three yr old sleep trouble

katiek

My daughter has been sleeping in a big girl bed for almost a year now and in the last week has refused to stay in bed, gets up or just screams and cries in bed, we have been putting her back in each time she gets up (last night was the worst of the worst and we must have put her back 100 times) and then she will finally knock out after three hours of screaming, begging and crying, she has never had any sleep issues and we have a 6 month old who she continues to wake up, any ideas or just more of the same walking her back into her room again and again and again? Any ides would help! Thanks in advance.

howleyshell

Have you asked her what's up?

My 3.5 yr old has gone thru a bit of this recently.

I assumed he was starting to get sick, then I assumed he needed to potty and it was waking him up.

I shouldn't have assumed anything! 

Turns out that reading some Halloween books from the library he's scared that there's a monster in his room.

Now that we're dealing with the real problem we're seeing improvements.

For us it was as simple as checking for monsters before bed, reminding him that monsters are pretend, installing a night light in the hall way and leaving his door cracked until he falls asleep.

We also taught him to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" to himself if he wakes in the middle of the night over and over until he falls asleep.  I think when he woke up in the middle of the night his little mind wandered and ended up on scary topics.  By  giving him something else to focus on I think it slowed the onset of scary thoughts for him. 

Before we gave him something to DO when he woke up I think he just resorted to seeking our attention thru getting up or crying.