Sleeping Issues for 2 yr 8 months old

Dear All,


My daughter is 2 yr 8 months old and has been sleeping through the night for a while. However, she has relapses. When she turned 2 years old we put a lock on her door (which locks from the outside) and when she gets up she will cry. If it is a nightmare (which we can tell from the cries) I will go in and put her down again. If she is just getting up and whining - we let her cry it out and she will go back to sleep.


I am now 5 months pregnant - and her relapses have been a bit more frequent - approx. once every two weeks.


If I go in to see her the problem is she tends to drift into light sleep - so I have problems sneaking out without waking her up. So I would spend 2 hours or so before I can go back to my room.


Is it wrong to lock her door now that she is almost 3? Do we keep her door unlocked and wait for her to come to our room and then put her down again?


Please share your thoughts and your experiences. Thank you.


HF

She is almost 3 so this actually is both easier and harder.


First, don't lock the door. If she is not already, she will soon need to be able to get up at night to use the toilet.


Second, she doesn't need you with her to fall asleep, she is just in the habit of you being there while she is falling asleep. This is the perfect time to break her of this habit, as you are probably relatively well rested and not feeling too many ill effects of pregnancy. When she wakes up and comes into your room, give her a hug, put her back into her bed, kiss her goodnight again and then go back to your bed. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. You should know that the only way for this to work is if you can be absolutely consistent with this, so don't start it on a night that you are already exhausted because it will likely take about 100 tries the first night and you won't get much sleep at all. Don't sneak out; tell her that she is a lovely big girl and that she can do this, you know she can.


She can be persuaded partly by logic at this age, as long as she is not over the moon with strong emotion. Make sure that you tell her ahead of time so it is not a midnight surprise. But if you give up and let her into your bed or stay with her during this training session, she will learn that you don't really mean it when you say she needs to go back to sleep on her own, and the problem will get 100X worse.


Don't wait until the baby is born; act now!

Yes, consistency, stamina and a strong will is the key!


I lack all three, which is why my 3 year old gets up in the middle of the night and comes into the baby's room (baby is now 14 months) where I am asleep. I pick up my older child and carry her to daddy's bed (formerly mummy and daddy's bed), where she sleeps until morning. And I return to the sofabed in the baby's room and sleep there.


We may be completely spineless in sleep training our children but at least we get a pretty good night's sleep and they're so cute at this age...


Anyway, good luck! I totally agree with what Z said - about not locking the door and letting her come to your room and leading her back to bed.


Let me know how it goes - maybe... MAYBE... we might think about trying that with our 3-year-old...

Oh, and plan ahead for #2 -- there is this amazing window about 4-6 months old where it is super easy to teach the baby to fall asleep on their own. We had the most insane issues with our #1 sleeping, so I read pretty much everything known to humanity on the issue while I was preggers with #2 [and finally teaching #1 to fall asleep on her own].

Dear Z, Slammy and Cara,


Thank you for your help. I have a 2.5 weeks holiday coming up. I will try this out then. I will let you know how it goes.


HF