Night wakings for over 3 months!!

[Dayana13]

Hi, ever since we moved to a new home 3.5 months ago my now 30 month old has been having sleep issues, she's both, having trouble going to bed at night and then she's waking up in the middle of the night. Oue bed routine generally is dinner, then bath, then milk, and then we put her to bed. In our previous home she would go to bed just fine, and she would fall asleep on her own, of course she had her cycles when she had trouble going to bed but it never lasted more than 1-2 weeks. We are noe to the point when we are very frustrated with her, we have tried singing songs, reading books, letting her fall asleep on our bed and then moving her to her room, letting her fall asleep on the couch and then putting her in her room, everyhting seems to work but just for a few days, then we're back to having issues. When we finally get her to fall asleep, she will most likely get up once or twice in the middle of the night screaming but, it is not the kind of screaming from fear or night terrors, she just wants to get in bed with us, or maybe she is just testing us. He have tried to put her back to bed nicely singing songs, we have tried ignoring her and let her fall asleep on the floor if that's what she wants, we even led her fall asleep beside our bed. Again, works for a few days, then she will not stop crying and screaming unless we let her sleep with us, which we are not doing, we have a small bed and she moves way to much and kicks us and does not let us sleep. She wakes up crying and screaming, if we ignore her she will quietly walk to our room and stan up beside our bed and will start calling us to get our attention, if we get up and put her back to bed, she'll be up and screaming as soon as we leave the room, she does the same thing whether we sing songs and try to relax her, or if we spank her. We really really hate spanking herbut, when this has been going on for 3.5 months and nothing seems to help, you just get too frustrated On top of all, i am now 9 weeks pregnant and getting very upset atn nights and not getting enough rest. I am concerned that this may affect the baby that I am expecting and we also want to fix things before the new baby arrives... Please help? we are desperate... we need to stop the battles at home...
What’s his/her daily routine? She goes to daycare at 7:00am and I pick her up at 4:15…then we go to bed, we play for a while, she eats dinner at about 7pm, 8pm is bath time, 8:30 she drinks her milk, and then at around 9:00pm she goes to bed.
What’s nap routine? She naps from about 12:45 until about 3:00 at daycare
What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up? Sometimes it is what I described above, some nights are good and she only wakes up, cries for a few seconds and goes back to sleep. I would say it is 50/50 between both behaviors.
When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry? Not sure, she cries uncontrollably while we are giving her attention, if we ignore her she’ll enforece the defying action which is getting up from bed and walk to our room, even if we ask her to please go to her room she’ll say “no”. If we get up from bed and take her back to her bed she’ll start crying and screaming
What have you tried to settle?? Rubbings her back and telling her it’ll be fine, standing there next to her, leaving the bathroom light on… and even spanking her on top of her diaper..
Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones? She’s been potty training (using pull ups) since before this thing started so not sure that it may be affecting… it all started when we moved to our new home…
Do they have a lovie? Yes, a blanket and Stuffed animal

[jessmum46]

Ok, there's a lot going on here. But first I want to pick up on the spanking....it is not my place to tell you how to parent your child, and I do understand the frustration of a disturbed nights sleep (I have a 32 month old and a 3 month old)....but I really don't think spanking is going to help here, not to mention I don't believe physical punishment achieves anything at all. It certainly doesn't teach the lesson that night is for sleeping which is presumably what you want to teach. We'd love to help you get through this, it must be very tiring (especially being pregnant - congratulations btw!) but in a way that is respectful of your child and looks at the cause of what's happening.

So it strikes me that there have been some major changes in her life recently - the house move, PT, your pregnancy, all of which could affect sleep. It also strikes me that you have tried a lot of different things and perhaps choosing one approach and sticking to it may benefit you.  The biggest thing though is probably routine related - she has a really long nap for her age (my DD doesn't nap at all!) which is almost certainly robbing her night sleep and causing issues at BT. I'm not sure when she wakes in the morning? And what time is BT ideally for you? (Asleep by). My suggestion would be to cut her nap to 1.5h in the first instance and you may need to cut further. Hopefully that will make her more tired to fall asleep at BT. What do you think?

[weaver]

Hi and welcome to BW, hope we can offer the support you need here.

it all started when we moved to our new home…

I think this is the key.  LO is not happy with the change.  It's a huge change for her, she needs reassurance. I understand that this is an emotional and tiring time for you with your new pregnancy (congratulations ) and perhaps LO can also sense that something new and big is in the air with that too.
 
