Toddler Sleep Issues - Saint Louis,MO

We are going through the exact same stage at the moment. Went through it with the older one too. It is stage that they all go through and he will grow out of it. With my oldest, I realized that certain movies sometimes triggered it. Even movies that she had seen a hundred times without any problems all of a sudden became a problem at this age. I am also not a fan of having the kids come into bed with us. No one sleeps when they do. However, I find that moving them to a different place to sleep really does help. When mine wake up crying like this, I ask them if they want to sleep on the couch or recliner and usually they will go right back to sleep once they are moved and sleep fine the rest of the night. I think they like the recliner better because it kind of raps around them and makes them feel like someone is holding them. We ALWAYS go to bed in our beds but when the wake up with bad dreams, moving them really does help them sleep better.

I wish I had advice for you and I will be anxious to hear what other have to say. I too have a 2 yr old boy who will be 3 in January and we have been battling the same thing for a while now. He goes to bed just fine every night and then wakes up multiple times. We too were told it was probably night terrors, but he has gone from waking up screaming to waking up and just crawling in our bed and holding on to one of us and he will finally go back to sleep. If we try to take him back to his bed it is a major breakdown. I think part of it is habit, but he seems to be scared of his bed once he wakes up in the night. Last night he told me over and over again that his bed was scary. Yet he falls asleep in it just fine. We even leave the light dimmed for him in the night. I don't know what else to do. Some nights just to get some sleep I just let him stay in our bed when he comes in. I know in the long run that is not helping but sometimes I just need to sleep. I took him back to his bed last night and he would not sleep if I was not in the room. He fell asleep ON me. I hope it is a phase that passes.....we also have a 10 month old that does not sleep all night so we are a pretty tired mommy and daddy most of the time!

S., i guess i will be the dissenting voice here, it seems a lot of moms are advocating cosleeping, but if you would rather not do that, i will tell you my experience...my son just turned 3 and it seemed a switch was flipped, he turned from a sweet, lovable, biddable, cream puff into a hormonal teenager overnight lol...we are working on discipline issues BIG time right now. and with this he has turned from a 99% of the time GREAT sleeper, to about 50-75% of the time. i am not complaining! but there for a few nights it seemed he was having real trouble. one night i even posted on here about how am i supposed to know the difference between him playing me about sleep, or something being really wrong, because he cried for 2 1/2 hours. turns out nothing was wrong at all. i have come to the conclusion, in my situation (can't speak for others!) that i have a very smart, strong-willed, STUBBORN child, who is reaching out and testing his independance and his power. i decided it was time to put my foot down. like i said we are dealing with discipline issues, and i have now stopped going into his room when he fusses/cries. at least waiting a lot longer. and you know what, after a few minutes he stops. i got so used to him, in the first 3 years of his life, sleeping like such a champ, that i didn't realize what was going on. now after a few minutes of fussing he goes right back to sleep. i like to think of this as a battle won. and yes i still hear him in there 2-4 times a night, fussing around. i think it's due to dreams, and maybe a growth spurt...but the point is he goes back to sleep on his own. thank the lord! anyway, this worked for us, i have no issues with co-sleeping except for myself, i shudder at the thought of an angry toddler refusing to sleep in their own bed, should i ever want mine back...and my son is just smart enough that he would pick up on that REAL quick. so he has never slept in my bed except when he was sick. hope this helps...i know i ramble, sorry! short and sweet - i put my foot down and quit catering to him, and it worked. he's doing much better on all levels now. good luck!

Hi S.,
My 2 almost 3 yr. old also has these night terrors. Usually when he has them one of us goes in his room to rub his back and whisper softly that it is ok. That usually works and he usually goes back to bed. However, I am still trying to figure out a pattern as to when he has them because he doesn't have them every night. I have talked to another mom that says her kids have them and she said that they figured out that their kids were having them when they get too tired so they fall into their REM sleep cycle too quickly. She said that now they just make sure that they have their kids in bed early enough at night, like around 8 or 8:30 and when they do that, they don't have the night terrors. Best wishes, I hope you can figure out how to help your son.

Hi S.~ I just posted a blog on this website about two weeks ago for this exact same thing with my 2 year old daughter. She was doing the same thing- waking up crying in the middle of the night. And i am a believer in letting her cry it out- but not when she is scared. I got so many helpful suggestions but this is what worked for me. She has a night light but i thought it might not be enough so i put a lamp in her room to give her a little more light- also- when she was a baby till about 1 year old- i always played a lullaby cd in her room and then one day the cd player broke and i just never replaced it- so i started playing the music again
I, too, like you- did not want her getting used to coming into my bed every night- but last week when my husband was working- he is a fireman so he works over night- i did give in and bring her in just cuz i was exhausted. But what i have done the past 4 or 5 nights has seemed to really help. When she has been waking up in the middle of the night- i go into her room- i do not pick her up or really even say anything to her at all-because like your son- sometimes i can tell she isn't really even fully awake- and i just go in and lay down next to her crib so she can see me. Once she can see me and knows i am in there laying on the floor beside her- she just goes back to sleep. I only have to lay there about 10 minutes or so-(sometimes like an hour because i fall asleep sometimes =) But she seemed to be waking up less frequently and last night she slept thru the entire night again! Yeah! So between making it lighter in there and doing that- for now- it seems to be helping. I got a lot of other suggestions for putting water in a spray bottle and spraying the "scary juice" around the room to keep the scary stuff out but she didn't seem to really understand that yet. Good luck- i know how frustrating this is- and how tired you get-especially if you have always had a good sleeper until this. Hopefully this or something else will work. Good luck!

