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Several years ago, when our child was still waking up at night (two years old at the time), I went into our Doctor’s office with this complaint… “My 2-year-old is still waking up at night .” Her advice changed our nights!
I was recently talking to a friend having the same issues, so I decided that if she needed some encouragement, others might, too.
I wanted to share this with you because our son was the BEST sleeper.
He came home from the hospital and slept through the night.
At one year of age, he continued to sleep all night long. He did this until he was about two years of age and then it started. He started waking up at night, and it was happening every night. He was waking up not feeling rested… even, might I say… “Crabby”?
Once we started watching his patterns more often, we realized that it was around the same time every night. He was going to bed around 7:00 every night (6:00 if he didn’t nap at all) and waking up in the morning around 7:00 or 8:00. If he goes to bed at 6:00, he wakes up between 6:50 & 7:30 – he always gets at least 12 hours, sometimes 13, which is about what he needs.
He started waking up at midnight, too. He would wake up and cry. We would go in, cover him up and he would go back to sleep. Sometimes he wanted a drink or different pajamas (not sure about this one, he just liked to change his pajamas – haha!)
It was impacting his mornings.
He wasn’t acting like himself because he was waking up and not getting his much-needed rest. After a few weeks of this, I was exhausted (We have three other kids, and one was a baby at the time.) He was exhausted, too.
This photo was taken around that time…
I wish I could say it was a short phase, but it continued. A few months later, I was even more exhausted. When his 3-year well-check came around, this was brought up, and we received great advice!
THIS ADVICE CHANGED HIS SLEEP PATTERNS, AND HE BEGAN TO SLEEP ALL NIGHT LONG…
What you need to do:
She told us that when WE go to bed, go into his room first, hug him, kiss him, lay with them, cover him up…. all things to rouse him just a bit. Wake him just enough to break him out of his sleep a little. What this does is that it breaks up his sleep cycle. He was waking when he was switching from his REM sleep. Do not wake them up! Just make them stir a bit.
Don’t lie down with them or talk to them. Just rub their back, tuck them in, kiss them on the cheek… just enough to make them switch sleep cycles. This brings them out of their sleep slightly, which is just enough to make them fall back into a deep sleep and hopefully sleep through the night. I studied child development in college, so this makes complete sense to me once she said it.
I wish I would have thought of it sooner! It worked PERFECTLY! He no longer woke up at night and he sleeps the full night. I was so excited the first night, and I have been happy ever since! So the key is just to ‘stir him a bit’ before you go to bed. That was it for us! I hope that it works for you, too!
For more sleep tips, you are welcome to sign up here for my free email series called “Helping My Child Become a BETTER Sleeper.”
I will also send you a sample sleep schedule.
Ps- just for a little “inspiration,”… our kids are now much older, and everyone sleeps through the night… most nights. 🙂 It gets better- I promise.
These are the faces of well-rested kids. 🙂
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Our 4 year old wakes nearly every night at 2.30/3.00 stays awake for up to 2hours. She goes to bed at 7.30 asleep by 8.00. I lift her at 10.30 every night to bring her to the toilet, she wakes up a bit. This doesn’t work for us. I am so tired, as is she.
I will ask this question on Facebook tonight at 7:00 EST and hopefully we will get some good answers!
http://www.facebook.com/Yourmodernfamily
I am SO grateful to you for sharing. We have struggled for months and months and months…maybe even a year?…of sleepless nights, with my husband and I taking turns to try to settle our screaming-for-no-apparent-reason- 4-year old. We’re sleeping through the nights again, HURRAY! Bless you!
YAY!!!! I’m so glad!
Can you try and explain this a little better… I’m a little confused by your instruction. So lay in bed with them until they almost fall asleep and then wake them??
No. So put them to bed and then hours later, after they are asleep, just before YOU go to bed, just go into their room, wake them just a bit by giving them a kiss or fixing their covers. Just enough to make them like move around. That’s it. 🙂
Curious: is there a certain time that is better to wake them at night? you mentioned you woke your child at midnight when you went to sleep but i am 21 weeks pregnant and going to bed these days by 9:30 or 10pm! Is that too early to try this method or in order for it to work, would we need to stay awake until a bit later to rouse her?
Nope- anytime works. Good luck!
My daughter is 2.5 and has always been a rockstar sleeper. About a month ago, she chewed through her pacifier (that she only used for sleeping), and I was afraid to give her another one and risk her chewing through it and choking in her sleep. Since then, she will only nap maybe two days out of the week. She falls asleep fine at night (7:30pm), but has been waking around 3am claiming to be hungry. So we take her upstairs, feed her some cheerio’s, and she goes back to sleep until 7:30am. Am I starting a bad habit letting her eat in the night? Do you think it is related to losing her paci, or is it just an unfortunate coincidence? Any thoughts? My 3 month old now sleeps better than my 2.5 yo!
After reading this email I followed the instructions and went in to my four year old at around 10 ( other nights it would be 9:30 ish) and stroked her hair and gave her a gentle kiss. Enough that she rearranged herself. She slept all night. I hoped it wasn’t a coincidence and did the same thing the next night and again she slept all night. She used to be a fantastic sleeper. Even with a cold she would sleep all night. Even when she went into a bed she would wait in the morning until we got her up. But by the age of 3 1/2 it changed. Waking became the norm. Once or twice a night. Sometimes I lost count. Sometimes with a legitimate reason, sometimes an excuse, sometimes she isn’t very awake and doesn’t remember waking. So when the third night came and she slept all night I was over the moon. After about day ten it stopped working. One night she would sleep through and the next not. Now we are back to waking once or several times. Any advice would be appreciated.