Please believe me when I say that she is definitely NOT defying you.   We categorically do not support spanking - I understand that you are at the end of your tether - but LO sounds totally stressed and needs reassurance and as much comfort as you can give right now.  Neither will this website support ignoring a crying child - we have a blanket policy against Crying It Out and I can post information as to why that is the case if you are interested.  I have to assume you are posting here because you hope to find a better way of dealing with this situation.   

I'm going to be a bit blunt and say that some of things that you describe may have made the situation worse. Don't worry, that was yesterday and from now on you can do something different to rebuild trust with your child.  Because that is what you need to do, you need to teach her (again) that her parents are there to care for her, even when it's really inconvenient in the middle of the night.

I know where you're coming from, I felt totally overwhelmed when pregnant with LO2 and LO1 was waking at night.  It is very early days yet in your pregnancy though and I'm confident you can work with LO1 to resolve this issue well before LO2 appears.  My first recommendation to you is that you respond to her NWs with all the reassurance and comforting you can muster. 

From a routine viewpoint, her day is very long, and NWs could be connected to OT.

What do you think?

Posted with Katherine.

[Dayana13]

Thank you both for your replies, I really appreciate you trying to help out here. It is just so confusing, you get theories saying that if you cuddle them when they wake up at night, that that behavior will be hard to break and that they'll want you to cuddle them every night, same thing with allowing them to sleep in bed with us... you also get the theories that say that if you ignore the undesired behavior, that it will eventually go away... we hate spanking her, it is definitely not the parents we want to be... but we are just so done with this... but as you said, that was last night, and I can just catch my breath again and start oall over... I don't think the pregnancy has anything to do with it because we just found out a couple weeks ago and this has been going on since we moved to the new house 3.5 months ago...
As far as her naptime goes.... not sure there's a lot that I can do... she takes her nap at daycare and that's their routine, when she's at home with us during the weekend, generally she doesn't  nap and is very tired by bed time, doesn't necessarily mean that she wont fuzz or wake up at night... I really would not want to switch daycare as she's been going there since 6 month old and we really like it... plus, it would be yet another change for her...
so what would be the recommended approach? should I get a rocking chair in her bedroom and rock her until she falls asleep? which I'm pretty sure won't be a short time of rocking but, maybe with time she'll get more comfortable and the situation will improve?
I really want to d what's best for her, but also for us as a familiy... and we are certainly not being the kind of parents that we want to be...we are just soooo tired....

[weaver]

HUGS lovey, yep, you can find someone out there who will say just about anything is the 'right thing to do'.  This site and the advice we offer is firmly grounded in the work of Tracy Hogg, the first and main rule is respect for everyone involved. 

I'd say she might be a bit confused about how BT works, as that seems to have changed round a bit recently?  So you want to think about how you would like to run your BT routine, make a plan and then stick with it.  We do bath-stories-bed.  Decide how many stories, if and when you do kissing everyone good night, do you need to include putting teddies to bed, if you need to do prayers or blowing kisses to friends and relations (we do this when OH is working .  Basically, have a plan, so for your own sake, you know what comes next.  Then she will learn that too, and maybe feel a bit more settled.  I prefer to keep it simple, myself, but you will know what DD needs to be in there and what you can cope with. 

I would want to work on getting her into her bed and settling happily in there.  Will she settle in her bed if you are with her? Then I'd do that, maybe hold her hand, sit near her, put a hand on her back, whatever works for her.  You then aim to work on reducing that down.  If you know you will have to stay for a long time (be realistic!), make sure you're comfortable.  She might not need the rocking if she knows you're sitting with her and she has lots of cuddles before she gets into bed.  And don't forget to tell her you're there with her, makes a big difference! 

In extreme cases, Tracy recommended actually getting a mattress in the child's room and sleeping in there with her, and then working on moving the mattress further from her bed and out the door.  You might not need to do that.  Maybe she just needs you to sit with her while she relaxes into sleep.  Whatever you find you need to do now, try to picture how you will get to your goal (which I'm assuming is her sleeping happily in her bed and you in yours). 

FYI, my 2.5 yo is usually a good sleeper but started kicking up an almightly fuss at bed time asking us to stay with her.  Turns out if you just sit with her for a few minutes, she's fine.  Some of this BT resistance is perfectly normal, just another toddler attempt to assert control of their surrounding, if you see what I mean.  Ah the joys!

