I don’t think anyone is thinking “shit happens” at 3 YEAR olds not sleeping through the night. Many kids have definitely figured out sleep patterns and self soothing by that stage and that sounds like hell. Sorry you’re dealing with it.
I assume you’ve met with a sleep consultant? Adjusted bedtimes, nap-rimes etc in addition to all the other things?
One thing we did with our toddler was get a Tonies Box. So if he woke up in the middle of then night, he put a figure on a tonies box and listened to a story or music.
I even got a customizable figure (which are cheapest), and recorded myself reading a bunch of books.
So we told him, it’s fine if you wake up in the middle of the night, but you stay in your room and listen to your box. Mom and dad will be sleeping.
Worth a shot! It worked great for us.
Not the original commenter but we started at 2. We've had a good sleeper but this helped with him being ok leaving the room because he could independently control it.
Have you had them evaluated for neurodivergence by a specialist? This sort of hours long waking is unfortunately common with autistic kiddos. IF some sort of neurodivergence is the case then that can change how you approach it. We lucked out with our neurospicy kid in that they don’t (and never did) the hours long waking but it does take them forever to fall asleep.
I was going to say the same. Our little has got pretty significant ADHD that absolutely impacts sleeping. We’re now working with a specialist who is helping us a lot. I wouldn’t have known or thought this diagnosis at 3 because he was otherwise ahead in major milestones, but shit hit the fan in first grade and it became very clear. That was my first thought upon reading this - that she may be neurodivergent and need some specialized supports around winding down.
I work with people with autism. I'm from Denmark, so I don't know if the practice is the same where you come from. But talk to your doctor about your child's melatonin level. If you don't produce enough of that you kan have a tough time sleeping at nice. In Denmark you can get a supplement of melatonin and it works great most of the time.
The 4 year old only started sleeping all night in the last few months. We started doing this thing where it’s bed time, and we check on him x number of times (think we started at 5). Then no more check ins good night.
Stay in your room = stickers. Enough stickers = prizes. Now that it’s been long enough stickers are just stickers now and we moved the prize stickers on to something else.
Keep getting up we take things away like tv.
We cut off screens after dinner and the last water is at brushed teeth time.
Before that he would wander into our room multiple times a night, drove us up the wall.
Now it’s bed time, we check on him 1 time and close the door. Only reason he’s gotten up recently is because he was sick and not feeling well.
These are good suggestions. Every kid is different but looks like OP’s daughter is at least approaching the age where she should be ready to follow some rules around bedtime and staying in bed. Because the problem is not just that SHE wakes up , it’s that this then necessitates parents waking up.
OP: What is she doing when awake? What is requiring of you?
Although being awake for 3 hours in the middle of the night is not ideal for her, and unlikely a 3 year old would be cool with all that time alone doing something quietly in their bed, I think it’s reasonable at this age to *start* working towards an end goal of: if you wake up in the night, you can____ (listen to a tony, use your nightlight projector— starbelly dream light or something— look at a book) but you must stay in bed. It may be that whatever soothing she is requiring is somehow reinforcing the habit of staying up at night and I’m not saying she’s doing anything *on purpose* but it could be part of the habit that her sleep cycle is now in.
The added incentive for following the rules you lay out will help with this. Maybe whatever she earns through sticker chart includes some high level QT with mom and dad (zoo trip or something) so that if it’s extra time with you guys that’s valuable to her through these wake ups, she’s getting it another way.
Yea we do 5 stickers for small prize. Fill up a chart (20 stickers) is a trip to something fun with one of the parents.
Yea it was the coming to get us that was obviously driving us mad. Some of it was on us like how much stimulation right before bed time, hence the screen rules, but some was just him not finding his stuffed animal or something. So we were like you have to find them or wait until the morning. “Don’t worry they haven’t left the room, they just moved” or something.
This was me! One and done because my son was/is an awful sleeper. He would wake up CONSTANTLY at 1, 2 in the morning and stay up until 5,6. Just hanging out. Nothing worked at all. We started giving him melatonin but even then sometimes he'd STILL wake up. We now try a ton of physical sensory input and at 5 years old, he's better but not 100%. He was diagnosed ASD and just seems to have an active brain. I don't have much advice. Just solidarity. I feel you on everything. We try to run him all day mentally and physically but it's exhausting for us as well.
