DS1 gets excited to see DH and it's difficult to get him to settle down to go to sleep.  This occurs often and our pediatrician thinks this has caused anxiety for DS1 and could be the cause of the NW.  DH job is demanding and the hours can end up being long.  So what time he comes home is unpredictable.  I really appreciate any help and advice.  We would really rather not give DS1 allergy medication unless he's having an allergy problem.

[Peek-a-boo]

The nights he does not sleep well at all I have put him to bed as early as 6:30; trying to avoid him becoming even more over tired.

Does this seem to change the situation at all?  Does it make his night waking happen sooner or last longer?

It does sound like he's OT.  Most often, when a LO drops the nap, their total sleep may decrease a bit, but not a ton--they just shift it to night time.  For example, my DS dropped his nap around age 3 and he went from having a 90 minute nap and 10-10.5 hours of night sleep to sleeping 11.5-12 hours all at night.  He had formerly been going to bed at 9:00 and getting up at 7:30; when he dropped the nap, we moved bed time to 8:30 and he started sleeping until 8:30ish in the morning.

I'm wondering if perhaps when your DS dropped his nap he needed his routine adjusted to shift some of that nap sleep to night time and in the absence of that has built up a serious case of being overly tired.  If your DH's job has been like this throughout DS's life, I'm inclined to think it's not that--although it's possible that as your DS is maturing DH's job is affecting him differently--if it's always been this way, it doesn't seem like it would cause such a big disruption. 

A few ideas come to mind . . .

--One would be consistently to do an earlier bed time (maybe 7:00?)  and see if you could combat the OT.

--Another would be to add a quiet time during the day that might occasionally result in a nap.  I don't think it's realistic to try to get a 3 yo who hasn't been napping for 6 months back to napping, but some quiet time in his room might be good for everyone.  Some one suggested to me getting a timer that ticks and setting it for a certain amount of time, putting it in the room with LO, well stocked with books, puzzles, etc., dimming the lights--don't try to insist that he nap, just that he stay there until the timer dings (maybe start with quite a short time and build up toward 30 minutes).  If he is OT, he might nap some days and that might help your cause.  If this becomes a huge fight though, it's probably not worth while.

--My other thought is totally in the opposite direction and probably won't work, but--if you think this is linked to DH, is there any chance you could do a later bed time and LO would sleep in?  This may not work at all and wouldn't work for many people, but I'm a night owl and both of kids seem to be and if we consistently gradually shift to a later bed time, they will start to sleep later in the morning.  For a while my DH's job often kept him out late and that was part of why we had DS's bed time set at 9:00 because that way most nights DH was able to get home in time to play for at least a 30 minutes or so and then be the one to put DS to bed.  For this to work in your situation, your daily schedule would have to allow for DS to sleep quite late in the morning and he would have to be the kind of kid who would do that.  On the flip side, if you move to an earlier bed time, you might also solve the DH issue a bit as DS would be in bed before DH got home so at least their wouldn't be that excitement/disruption. 

--I'm wondering about the melatonin . .  .  Did your doctor give you any sort of time frame for which that is desirable to use?  I ask because years ago I used to take it, but then I read some negative things about it that prompted me to stop.  I can't remember exactly, but I'm feeling like it was something along the lines of it being one of those things that if taken over a long period of time can cause your body to stop naturally producing melatonin and then when you try to sleep without it your body is a bit at a loss and it can take a period of time to kick back into producing it at natural levels?  I may be way off . . . but I'm just wondering if long term use of it may back fire and might actually be contributing to his struggle to resettle during the night.

--My other thought may sound kooky, but I know another mum here found this to be the case--light is a powerful indicator to our bodies that it is daytime.  I wonder if his night light may be causing his brain to think it's morning and making it harder for him to resettle in the middle of the night?  If I see light in the middle of the night, my brain switches on and thinks it's morning and I can't resettle for hours. 

[First Time Mom]

First I have to send you some (((hugs))), you are having such a tough time. I have a similar situation- my ds is now 6 months old and my dd just turned 4, my dh works long hours and even goes to Montreal for 2 days a week. My dd has nws (though not as frequent as your DS1) and she will scream out for us, want in our bed, etc., and we don't let her so she'll stay awake for what seems like hours. In our case I know it is because of the new baby, ds is sleeping in our room in a basinet so I can feed do the night feeds and dd feels so isolated at her end of the house in her room alone. She's had tons of changes since ds was born, she started JK a month later, learned about death (from a hedgehog in class ) so she's obsessed about us all dying now, and this too, keeps her awake.

I don't have anything magical to offer you, wish I did, just wanted to tell you you're not alone and also share what we do (not that it's anything great). I have a very similar routine to yours in terms of bedtimes, etc., and after ds's bed I try to make sure dd gets really tired so we'll dance, etc., anything to release energy. After we read books I let her pick 3 books to take to bed, she will sit up for sometimes an hour "reading" these books, until she passes out asleep. She rarely calls for us during this time, before this she would always call us for a glass of water, a doll or toy that was left downstairs, anything and everything! When she has her nw I go to her room, give her comfort and hugs but make sure she doesn't get up from her bed- I will reach over and hug her, but if she gets out of her bed- it's too late! One time, when ds was away, I was so exhausted I let her in my bed and it was torture- she didn't sleep, she tossed and turned, poked me, talked, talked, and talked! I'll never make that mistake again! The other thing I do (we did this one NIGHTLY but really don't need to anymore) is... give her a page of stickers. Yes, we had a huge inventory of stickers and we'd give them to her in the night. She'd get busy sticking them on the wall beside her, on the bed frame, and her arms, etc., and in the process she'd fall asleep and stay asleep. Sure, I would have 30 tiny Dora stickers to remove the next day, but we had sleep! Prop? Yes! but when it's a lo that needs their sleep as they are in school the next day, when your dh needs his sleep as he's traveling, and when you need yours for a new baby, you do what you need. The "prop" doesn't become perm., dd has somewhat gotten bored by the stickers and her sleep is for the most part, much better now.

