3yo waking at night

[Cambrayl]

Hi,
I'm new to this and looking for some advice! Will start with a bit of background info.

I have 2 girls age 17mth and 3yrs4mths. My 3yo has always been a good sleeper until about 2 months ago.

She transitioned into a big girl bed at 20mths due to impending arrival of baby and took to it straight away.

She has been dry at night since June so age 2yr10mth, she came to this naturally and I left her in night time pull-ups for a month to make sure she was ready.

She has never woken at night, not even when teething. She has a structured bedtime routine and falls to sleep on her own. There is a dim night light in her room as she became afraid of the dark at around 2and a half years.

Over the last few month she has been waking consistently at night at least 3 times. It started with just one time always 2.30am so we tried to muddle her sleep pattern by disturbing her at 1.30am as thought she was waking due to transitioning to rem sleep. When she woke she was asking to go to the toilet. She had a spate of night time accidents when she had a cold and now associates waking with needing the toilet as she's worrying about wetting the bed. She is still self settling but is waking the entire house up with her nighttime toilet habits. She has to walk past her sisters bedroom to get to our room and isn't particularly quiet so is waking her as well as us!!

Now she is waking at 1.30 (the time we were disturbing her!) and asking to be tucked in. She sometimes asks to go to the toilet but not always. We're not encouraging the use of the toilet as we know she is able to go all night without it. When she wakes earlier (1.30) she then wakes again at about 4.30 again to be tucked in, not always for the toilet. Then last night for the first time in a long time she wet the bed. We had a long chat with her about staying in bed and not getting up and feel that maybe it's our fault!! She woke about 30 mins before the accident and we just put her back to bed.
The broken sleep is having a serious effect on her behaviour in the day and she is horrible at the moment. I am completely at my wits end. I can handle her waking at night but her being so bad tempered and rude in the day is too much when I am also having the broken nights sleep as is the toddler!!
Any advice appreciated,sorry for the long post!

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

Wow your LO has given you wonderful nights up to now hey?

More questions than answers from me I'm afraid but perhaps something will ring a bell with you?
Has anything about her day time routine changed at all? New child minder, nursery? Anything?
Do you do double voiding before bed time (2 wees about 30 mins or so apart just before sleep)?
Is she drinking sufficient water in the morning and early afternoon? And is there anything that might have altered her fluid intake recently (ie new nursery etc as above or different meal and snack routine)?

How about putting a little potty in her bedroom so she doesn't have to go walking past others doors making noise to have her wee?  Even just having the potty in the room might reassure her enough for her to return to sleeping through without needing to get up to wee.
It sounds to me like the bit of anxiety caused by the few wet nights when she was ill is keeping this thought in her head throughout the night so when she goes into a light sleep or reaches the end of a sleep cycle instead of moving into a another cycle she brings herself fully awake to ensure she stays dry.  Have you reassured her that it's ok and totally normal for there to be an occasional wee in the bed, especially when poorly?

[Cambrayl]

Thank you for your reply!

It's nice just to be able to talk to someone removed from our situation for support and ideas as we feel we've hit a bit of a brick wall.

To answer your q's: Her daytime routine has been the same for ages with the occasional shake up for special occasions but even then the routine is he same just a different place so I don't think that is a problem. As far as I know her routine at preschool hasn't changed either, she's happy to go and has been there a little over a year with no real issue. It's difficult to say how much she drinks there but I make sure she finishes a cup of water with her breakfast and has a week before she goes.
We have a pretty good toilet routine before bed where I make her too the loo before dinner, then again before bath and then again before bed this is over the course of about an hour.

She's a sensitive girl and is eager to please she does worry and has issues with itching herself (she has eczema but scratches out of habit) and is currently in a cycle of licking her lips and they're really sore. It's so hard not to go on at her constantly about it as she's really making herself sore but you have to talk to her to stop doing it and then she worries so she does it more. Vicious circle!

I think that's the issue with the nighttime wees she's become paranoid about it so when she has a shift in sleep cycle she's bringing herself to conciousness as afraid of wetting.

The potty is a great idea, she has had it in her room for a few nights now and is using it every night. The first night she came to tell me she had used it so kind of cancelled out the point of it! The second night she came to ask if she could keep her lamp on after using it! But the third night she didn't wake us at all!
I'm hoping that she will just grow out of it but as it's become habitual I'm a bit worried it will just continue. In the long term that's not an issue but for now she can't cope with the broken sleep and the battle to get her to nap in the day isn't always worth it as she's too OT and causes too much distress.

I'm encouraging her to be more independent at night when she ekes so as she is only disturbing herself at least then I've had some sleep to deal with her!!

[creations]

Sounds like the potty is working well
I would imagine at some point she will begin to feel less anxious about this. There may be some ways to help reduce her anxiety which could lead to her feeling more confident and relaxed in bed to sleep through again.  (the books 'playful parenting' and 'sleep talk' come to mind but there are likely even better suggestions from others in the community who have experience high anxiety with their LOs.  Mine is an anxious boy but I have not read as many books on the subject as some of the other BWers - maybe post on growth and development or in companion books to ask for some specific help with the anxiety she experiences?)

I must say, she sounds like a darling coming to tell you she used the potty and to ask about keeping the light on, reminds me very much of my DS who tries so hard to follow rules and do everything right.

I actually wouldn't bother with trying to get her to nap - she's quite old now for a nap and it sounds like more work than it's worth.  How about putting her to bed a little earlier instead? or just on the weekend nights?  We had a truly marvellous phase of DS having a lie in on weekend mornings, it was bliss!  We are in another of those phases now, it's not a huge lie in, I set his morning lights for 7am at the weekend instead of the 6.40am lights on time during the week. That 20 mins is very nice for me though.  If you have a gro clock or timer lights this might be an option to try for her to catch up on a bit of sleep, if you don't use those then I'd say half hour early to bed once or twice per week would help.