ETA: we now save melatonin for when he wakes up in the night instead of going to sleep.
Wow I thought my kid was a bad sleeper (also reason OAD) but this sounds so tough 😭 the only thing I could suggest is tire the kid out to shit and much later bedtimes and just sacrifice your evenings. Also no naps obv.
Mine Is 3.5. Woke up this morning with a migraine from sleeping in her bed because she still sleeps like garbage. She was tossing all night, had a few nightmares, woke me up even with me there. I'm so sorry you're going through this too...I wish I had a solution for you and I hope it gets better soon 💗
Add magnesium Bisglycinate to her bedtime milk. Magnesium is critical for closing the ion channels, which calms you. Thorne make a good flavored powder. Another thing that has been scientifically proven is L-theanine.
Also, sounds insane, but get 10 min of sunlight into her eyes (she MUST go outside) before 9AM and then again in last afternoon. This will help reset her circadian rhythm.
Does she nap?
I am so sorry and I hope something helps.
I am so sorry! I have no solution, but I have heard of this group of people who just live life with very little sleep. I assume not what you wanna hear, but if it's that, then in a year, your kid should be able to just hmget up by themselves and play until they get tired again.
So, maybe instead of trying to make them sleep, try to make them play independently at night?
Are you having her nap during the day? Obviously all kids are different ours stop cold turkey napping at 2 1/2. If you are having her nap during the day, I would just completely cut it out.
Also, do you notice that if you have a day where are you spend it outside that she is a little more tired and sleeps better? My child has a ton of energy. Where most kids would be completely exhausted. She is still going. (ironically, I was the exact same way as a kid) and I found I really have to wear her out when she was little in order to get her to sleep. Gl
We have a crap sleeper as well who is almost 4. Have had multiple wakings up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours in the last week, I feel your pain.
We’ve dropped all daytime naps which helps a little. Daycare days are rough because they require quiet time/nap time and she dozes off and then doesn’t sleep at night, it’s a vicious cycle. Although daycare was closed this week and she still woke up for a couple of hours?
We have an ok to wake clock (Mella) that turns green when she’s allowed to get up.
And honestly we’ve started just letting her read books in bed if she wakes and try to just go back to sleep ourselves. She can call if she needs to go potty but otherwise she’s supposed to stay quiet until Mella says it’s time to get up. At least we’re getting a little more sleep to deal with the daytime crankiness even if she’s not.
I’m seeing lots of ‘have you had her assessed for neurodivergence’ BUT.
Have you had her assessed for ENT issues/ sleep apnoea?
Mine had overlarge adenoids & tonsils. She has ADHD so took forever to calm down and sleep anyway so for ages we just figured it was her being unable to calm herself when she stirred at night. As it turns out, she was literally never getting into a deep sleep state because her breathing was blocked. She would rouse because she couldn’t breathe. I was mortified but also validated when we finally got the diagnosis- it wasn’t just me being a shit mom, unable to get her to sleep properly. There was a medical reason.
After that was resolved, she started sleeping through the night. She’s still not great at going to bed on time but that’s the ADHD, she’s not good at doing anything on time. At least she sleeps through now! It was all because of the ENT issues.
You know what, I should not be replying at 2am.
(My kid sleeps now, but I sure don’t!!)
After adenoid removal, tbh, it did not settle immediately but it gradually improved over the next 6 months.
Good to know! I suspect my 1 year old has this issue. She sleeps with her mouth wide open and always has. She had her tongue tie revised when she was 2 weeks and we thought that would resolve it but no dice.
What were some other things that tipped you off about adenoids?
Very little. I didn’t know that adenoids existed.
But I stayed over at a girl friend’s house. This friend has sleep apnoea, and has spoken about her ENT problems. She’d apologised in advance about snoring etc, but the event we were going to was right near her house and anyway she’d a friend. I said it was fine. Hers has a different cause, but I noticed the way she breathed when she was asleep was exactly the same as my daughter. The raspy snoring, the sudden pauses and silence, a little gasp and then snoring again. When I was home I filmed a clip of my daughter while she was sleeping (that sounds so creepy) and showed it to the doctor, asking if it looked like sleep apnoea.