I hope you find something that works, maybe try stickers, or something he loves. I would try not to threaten to take away toys, etc., as I would be afraid he'd have a negative sleep association and it could be worse, but that's just my opinion and I would also be hesitant about the meds unless he needs them for other things, it will only mask the issue and not really solve it in the long run (gee- I guess my stickers do the same , but YKWIM).

[2greatboys]

Peek-a-boo, I can not recall what occurred when DS1 went to bed at 6:30, if things were worse or not.  I will try to get DS1 in bed by 7 or 7:15 consistently and see how it goes.  In the past when I put him to bed early it was only for a few nights, then DH wanted to spend time with him or relax instead of putting him to bed as soon as he arrived home.  If DH comes home and I try to put DS1 to bed, it will be quite the battle !!  He screams that he wants daddy to do it.

Quiet time in his room has never worked.  He wants to be where ever I am.  We will sit and read or do puzzles together, but I'm always right there.  Occasionally he will fall asleep on the couch if I try to have my own quiet time and encourage a nap form him.  If he doesn't sleep on the couch he'll play in the same room that I'm in.  He will play by himself for a period of time, about 30 mins. or more.


We've tried later bedtimes and things became worse.  In theory it sounds like it should work, but not for DS1.  I am one that can go on little sleep and wakes early, however 5 months of it and a new baby is taking it's toll on me.  Sleeping later is not something DS1 will do.  Before the NW he would wake about 7AM.

DH schedule has always been a bit odd.  However, it has in the past 8 months become more unpredictable.  It use to be pretty predictable.  What we think started the NW was when DH would come home 10-15 mins. before I started our night time routine or just as I was getting ready to read to DS1.  After a few months of this our pediatrician thinks it created anxiety for DS1 and he was waking at night to make sure he would see his daddy.  DH went on a business trip and was gone for a week.  The week he was gone DS1 got up once each night, came into our room and I put him back to bed once and that was it.  However, the first night he ran through the house screaming for DH.  Once he figured out he wasn't there everything was fine.  When DS1 does NW, he wants DH to put him back in bed.  I keep telling DH not to engage DS1, do not talk to him, do not read him a book when he asks for it; but he does.  DS1 sees that what he is doing is getting the attention he wants so he continues to do it.  DH says that not talking to him and just putting him back to bed doesn't work either, but he only sticks with it for a few times and then starts yelling for DS1 to stay in bed.  Last night DH came home as I was getting ready to give DS1 a bath.  He wanted DH to do the bath.  That was fine, however, DH "babys" DS1.  For example, up until I had DS2, DH would pick up and carry DS1 whenever he wanted to when we were out.  I wasn't able to do this and DS1 walked everywhere.  I never carried him across a parking lot.  But when DH was around DS would whine and DH would pick him up.  In a nutshell, DH does not encourage DS1's independence and I do.  DS1 whines tons more when DH in around, there are many many more tantrums thrown, and in general more misbehavior.  I know alot of the tantrums and misbehavior are also because he is OT. 

Our pediatrician did not mention what you have about the melatonin; it does make sense.  I will look into what you have mentioned and ask our pedi. about it as well.  Thank you for bringing that to my attention !!!!

I don't think the thought of a night light being on is kooky at all !  I agree having it on could possibly be causing a disturbance. When we first started using a night light about 2 yrs. ago, I took electrical tape and taped it around a portion of the cover on the night light that stays so it's not as bright.  Even though DS1 wants the second night light on, he pulls the covers over his head or puts a stuffed animal in front of him to block the light.  I have tried several times to take the second light out of his room or have him turn it off, but he screams bloody murder and ends up waking DS2.

Last night DS1 woke at 2:45AM and DH put him back to bed.  He woke again at 3AM and I put him back to bed.  DS1 woke again at 5:30AM and has been up ever since.  He is now asleep on the couch.  Should I let him nap this early in the morning, he fell asleep before 10AM, in hopes of ending the NW, or make him stay awake until his normal nap time; which use to be 1PM.  I'm afraid if I wait til 1PM he will be OT and not nap at all. 

I can not tell you how much I greatly appreciate your help.  I have taken DS1 to a therapist, consulted with one who specializes in sleep, and have read several books.  Nothing has helped.  The sleep specialist did not take our insurance so there was limited help.  The other therapist believes DH schedule is causing anxiety leading to the NW.  The books have all addressed children younger than DS1 or toddlers who are in cribs.  Thank you so much for your advice !!!

[2greatboys]

First Time Mom, thanks for hte hugs .  DS1 use to take a toy to bed all the time, for naps too.  He also took a book to bed and would either play or "read" his book til he fell asleep; and stayed in bed while doing it too.

Your DD has had alot to deal with !  I think death takes a great toll on young children.  Maybe you could find a book at the library that can help her deal with death.  I have found my local library to be very helpful.  We also had DS2 in our bedroom in a pack & play so I could nurse him at night.  DS2 has been in his own room for almost 2 months.  It really didn't seem to help us much, but I hope it helps your DD with her NW.

We have threatened to take away toys and have done so.  It does not seem to have a great impact on him anymore.  I did not think of the negative sleep association with that.  Thank you for bringing that up.  I'll have to mention that to DH. 

Thank you for the advice and encouragment.  It's nice to know we're not the only ones experiencing this.