Losing it; 2 y/o awake for hours at a time. How to break the cycle?

[andrea0601]

@prmiami777 I’ve got one kid that if we give him melatonin that he’s lights out pretty quick but does what OP’s kid does. Wakes up within a few hours and is hard to get back down.

Sounds more like the kid needs some hard time putting themselves back to sleep. They might eventually grow out of it, but that’s going to be rough on you until that happens. Might just need a few nights of tough love and let them pitch their fit in their own room.

 

[pameladelores]

@maxinvasion How do you shower after bed?

Try melatonin the kid’s version is on an endcap at any store that sells them like target, walmart, and cvs. Quarter gram gummy will knock them tf out when you need something special.

 

[greeneyez193]

@maxinvasion Liquid melatonin. Shake the bottle before you administer the stuff. Only give like 0.1ml to start.

 

[alphaqueen]

@greeneyez193 That’s pretty reckless to suggest a dose of an unregulated supplement for a child without even mentioning which concentration you’re talking about.

 

[carsan]

@maxinvasion lock their door and leave them?

 

[worshipmedic]

@maxinvasion I had this with my second child. What worked for us was getting a light timer/white noise maker that turns green when it's time to wake up, yellow about 15 minutes before. Sometimes it's easier to talk in colors, and the white noise helps light sleepers.

 

[mcque]

@maxinvasion My youngest is 3 and did this when he was around 2 as well. Unrelated, but he has Autism and his room is very child-proofed as a result, the child-proofing is important for the next bit. After dealing with this a lot, my wife and I decided, based on other feedback, to simply let him get up and have the awake time in his room. The inside door handle has a cover on it so he can't open it (Autism thing, but probably a good toddler thing too). So he would wake up at like 2AM all the time, read books and play with his stuffed animals for like two hours and eventually just crash again. The times he didn't crash, the next night he was so tired he didn't do the middle of the night waking. In time, I think once he realized nobody was coming to entertain him, he just stopped getting up to play. He's three now and almost never wakes during the night.

 

[zeelizardglue]

@maxinvasion We’ve had a hard time with our kiddos too

1 consistent sleep schedule. Weekends too

2 consistent bedtime routine (food shower teeth etc)

3 we usually lay in bed with them until they are asleep fully we’ve never been able to “kiss them good night and leave”

4 no screen time after 1700

if they wake up.

• no playing, reading, absolutely no electronics
• dark
• “it’s night time. Lay down”
• absolutely no food, it sets their cicardian clock to “wake time”
• water is fine, no milk
• then we have to lay with them until they are hard asleep

SOUND MACHINE has been a godsend. We use the Dohm from Amazon or A Light Murmur on iOS

 

[lach_nexx]

@maxinvasion She naps and goes to bed at 7? Hate to break it to you, but she's likely just well rested. You're going to have to either cut that nap or push back the bedtime. For my son, we turned his nap time into quiet time. He spends an hour in his bedroom with his books and lovies. If he falls asleep, great, if not, that's also fine. He's also in bed by around 9-930, and wakes around 7am.

 

[tim_goodnews]

@maxinvasion My daughter used to do that. We had to cut the day nap and get her more active during the day. We also started the whole bath before bed, no electronics, and reading to her before bed. But we also co slept for a while up until recently (she was in a car accident and suffered a TBI so she’s back in the bed with us now that she’s 4 but she was in her own bed before that). I was also very against melatonin but now that she is in recovery it has been very helpful with her fits before bed. Also, I have a 17 yo on my own and I kinda miss being up late with hiiim now lol but I get it! Good luck -mom advice

 

[dcss]

@maxinvasion Google sleep regression in toddlers. We're going thru this now.

 

[istillqualify]

@maxinvasion It’s possible that she needs her nap cut out altogether or give her a later bedtime.

 

[jimminyfor]

@maxinvasion My son did the same. It's a phase, but it also helped to change when he napped. Go down to one nap and early in the day.

 

[jahjah69]

@maxinvasion Ross?

 

[lohowell]

@maxinvasion This is an easy one.

Keep her up all day.

If she falls asleep, wake her after a half hour and make her do some physical activity, like play fetch with a ball! It works!

Cardboard boxes are also the best!

 

[amom]

@maxinvasion Same thing happened to us until recently. We asked our daycare to cut the nap time shorter (to a max of 2hs. 1h45 ideally)

Then we pushed bedtime to 8:30. Our daughter steel wakes up at 6:30-7. So that's about 10ish hours of sleep.
But also, we leave her bedroom door a bit open with the lights on outside her door all night.
Once she's in bed, we stayed outside the door. At the beginning we stayed up to 30min to comfort her. Saying we were there and all. After 2 weeks, we don't need to anymore.

We read books and play games (like memory games and all) before bed. No screens.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[amom]

Ho and when she starts crying we don't go immediately. We wait 5min then we go. Once she's calmed down we leave her alone to go back to bed.
If she has another meltdown, we wait 10min. Repeat with 5min increments

 

[hferry22]

@maxinvasion Drop the daytime naps completely

 

[sparum]

@maxinvasion Have you tried dropping the nap entirely? Also, don't spend times staying up with her. This just shows that you accept this from her.

 

[christianmasonjim]

@maxinvasion There are online coaches specialised in baby sleep. Worked great for us. From waking up multiple times a night our 15 month baby sleeps 11-12 hours straight and if he wakes up, he can fall back to sleep by himself.

I would strongly recommend talking to a professional baby sleep coach about this but what we did was:

Switch to one nap during the day (around noon for 1,5-2 hours)

Eat a meal before bed time. In our case a banana and porridge

Use a sleep technique where he can get himself to sleep. We sit next to his bed and he stands up for a while, talks, tumbles around for maybe 20-40 minutes. If he screams we wait and see if snaps out it himself unless it’s a proper panic scream, then we cuddle him immediatly for a short while and try to get him back into his own routine.

We are there to support him if needed but he does the job for himself. When he falls asleep by himself, he can do it during the night as well.

If your baby need a lot of physical contact or support when doing this, give it as long as they don’t fall asleep during your support.

This worked wonders for us!