Hmmm… This might sounds weird, but I sometimes wake our son up all the way to go to the bathroom before I go to bed. I found that he was waking to go to the bathroom, so if I took him, it eliminated that later wakeup. Give it a try. 🙂 Good luck!
Oh my goodness! I am going to try this tonight! My 6yo has been waking up at least 1-2x a night for the last couple of months or so. He’s always shared a bed since toddlerhood, and finally got his own room. At first the nightlight was enough to just get him to sleep. Now, he gets up and wants to sleep in our bed. Problem with that is that he’s twitchy and ends up sideways! UGH! He says he’s scared to be alone. He even put all THREE dogs in his room in the beginning, but that doesn’t help anymore either. Hoping this will help!!!
Good luck!!!
my son does this! every night around midnight he wakes up!! it is the craziest thing. I’ve been trying to figure out why but this totally makes sense! we will be trying it tonight & hopefully he doesnt wake up this time!
Our two year old is finally sleeping through the night (unless, of course, she is up too late and is over tired). Now if we could just get the one year old to sleep all night before this new baby comes in November….lol
Oh yay!!!!!
Oh my goodness- good luck on the new baby!
My son is 21 months old and waking at night for the past couple of months. He is still in his crib and tries to jump out so I go in and try to get him back to sleep but end up bringing him in to our bed. I’m so worried he is going to hurt himself climbing out of the crib! Is it too early to start him in his toddler bed and try the advice above? Our pediatrician recommended a toddler sleep sack to keep him from climbing out of the bed? We are leaning towards trying the toddler bed but worried he will be up more often? Thank you! Kim
We loved moving our kids to toddler beds – they all slept better. I would just get a video monitor. 🙂 (I had one for peace of mind)
My son is 4 and he still doesn’t sleep through the night. I am so sleep deprived that most of the time I don’t want to go to bed because I know the minute I start to dose off he will wake up. I noticed that parents who sleep train their children do not have this problem. I didn’t have the heart to do it. I thought it was something so harsh to do to a creature who had no idea what was going on around him and the traces of that feeling of abandonment would linger a long time in him, if not for his entire life… But now I find myself super tired all the time and very impatient especially when awakened shortly after falling asleep…
He also comes to my bed in the middle of the night and he wants to sleep really close to me pushing me to the edge of the bed incapacitating me to move and turn and toss.
I shall give your solution a shot, but I do not want it to back fire either. He’s very good at waling himself up and not falling asleep again for another 2 hours in the middle of the night.
Thanks for sharing Becky. What you suggest makes a great sense.
Also somebody mentions melatonin. I give my son a mash that we prepare together (3 Tbsps of yogurt+1 tsp of peanut butter+1/2 banana). Banana has melatonin in it and yogurt is known to help with sleep. What are the other forms of melatonin that are safe to use for children? Thank you…
My son is 2 1/2 is not napping, going to bed by 6pm, and is getting up at 4am. I won’t lie, waking him up before I go to bed terrifies me because I think it may disrupt what little sleep he is getting.
My son will be four in two weeks. He has recently (in this last week) started getting out of bed 4, 5, 6 often 7 times a night until I finally get in his bed for the second twenty minute spell of the night (I always lay down with him, too, when tucking him in). It has gotten so awful that he often doesn’t even get to sleep until midnight! I could REALLY use some help. Oh, and he throws these AWFUL fits when I do leave the room, so I feel extreme guilt leaving him there to cry himself to sleep!
Do you want me to ask this on Facebook? My readers usually have great advice!
Wait so just to do that before he goes to bed or like when we’re going to sleep go n “wake him up” n do that? Or before he sleeps
Just move him around a little. You don’t need to wake him all the way up, just enough to make him stir in his bed.
My son used to be the best sleeper. We’d put him in bed, kiss him, lights out. Wouldn’t hear a peep after that. Then we had to move for my husbands job. My husband had to go a month and a half early, but he came home every other weekend. The week before my son and I joined my husband, my son started waking up a couple of times during the night. Once we joined my husband it got a little better, but his sleep has never been the same. I thought it would get better, and it seemed to. But now he is back to waking up a couple of times a night again. It’s usually to cover him and lately we have to coax him back to bed. But a lot of times he wants to get in our bed, which I don’t allow (don’t want to create yet ANOTHER habit that we’ll have to break down the line) until his moon clock changes to a sun at 7am. But this has been happening since October and it is now January. I also have a 1 year old, so I am very busy and also very tired. I haven’t had a good night sleep in 3 months. I am at my wits end and seriously am considering dragging his bed into our room, if that will make him feel safe and sleep through the night. I will try your advice, however he is such a light sleeper and wakes up at the slightest sound. He also doesn’t wake up at the same time every night. Sometimes it will be one time a night and like last night, it was four times. So, it’s very random….I will try this, but any other advice for a terrible sleeper?
That was how our son was before we tried this. It was awful, but this worked so well for us! I hope that it does the same for you.