I have had this ongoing issue with my 3.5 year-old son as well, and to a certain extent my 1.5 year-old daughter. I'm sure you will get a lot of great suggestions on helping him sleep better, but if none of those things work then try to keep in mind that there might not be anything wrong with him -- he might just be a light sleeper with a need to be near you at night. Children in many other cultures sleep in the same room or even the same bed as their parents, and these families would think it very strange that we put our children to sleep in a separate room! A lot of it is cultural norms and expectations, plus the desire for privacy with a partner or just the basic need to get a good night's sleep yourself without a squirming toddler in the bed. Our children often end up in bed with us; I've tried many methods to get them to sleep through the night on their own but I've given in to the fact that they aren't "sleep alone" kind of kids! Good luck and hope you both start getting better sleep, somehow or another.

S. -

I do not have suggestions for you but more wanted to let you know that you are not alone. My 26 month old has had periods of time where she slept through the night followed by times where she woke up several times at night. The best overall remedy I've found is to put her in bed with us. She sleeps soundly and if she wakes, often falls right back asleep because she can sense/feel/hear or smell her father and I. I've tried the going in and checking on her but after doing that several times a night, I'm exhausted!! I try to go in and get her back to sleep 1-2 times but anymore, I put her in bed with me. Also, depending on the time, I may just put her in bed with me. If it's after 3 am, I may just do that since we get up at 530. I'd rather us both get a solid 2.5 hours of sleep versus being up every 10 minutes. I also think she's having nightmares. When she woke last night she said "I want to watch cartoons but they are too scary!" Granted, I let her watch Monsters Versus Aliens: Halloween show (for 10 minutes) before I decided it was too scary for her. Just think that he's growing up and some day, he won't want you to rub his back or want to sleep with you (although I have a friend who's 8 year old still climbs into bed with her 1-2 nights a week). But I don't mind it, so it's a no brainer for me. If you are dead set on him sleeping in your bed at all, you are either going to have to get used to less sleep, plan on sleeping in his bed or if it's too small, sleep on the floor!!! I wish my daughter had a twin or bigger bed instead of a toddler one so I could lay with her and try and get her back to sleep sometimes!

I am a big fan of co-sleeping. We co-slept with our last 2 children. They are 19 and 9. The years fly by and before you know it they want to sleep by themselves, at least some of the time. I never know where my 9 year old will land at night. She's always slept well no matter where she goes out. When she was little and we wanted alone time, my husband would just carry her to the couch and she wouldn't even wake up. If we want to plan a night by ourselves we can do that. Kids are good about understanding this. We only have these kids for a few short years. When they are little and you haven't been through it once, the years seem to stretch out before you like an eternity. But looking back, it's just flown by. I miss my 25 year old as a baby and really can't bring up her toddler face anymore without the help of pictures. I don't remember what she was like as a tiny baby, not much anyway. I wish I had realized just how important every second is back then.

Dear S.:

Without knowing any history from birth, it is important that his room is pitch black with no tiny lights anywhere. This means no clock radios, vcr, or anything that can put out a light.

Windows must be closed and shaded unless the room is hot.

It would help if you update your request with the following:

When it started
Any crisis in the family since birth
tension in the family
medications for anything
stuffed animals in the room
and anything else you can think of.

S. L.

Hi S.!
My son was doing this for awhile. I had problems getting him to sleep as well though. I was more concerned with GETTING him to sleep to begin with. I'm finally able to with the help of a lava lamp and lullaby CD playing softly. He would still wake in the middle of the night for some time, but has since stopped. He'd still be asleep but crying like your son. He'd be fine after I told him it was okay and rubbed his back as well. I guess he just eventually outgrew it. We have been getting more quiet time before bed lately so maybe it puts him in a better state of mind before he drifts off. ?? You might try that with your son and see if that helps. A bath, soft lullabies and a few books before bed. Good luck!

All three of my boys did this when they were having a growth spurt. They would grow honestly an inch overnight. It was the growing pains that were waking them up. It would last a few weeks and then go back to normal until the next growth spurt. Just hang in there. It will pass.

Our son went through this about this age and it only lasted a few months. I think alot of 2 yo go through this. Just let him crawl in bed w/ you when he wakes up scared. It really doesn't last that long.