[Dayana13]

Thanks so much, I think that sitting next to her until she falls asleep helps, I have done it, and it takes about 40-60 minutes until she really falls asleep, my only concern was that this would become the routine indefinetely and with baby 32 coming, this would be not sustainable butm from what I'm hearing you say, it should get better once she sttles in her new room and gets comfortable again...I'll probably move the rocking chair just so I can be comfortable as well until she falls asleep.
I really appreciate your advise, i have a few ideras on how we can approach this and to take a step back and let the frustration on the side because it definitely is not taking us anywhere... I only hope that this doesn't take an incredible amount of time to get her settled in her room again and she's sleeping happily in her room once the new baby arrives....otherwise, ohhh that should be interesting...
Thanks a lot!!!

[weaver]

I know, all the 'what ifs' about LO2 can be really daunting.  If you can at all, try to focus on the here and now. This might take a month or so to sort, but baba isn't due for a long time yet.

If you are feeling extra tired right now, try to get DH involved, and do make sure you're comfy. The bonus would be if she's used to being comforted by DH then she'll be able to turn to him more when baby arrives.  I've often enjoyed a good rest, almost a nap, keeping LOs company when they needed it.

I do think she might be OT as her day is very long, and it might explain taking ages to settle down.  Have a think about that.

Best of luck!

[*Liz*]

We moved house last year - my youngest was 3.5 when we moved. In retrospect her sleep was disturbed for a good 4 months or so, she was imply pretty disorientated in her room which was quite a bit bigger than her old one  . We moved her into a really big bedroom while we decorated her new room, and she was a bit happier in with her brother, but really she only started to settle once she had her own proper room all done and ready for her.

Do try not to get too hung up on what happens when LO2 arrives, I know it is easy to  . My DS was 20 mths when I had DD and so I had NWings from both for quite a while. I'm in for a much bigger age gap this time, but DD suffers from night terrors and can be awake for well over an hour at night if she has a bad one  . DS is prone to waking very early in the morning, and my husband will be working away all week until LO3 is 6 mths old (he makes great plans  ). What will be will be though. I may end up with both DD and a LO in the same room as me, but really, I'm just trying not to think about it  . Kids sleep changes so fast. DS never wakes at night now and hasn't since just before he turned 4. I thought he would never stop, but he did  .

Have you done her room and made it nice etc? We moved into an old house and I don't think that helped much  .

[Dayana13]

So, after all the advice I received from this forum, I came up with a whole new "strategy", we now have dinner earlier at 6:30pm, give Emi a relaxing bath at 7:30, and put her on bed b 7:50-8:00. I dimmed the lights (put a table lamp and a night light), also got a little music box... so while she sits on her bed drinking up her milk, I seat on the rocking chair (i moved it back to her room) and read her 1 book of her preference... after we read the book, she's usually done with her milk, I seat her on my lap, turn off the table lamp (the night light will stay on through the night), I rock her for about 10 min so she's very relaxed and then I put her back to her bed wether she's already asleep or not, if she's not asleep, I rub her back and tell her I'm there for her and that i love her and then I seat down on the rocking chair until she falls asleep, which has been very quickly... it's not my plan to always wait in her room until she falls asleep, hopefully, once she feels more confident in her new room, she won't need me to be there until she falls asleep.
She's still waking up at night several times, inly not crying or panicking, just calling mommy and/or daddy, depending or how she sounds, I will go rub her back for a couple minutes (and then she'll be back to sleeping) or sometimes I can just talk to her from my own room and she'll fall back asleep... hopefully she'll also stop waking up at night soon...
I am very happy to say the stress levels have dropped dramatically at home and even though she still wakes up at night it's not as stressful and tiring as it was before...
I am confident that we are on the right path and it's all thanks to all the wonderful advice that I received on this forum...

BTW, I also saw my pediatritian that day I posted my note here, and she basically said to lock her up in her room if she insisted in getting out of it in the middle of the night... or to put a gate if locking the door was too much for me.... Guess whose advice I took?

[jessmum46]

Great update, I'm so glad you've seen improvements . Once she is falling asleep on her own at BT if the night wakings still continue do feel free to post again and we can maybe help you tweak her routine a bit.

[Dayana13]

Will do, Thanks Katherine.

[weaver]

  for your update.  So happy for you.

and  to your paed.  Dear me.