Sleep Issues - please help!!!

julieb00lie

DH and I are so exhausted. DD keeps waking 1-3 times a night, usually starting anywhere between 2am - 5am. Sometimes we can just walk her back to her bed and tuck her in. Sometimes she is bug eyed and won't go back to sleep. Sometimes it's full on tantrums. It's killing all of us; no one is getting good sleep. I've tried talking to her about staying in bed, but that doesn't work. It's like once she wakes up she needs the comfort of us to go back to bed. Any suggestions? I'm so exhausted.

Tabby2727

Hannah went through this too. It's a phase. Do you give her a bottle/sippy of water to comfort her back to sleep?  I also have a sound machine and a few teddies in bed with her. If/when she wakes up she usually has to pee, or she just peed so I'd change her diaper and refill her sippy of water and put her back to bed.  She usually goes right back to sleep but sometimes I have to bring her back to our bed for a little bit, she flops around a hundred times then I take her back to her bed. Make sure you get her up at regular time the next morning (i.e. 6:15 a.m.) so she eventually wears down and sleeps threw the night again. Good luck!

dazidog

Would it work if you make her stay in bed but sit close by until she falls asleep? If she throws a tantrum so be it, just sit there and ignore. I know it sucks for you having to get up. See below for how we slowly made progress of getting DD to sleep.

DD sometimes gives us a hard time about going to bed and says she is scared. So I will start off night one by sitting at the end of her bed, night two on a chair next to her bed, night three in her doorway, night four in our room right across the hall (I leave the light in our room on and peek in on her from time to time so she can see me), then she is on her own. We've only had to do this a couple times. One time she saw a spider in her bed when getting in for the night and just freaked. Getting her to sleep in her room on her own after that took a lot of work.....she was really scared but doing the progressive leaving helped a lot.

My biggest advice would be to not engage your LO at all when she wakes up at night. Whether you are putting her back in her own bed or your bed be consistent, always one or the other, don't switch back and forth. Don't get into a debate or long conversation with her late at night, the less talk the better. Like pp said things like blankets or stuffed animals may help.

Hope it passes soon.

cs1007

We are going through the same thing, although I think DS is cutting his molars which may be waking him. We always bring him to our bed when he wakes, and he usually goes right back...but the last few weeks he wakes and STAYS awake for hours. It is torture....and I am 33 weeks pregnant too GL-hopefully it is just a phase!