[tinaedmond]

Hello, I don't post much anymore but really could use some advice from those of you who have been through this. DS is 2YO has been home since Aug 07, and for the first couple of months didn't sleep well at night but then was a great sleeper....until this past summer when he began waking up at night. At first it was just once or twice a night but it's gotten to be much more often over time. Lately the wakeups during the night have just been unbelievable. This week he has been waking almost every hour fussing and if we don't go in within a couple minutes he begins crying out for us and it just gets worse and worse until we go to him. Last night, the only time he slept more than an hour was from 1:30 to 4:30. The night before was the same way.

He has no ear infection, he was checked on Monday and had a clean bill of health. He did have the stomach crud over the weekend but is now better from that.

He normally goes to sleep just fine, he just wakes up all the time! We have tried letting him cry it out but he'll sit there and cry for over an hour. The longer we let him go, the more he cries, and if we stick our heads in and just tell him to go to sleep it makes it worse. We do not pick him up when he wakes up, but we do help him settle back into his crib.

He has a tendency to sit up in bed and won't lay back down on his own. We have tried different blankets, no blanket, etc to no avail.

He usually goes back to sleep after we go in to calm him down, readjust his blankie, etc. But sometimes he does not. And if he does go to sleep easily, he's just up again in an hour or two.

This is not night terrors - he is awake and cognizant of the fact we are there. Also, the wakeups are not consistently at the same time, which I understand is an indicator of night terrors.

Needless to day DH and I are exhausted because we've gotten a good night's sleep maybe one month total in the last six months. Co-sleeping is not an option for us, we want him to sleep in his own room/bed.

Any advice from those of you who have been through this is very much appreciated.

Tina

[DPline]

My daughter is the poster child for 'sleep begats sleep.' Even still at age 5, though even more so as a baby and toddler.

She has a very fine line between being tired and falling asleep and staying asleep and being overtired and being up and down all night long. Which of course makes her even more tired and the cycle continues. And escalates.

My (longwinded!) point being, you might try an earlier bedtime and see if that helps. I never would have believed it prior to my daughter, but for her it makes all the difference. When she gets into a waking cycle, we push back bedtime to get her 'caught up' and it makes all the difference. (For my boys, an earlier bedtime makes the get up earlier, but then again they stay asleep at night.)

One other thought . . . My older son got used to sleeping in a room with us when we were living and traveling overseas and when we got home he had a hard time staying in his bed. We made up a sticker chart and he got a sticker for each night he stayed in bed (without yelling for us either.) And when the chart was full, he got a coveted toy of his choice. And that was enough to break the cycle. Your son may not be old enough for this (my son was 3 at the time) but another thought.

Good luck!

[mommytoEli]

eli's been having a hard time too. one problem i think he is having is his room is too big. he shares an 18 x 20 room with his brother. i think it is overwhelming for him....so he will come down stairs and say, "mom, i need to rest....in your closet!" lol. really? one day when he asked i said fine, he went in and laid down on a pile of clothes and conked out. i think he felt safe in there. the funny...maybe more ironic thing is, when we got pictures of eli living in guatemala, it looked like his crib was in a.....you guessed it.....closet. go figure. lol. i told dh i'm about to get a toddler bed (that's how small the closet is) and just let him fall asleep in there every night....bc i can also think of NO other way to get him or keep him asleep.

[cborsa7]

What has your process been for bedtime in the past? Did you rock to sleep, lay down with him, or did he fall asleep on his own, without you? If nothing you try is working I highly recommend you visit your local sleep center. Our pediatrician sent us after a few months home and it was the best thing we ever did. Most all toddlers will experience sleep issues at some point and when you understand the problem the solution will be much easier. Waking several times a night is normal and as adults and "trained" sleepers we don't even realize it. As for letting him self soothe and cry, the method for this is really specific with timed intervals and instructions and if not followed completely and consistently usually won't work. We had huge success with this method in 3 days under the sleep centers guidance. If I deviate from the plan I go back to square one every time.
Good luck and I hope you get some sleep soon!

[Saya]

Tina, we've been dealing with EXACTLY the same thing. Our daughter, who has been an amazing sleeper since she was 10 months old, started having problems sleeping in September when there were some changes in her daily schedule. Then in October she was sick for a while, so we were going into her room alot to take care of her. By the time November came she was all better, but she was STILL waking up at night. Some nights she woke up only once or twice, but some nights it was 8 times or more. Some were 8 times or more in like a 3 hour period. She would usually go down to sleep again once we tucked her back in (in a very specific way) but would sometimes wake up again like 20 minutes later.

We were kind of going insane - and worst of all you could really see it impacting her, since she really needs her sleep. I hate to say it, and I know not everyone agrees with it, but we had to sleep train her again like we did when she was 9 months old. A few times we tried to just let her cry, but we just couldn't pull it off and would go in after a half an hour. Big mistake, no change. The we decided we just HAD to go through with it, no matter how long it took. We spent a few days saying to her, "Anabel is a big girl now, and when she wakes up at night she knows how to find her own blankie." Then we decided that if she woke up we would tuck her in ONCE, so that she knew we were around and that she wasn't alone, but that as we tucked her in we would say "It's nighttime and mommy and daddy are sleeping now. If you want your (blanket, bear, etc., all things in her crib) again tonight you'll have to get it yourself." And we'd kiss her goodnight.

The first night she cried for over an hour - about an hour fifteen. It was REALLY HARD. But then she didn't wake up again that night. Then she had a few nights where she woke up and cried again, this time for about a half hour or so. Then she had a couple of night when she woke up once, and didn't cry at all, just went back to sleep till morning. And then the past 3 nights NO WAKE UP AT ALL.

I think in our case we just needed to be really consistent with the sleep training for a couple of night and it all fell into place. That's what worked for us.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck!