Sleep Issues with My 2 1/2 Year Old

Hi! Oh My! I am having this EXACT issue with my son who just turned two on May 25th. It all started the DAY we brought our new baby home on March 19th. From that day to this day...he has had severe sleep issues. For 15 days he slept only 1 hour per day and refused to take any naps. We took him to the doctor and the ped. said to do behavior mods. with him like sitting in a chair next to be bed...etc. We just this week went to a Child Psych. to get more help...he took wakes 5-8 times per night crying and on a bad night it might also take 2 hours to get him back to sleep....I really understand where you are and how hard it is....having a new baby has only made this more challenging and has really been stressful for the whole familly. I am going to also read the book the lady mentioned in another blog to you and here are some suggestions that have seemed to help us in the past few days...feel free to take them or leave them...we have been in dire straights as I have watched my calm family fall a bit apart:

1. Decrease play time before bed, soft music and reading books 1 hour before bed.
2. No TV at night.
3. Walks outside but no park (increased play)
4. Classical music playing all night softly in his room
5. 1-3mg. of Meletonin (natural sleep inducer, NOT a sleeping pill...doctor recommended it and it really helps him fall asleep...doesn't keep him asleep though.)
6. Same person puts to sleep at night and routine is always predictable and the same.
7. Get him up the same time every morning
8. Shorten naps to 1 1/2 hours only
9. No sleeping in his bed with son, and don't invite into your bed (allow into your bed only if he comes to you)
10. I have a two story house so we put a gate across his door way to help him remember to stop when leaving his room.

* Please note that I am NOT an expert, just another struggling mom with a 7 week old and a little 2 year old with sleeping issues/sleep disorder. My little guy seems to have anxiety levels related to the birth of new brother....we considered night terrors but he wakes completely up.

Please send additional advice this way if you have any luck on your end. Best Wishes!~

Your daughter is having night terrors. Both of my children had them and both have outgrown them. You need to make sure she is getting enough hours of sleep and enough hours of good sleep. This means no snoring or anything like that and if she does snore take her to an ENT for an evaluation. My daughter had her tonsils and adenoids out at age 2, my son at age 3, both due to sleep apnea. Night terrors are fairly common and just have to be dealt with. Make sure she gets a good nap during the day and stick to a set schedule for naps and bedtime and they will be less frequent. Do not try and wake her when she is having one. Sometimes my children would have one because they had to pee. I took them, they did their business, they went right back to sleep! Once I held my daughter on my lap and she went right on me so beware LOL. Good luck, I've been there:)

L. Etta, mother of a 7 year old girl and an 8 year old boy.

My kids all did similar things, and we tried all kinds of things to stop it. Finally, we realized that they just did not need as much sleep as they were getting and reduced and later removed the nap altogether. That solved the problem. The book mentioned before is a great one, and it is what helped us with all of our sleep difficulties! I recommend it to every parent!

I'm going through a similar thing w/my son who is not quite two and a half. I have the book "Healthy sleep habits, happy child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth which really helped us. But he wakes up during the night although not as frequently. I have noticed w/my son that he sleeps better wearing light cotton pjs or just at t-shirt and his diaper. Like your daughter, my son seems to wake up at times due to bad dreams, so I'll just hold him for a while and then put him back to bed. He has some musical toys that he will turn on to try and go back to sleep and that works 90% of the time. Since your daughter shares her room w/her brother, a musical toy is probably not an option for her. Try to read the book I mentioned, it might give you some good ideas.