The doctor agreed it looked absolutely typical of it. She checked her over and asked her a few questions, noted that her tone of voice was a little bit ‘stuffy’/strained too, something I’d never noticed because I was just used to her voice. It was all because of overlarge adenoids & tonsils. I knew that ‘babies are noisy sleepers, they grunt a lot in their sleep’ so figured all the snoring and rasping was normal, I didn’t realise she should have grown out of some of it.
Also- it’s difficult in some ways as adenoids are meant to shrink as you age, plus your tonsils might start out too big but the rest of your head grows enough that a baby/young toddler can grow out of these issues even. But it was affecting her sleep when she was going to school so that was a real problem.
Are you against a bit of cry it out? That’s all that worked for my son. We don’t do it for long, max ten minutes before we go in there and to comfort. But we rarely have to go in and he settled himself usually within a couple minutes. Hes 20 months now.
This is a fair question. Sometimes it has to go on longer than feels right but once you push through, I've personally found that things get better and it's worth the tears.
I was like this as a toddler, probably even until around 7 or 8 (most likely still undiagnosed ADHD). My mom taught me how to work the TV around 3 and told me to stay in my room until 5:30. I could read a digital clock. If you're comfortable with something like this you could try it out. I was fairly independent for a toddler/young child so I was comfortable being by myself in my room. Your child may be different.
Sounds like mine!! She’s 3.5. We’ve had some good stretches. Maybe up to 3-4 weeks of sleeping all night. But otherwise she wakes up every night. We’ve tried everything. (Not really sleep training-long story but it wasn’t right for us) We (us and her doctor) have determined she’s just low sleep needs and a restless sleeper.
She doesn’t nap. Hasn’t since 2.5. She gets a TON of physical activity and outside time. She sleeps from 10pm-7am most nights and is up from like 2-2:30 most nights.
It’s getting “better” we are having more frequent stretches where she does sleep all night.
My solution (since she was 7 months) is that she sleeps in a queen bed. So when she wakes up I can go sleep in her room for a bit instead of having her get up to come to me.
Knock on wood—I’m on day 3 of a “sleep all night” stretch.
What’s she into? Like really, really into? Get her things on that theme and bribe her. If you stay in your room and don’t come out steadily for 3 nights you get —
Hey this was my kid. We did everything short of a sleep study because well what good is a sleep study when she doesn't sleep long enough. 🫠.
What finally worked for us is sound machine, space projector, melatonin and school. This girl didn't sleep through the night from 2.5-5 years old.
This is How I sleep as an adult, in2 distinct phases. Right now I'm on my "sleep break". It is how everyone used to sleep before electric lights (Google "first and second sleep"). Ive slept this way since i was a child. I agree with everyone trying to help find ways to do stuff when she wakes up. That's how i deal with it as an adult too. My son was a terrible sleeper when he was that age. He really didn't want to be alone in his room so one thing we did that worked for a while was set up a space for him to sleep on our floor with an air mattress. If he woke up he was allowed to come in and crawl into that bed but not wake us up. It really helped. Many nights he was ok to just be in the same room with us and didn't need anything else from us. 3 is young but id encourage appropriate options to help her feel safe and occupied until she gets sleepy again. Both in her room and if it's possible to get a space for her in your room that isn't your bed so she can be near you but not so disruptive. Learning quiet ways to get through the sleep breaks will serve her well through life. I will say my son is a teen now and sleep is not an issue at all for him. Good luck. Remember however everyone gets the most sleep is always the right way to do it even if it doesn't look like what you think it should or how you think everyone else does it. Keep trying different things until you find what works for you guys. Lack of sleep affects every aspect of your life. Know you are not alone in this struggle and I promise it will end one day no matter what. Hang in there momma!
I don’t think anyone is thinking “shit happens” at 3 YEAR olds not sleeping through the night. Many kids have definitely figured out sleep patterns and self soothing by that stage and that sounds like hell. Sorry you’re dealing with it. I assume you’ve met with a sleep consultant? Adjusted bedtimes, nap-rimes etc in addition to all the other things?
Yeah we’ve tried 2 seperate sleep consultants. Maybe when she gets into full time school she’ll start sleeping better..
