My 2 Yr Old Waking Every Night

HI...I am a mom of 3. 12, 11, and 7 so I have been there. #1 if you do not want her in your bed you need to keep her out. The more you let her in she thinks it is normal. So here is what I do. ROUTINE is important. You do the teeth the story etc..then she goes in her bed lots of love, your a big girl make a big deal out of how special her new bed is. Then the first time she comes out, you walk her back or carry her, tell her you luv her and it's bedtime. The second time you take her back and tell her it's bedtime no hugs no kisses, the 3rd time on it's take her back no words simply place her in the bed. It may take awhile but as they get older there are many challenges and you can not give up cause it is trying....believe me it's harder on you then them. I have been doing this along time and my children have never slept in my bed. Even when they are sick they are in there bed and I am on the floor in a sleeping bag. Wherever you let them sleep is where they think they can, even if it's not what you want....hope that helps, V.

She's only two you are lucky! My four year old was doing this because we had to go back and forth to the states MANY times for a good year so he was all messed up waking at 3 in the morning and wanting to sleep with us, my Darling Hubby fed into this for a while because he missed him while he was gone, laying with him in our bed, his bed anywhere, and I had to finally put my foot down after I kept waking to his little body up against mine and not knowing when he got in bed with us! I was losing much sleep, and because I am no advocate for kids in the bed with me I cannot sleep peacefully I wake at every sound or kick, whereas hubby does not...
I told him not to come to our room talked to him a lot and had to be strict about putting him back in his own bed when he would wake reassuring him that it was ok...even locked him out one night he could not get in I explained to him it was our room and not his room our bed not his and took him back to his bed, he was whinning asking why the door was locked!LOL this took us about a whole two months now and he only stopped these past few weeks sleeping through the night and not coming to our room, so consistency! Stop sleeping with her in the guest room it is not helping even with your sleep so why do it? You are still losing sleep and it will get worse as your pregnacy progresses, so give her a favorite sleep toy promise her something she will really like in the morning like my son likes pancakes, so I told him pancakes only if you sleep in your own bed and stuff like that but he is older and can understand that concept...so just stop the unwanted behavior, if you don't want her in the bed with you don't do it. It really is that simple but you still have to put in the work, by putting her back in her own bed soon she will be too tired to wake up and get out of bed!and knows you will just take her back anyway...

MAMALYN

H.,

a bit late, I know but I did through all the posts and did not find our exerience: My first son's sleeping problems got so much better when we took of the front of his crib (we had one of those crib-toddlerbed-full size beds)and he could get in and out by himself. Sounds crazy but his new freedom made him easier to deal with. It also could be the location of his bed. I believe in spiritual things at times and we just experienced it by flip-flopping our son's rooms and the result is amazing. If you don't want to invest in a consultation from a feng shui professional you could just change around the furniture and see what that does.

And you will maybe find out that is also has to do with the fact that you are inconsistent, after all he is the first and we try to do the best but we are lacking experience. I was so much more consitent with # 2 and sleeing issues did not really pop up anymore. But eg #2 had to cry himself to sleep between 1-10 min each night. Probably I would have never left #1 crying in his cib and hence the sleep problems we had (going to sleep as well as coming to our bed at night until about the time #2 was born and that was when he was 4.5 years old).

Good luck with you two kids!

Just wanted to share that my daughter did the same and there was nothing we could do, it just stopped at one point. No big help, just wanted to share your sleepless pain:)Especially when you are pregnant it is so hard. I hope she will sleep soon again.
My first daughter did not sleep through the night until she was 18 months!!!!! And the second is now waking up screaming every hour. And I have one more on the way, so sleep is gold and something to look forward to :) I have no idea when but I am hopeful:)

If she's still in her crib, you can get a Cozy Crib Tent. It's about $70 from One Step Ahead, but I got our on e-bay for about half price.

Since you have had some major transitions lately, I would go slowly with things. Get her bed and let her pick out bed linens and then put the bed together. Talk about the bed during the day and say,"Where is your bed?" Get her to associate that the toddler bed is her bed, but don't make her sleep in it right away unless she wants to, otherwise just talk about it for a few weeks and then do it. Also, do the same thing with her room if you are going to move her out of your room. I would break it into two steps: get her to sleep in her bed in your room and then move her bed into her room.

Make sure she is really awake when she wakes up before you go to her. My son (2 years old in a crib in our room) sometimes cries out in his sleep but I don't go over to him unless he stands up and he usually goes back to sleep.

Bedtime routine is important, maybe add music as the last step. The Putamayo Kids Dreamland CD is awesome. We call it my son's "sleepy songs" and he asks for it to be played as soon as we get into the room to go to bed.

Get her to fall asleep in her bed or playpen instead of your bed. Make sure she is tired (don't put her to bed too early) and do the routine where you spend time with her being in her sleep space.

If she wakes in the night, put her back in her bed.

The other thing you could do is just co-sleep and everyone stay in your bed all night. You probably don't want to do this with the new baby coming, though.

We co-slept with our son until he was about 20 months old. It was great until just before 18 months when he started moving around a lot and kicking his dad in the head. He was also still nursing to sleep, which worked great until he kept waking up when I tried to pop him off. We were in the middle of an international move and living in a hotel so it was definitely not the time to try a crib or separate bed, but I did transition him away from nursing to sleep and we developed another routine where he would nurse and then I would sing to him. As soon as we got into our apartment and our stuff arrived, we put his crib together (in our room) and started referring to it as his bed. We talked about it for a few weeks or maybe even a month before we tried to get him to sleep in it. The first night we tried to get him to sleep in his crib, he slept in it all night long with no problems and he had never slept anywhere but in our bed before.

There is a room with his clothes and diapers that is also filled with our exercise equipment that we refer to as "his room". Every time he needs a diaper change or change of clothes I say,"Go to your room". We are laying the groundwork for him to be in his own room. We aren't moving him yet, though because the apartment is huge and the other bedrooms are too far away and in use for other things. Also, I am pregnant and we are going back to the States for probably 5 months so I can have the baby and he will not have his own room there so I don't want to make the change until we can make it permanent. I will probably do it after we get back from the States, but in the same slow way that we got him in his own bed.

You have plenty of time before March to make the transition slowly. If you try to rush, it will probably fail and take more time in the long run. Just be patient and consistent and things will work out eventually!

We had the same problem with our 2 yr old daughter over the summer time. What I found helps is stick to the same bed time routine. Same time, same order events. Pj's on brush teeth, bedtime story then kisses good nigt or whatever. Then like clockwork as soon as we left the room she would come out of her bed. We would tell her she needed to go lay down in her bed and we would put her back in bed and tell her good night. Sometimes this went on for 2-3 hrs sometimes it only took twice before she was asleep. Consistency is the key though it will get worse before it gets better but be consistent. I hope this helps.

I so feel your pain!!! My two year old just started doing the same thing and we've now got it under control. This is all we did. We'd put him in his bed and would say goodnight and then i'd go sit outside his door. He'd get out of bed and try to sneak out and i'd grab him and put him back in bed and say good night. We've done this up to 14 times. Try to keep patience...I know it's hard! It took about a week of putting him back into bed but then they figure it out and give up trying to sneak out. I hope this helps you out and congrats on your pregnancy!