2.5yr old wakes every night same time and won't go back to sleep without me.

[New_Mommy]

Here is a little background, I work full-time, monday to friday 3pm to 11pm and get home around 11:45pm and I stay up until 1:30am.  I am also doing some courses via distance education which I try to do after I get home.  DH gets up at 4am to go to work.This is my problem...

DS (2.5 yrs) goes to bed no problem, however, he will always wake around midnight, cry and come and get me.  He'll lead me to the spare room for me to sleep with him.  I don't want to fight with him because i'll wake DH, so I just give in and sleep with him.  When I do try to put him back to bed and explain to him that it is bed time and he has to sleep in his own bed he cries louder and harder.

DS has only slept through the night for a period of 2 months since he has been born.

I'm starting to become desperate and DH is getting frustrated because I give in.

Suggestions on how to break this bad habit?

[elfin]

Could you post what his schedule looks like during the day, and what his bedtime routine is?

[ella&jack'smum]

You might want to check out my post on this forum 'I cant go on like this much longer' - sorry can't link!!! Might give you a plan to sort it out. I think you are going to have to agree with DH when you are going to implement your solution, choose a time when you have no changes coming up, be consistent and both accept that for at least a week you WILL both have disturbed nights and broken sleep.

[New_Mommy]

Well DH puts DS to bed, he goes to bed at around 9:00pm.  He gives him a drink of milk, brushes his teeth, and reads him a story.  He falls asleep within 15 mins.  He does not have a nap during the day.  We get up at 9:00am.

We choose these times because it works best for our sleep.  I can't even function most days with just 8 hrs of sleep, it's always been a problem.

[Katet]

What we have found works great with our 2.5 yo is to talk about "expectations" so when we are "changing" things we talk ALOT about it.

So when he moved to a bed, he knew what was happening, we put a light on a timer & he "knew" he could get out of bed then, simply because we had practiced it.

SO what I would do if it were us... start talking about what happens with you get home at night, have the expectation that he wants to see you as he has missed a good part of the day with you, so tell him when you get home from work at 11.45pm you will go into his room & say hello & give him a cuddle & stay with him until he falls asleep, but he is not allowed to come out of his room... do that for a couple of weeks & then tell him how you are going to change it... I am thinking what you might find is if you get into the habit of saying hi when you get home & kissing him & telling him you love him etc, he may just start to "stir" & not even wake up properly.

At 2.5 yo they really do "cotton on" to things, so if you talk about it during the day... we have "chat time" with ds#1 & when dh puts him to bed they "de-breif" on the day & talk about what is happening the next day... by me telling dh he also knows about our day & works really well for us. Also we use that time to "prepare" for upcoming changes, like holidays & people staying etc.

So I'd also get your dh to tell him at bed time "exactly" what the new rules are & when he does it the "old" way DON'T get angry, just say "remember what we told you was going to happen tonight...so lets do that... then when he follows, praise him by saying "thank you for remembering" etc

The one thing I find with my 2.5yo is "being the boss" rarely works... so I have to "guide & praise" to help him in the right direction

Hope that helps

[New_Mommy]

Well I tried and no luck.  I guess I'm stuck with this routine until he grows out of this.  Please tell me that they grow out of this!

[Katet]

I have a friend who deals with sleep problems here where i live, she tells people that you need to work on it taking about one day for every month old they are, & the minimum once they get past 2 years old tends to be 1 week/per year, so for a 2.5 yo, you may need to keep doing it every night for 2.5 -weeks to a month to actually see results.... some children do it in a week, but others much longer...

Unfortunately I can't say they they grow out of it as my neice is still going to her parents bed at age 8 & I know my cousin's little girl did it until she was 6 & shared with her sister & it stopped then.

[imsmum]

We had this with our older daughter.  She was just a bit older than your lo when we finally were able to correct this.  The first change was to just sit next to her in bed and stayed until she fell asleep, then the fun began when we told her we would leave before she fell asleep.  She cried and screamed but we stayed until she was calmer and then did leave.  Sometimes she would start screaming, other times would whimper and then come and get us again and we would repeat the whole theng.  We eventually got to the point tht we would just tuck her in and leave but it took nearly a month.  What eventually broke it was explaining to her that we all needed our sleep and if she kept waking mummy up then mummy was cross and grumpy alll day.  We had that conversation in the morning in a really gentle relaxed tone  so it didn't get lost in the night time to-ing and fro-ing.  It worked and has slept through except when she is sick.  Even then we take her back in after comforting and tuck her in her own bed and leave, no exceptions.  The one thing we do let her do is crawl into our bed at 7 when she woke for a few minutes of cuddle time.   Good luck!