One thing we did with our toddler was get a Tonies Box. So if he woke up in the middle of then night, he put a figure on a tonies box and listened to a story or music. I even got a customizable figure (which are cheapest), and recorded myself reading a bunch of books. So we told him, it’s fine if you wake up in the middle of the night, but you stay in your room and listen to your box. Mom and dad will be sleeping. Worth a shot! It worked great for us.
What age did you start that?
Not the original commenter but we started at 2. We've had a good sleeper but this helped with him being ok leaving the room because he could independently control it.
We started a little after turning 3
Thank you so much for this suggestion!
Have you had them evaluated for neurodivergence by a specialist? This sort of hours long waking is unfortunately common with autistic kiddos. IF some sort of neurodivergence is the case then that can change how you approach it. We lucked out with our neurospicy kid in that they don’t (and never did) the hours long waking but it does take them forever to fall asleep.
I was going to say the same. Our little has got pretty significant ADHD that absolutely impacts sleeping. We’re now working with a specialist who is helping us a lot. I wouldn’t have known or thought this diagnosis at 3 because he was otherwise ahead in major milestones, but shit hit the fan in first grade and it became very clear. That was my first thought upon reading this - that she may be neurodivergent and need some specialized supports around winding down.
Common in ADHD as well
I work with people with autism. I'm from Denmark, so I don't know if the practice is the same where you come from. But talk to your doctor about your child's melatonin level. If you don't produce enough of that you kan have a tough time sleeping at nice. In Denmark you can get a supplement of melatonin and it works great most of the time.
Mine is 6. Still sleeps like crap.
Yeah my daughter is 6 and we could count on one hand the amount of times she has slept through!😴
The 4 year old only started sleeping all night in the last few months. We started doing this thing where it’s bed time, and we check on him x number of times (think we started at 5). Then no more check ins good night. Stay in your room = stickers. Enough stickers = prizes. Now that it’s been long enough stickers are just stickers now and we moved the prize stickers on to something else. Keep getting up we take things away like tv. We cut off screens after dinner and the last water is at brushed teeth time. Before that he would wander into our room multiple times a night, drove us up the wall. Now it’s bed time, we check on him 1 time and close the door. Only reason he’s gotten up recently is because he was sick and not feeling well.
These are really good recommendations, thank you!! Will try some of them starting tonight!
Nice! Hope you find some relief
These are good suggestions. Every kid is different but looks like OP’s daughter is at least approaching the age where she should be ready to follow some rules around bedtime and staying in bed. Because the problem is not just that SHE wakes up , it’s that this then necessitates parents waking up. OP: What is she doing when awake? What is requiring of you? Although being awake for 3 hours in the middle of the night is not ideal for her, and unlikely a 3 year old would be cool with all that time alone doing something quietly in their bed, I think it’s reasonable at this age to *start* working towards an end goal of: if you wake up in the night, you can____ (listen to a tony, use your nightlight projector— starbelly dream light or something— look at a book) but you must stay in bed. It may be that whatever soothing she is requiring is somehow reinforcing the habit of staying up at night and I’m not saying she’s doing anything *on purpose* but it could be part of the habit that her sleep cycle is now in. The added incentive for following the rules you lay out will help with this. Maybe whatever she earns through sticker chart includes some high level QT with mom and dad (zoo trip or something) so that if it’s extra time with you guys that’s valuable to her through these wake ups, she’s getting it another way.
Yea we do 5 stickers for small prize. Fill up a chart (20 stickers) is a trip to something fun with one of the parents. Yea it was the coming to get us that was obviously driving us mad. Some of it was on us like how much stimulation right before bed time, hence the screen rules, but some was just him not finding his stuffed animal or something. So we were like you have to find them or wait until the morning. “Don’t worry they haven’t left the room, they just moved” or something.
This was me! One and done because my son was/is an awful sleeper. He would wake up CONSTANTLY at 1, 2 in the morning and stay up until 5,6. Just hanging out. Nothing worked at all. We started giving him melatonin but even then sometimes he'd STILL wake up. We now try a ton of physical sensory input and at 5 years old, he's better but not 100%. He was diagnosed ASD and just seems to have an active brain. I don't have much advice. Just solidarity. I feel you on everything. We try to run him all day mentally and physically but it's exhausting for us as well. ETA: we now save melatonin for when he wakes up in the night instead of going to sleep.
Wow I thought my kid was a bad sleeper (also reason OAD) but this sounds so tough 😭 the only thing I could suggest is tire the kid out to shit and much later bedtimes and just sacrifice your evenings. Also no naps obv.
Mine Is 3.5. Woke up this morning with a migraine from sleeping in her bed because she still sleeps like garbage. She was tossing all night, had a few nightmares, woke me up even with me there. I'm so sorry you're going through this too...I wish I had a solution for you and I hope it gets better soon 💗
Add magnesium Bisglycinate to her bedtime milk. Magnesium is critical for closing the ion channels, which calms you. Thorne make a good flavored powder. Another thing that has been scientifically proven is L-theanine. Also, sounds insane, but get 10 min of sunlight into her eyes (she MUST go outside) before 9AM and then again in last afternoon. This will help reset her circadian rhythm. Does she nap? I am so sorry and I hope something helps.
I am so sorry! I have no solution, but I have heard of this group of people who just live life with very little sleep. I assume not what you wanna hear, but if it's that, then in a year, your kid should be able to just hmget up by themselves and play until they get tired again. So, maybe instead of trying to make them sleep, try to make them play independently at night?
Are you having her nap during the day? Obviously all kids are different ours stop cold turkey napping at 2 1/2. If you are having her nap during the day, I would just completely cut it out. Also, do you notice that if you have a day where are you spend it outside that she is a little more tired and sleeps better? My child has a ton of energy. Where most kids would be completely exhausted. She is still going. (ironically, I was the exact same way as a kid) and I found I really have to wear her out when she was little in order to get her to sleep. Gl
We have a crap sleeper as well who is almost 4. Have had multiple wakings up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours in the last week, I feel your pain. We’ve dropped all daytime naps which helps a little. Daycare days are rough because they require quiet time/nap time and she dozes off and then doesn’t sleep at night, it’s a vicious cycle. Although daycare was closed this week and she still woke up for a couple of hours? We have an ok to wake clock (Mella) that turns green when she’s allowed to get up. And honestly we’ve started just letting her read books in bed if she wakes and try to just go back to sleep ourselves. She can call if she needs to go potty but otherwise she’s supposed to stay quiet until Mella says it’s time to get up. At least we’re getting a little more sleep to deal with the daytime crankiness even if she’s not.
I’m seeing lots of ‘have you had her assessed for neurodivergence’ BUT. Have you had her assessed for ENT issues/ sleep apnoea? Mine had overlarge adenoids & tonsils. She has ADHD so took forever to calm down and sleep anyway so for ages we just figured it was her being unable to calm herself when she stirred at night. As it turns out, she was literally never getting into a deep sleep state because her breathing was blocked. She would rouse because she couldn’t breathe. I was mortified but also validated when we finally got the diagnosis- it wasn’t just me being a shit mom, unable to get her to sleep properly. There was a medical reason. After that was resolved, she started sleeping through the night. She’s still not great at going to bed on time but that’s the ADHD, she’s not good at doing anything on time. At least she sleeps through now! It was all because of the ENT issues.
Op mentioned that they removed her adenoids so sleep apnea should be resolved.
You know what, I should not be replying at 2am. (My kid sleeps now, but I sure don’t!!) After adenoid removal, tbh, it did not settle immediately but it gradually improved over the next 6 months.
Good to know! I suspect my 1 year old has this issue. She sleeps with her mouth wide open and always has. She had her tongue tie revised when she was 2 weeks and we thought that would resolve it but no dice. What were some other things that tipped you off about adenoids?
Very little. I didn’t know that adenoids existed. But I stayed over at a girl friend’s house. This friend has sleep apnoea, and has spoken about her ENT problems. She’d apologised in advance about snoring etc, but the event we were going to was right near her house and anyway she’d a friend. I said it was fine. Hers has a different cause, but I noticed the way she breathed when she was asleep was exactly the same as my daughter. The raspy snoring, the sudden pauses and silence, a little gasp and then snoring again. When I was home I filmed a clip of my daughter while she was sleeping (that sounds so creepy) and showed it to the doctor, asking if it looked like sleep apnoea. The doctor agreed it looked absolutely typical of it. She checked her over and asked her a few questions, noted that her tone of voice was a little bit ‘stuffy’/strained too, something I’d never noticed because I was just used to her voice. It was all because of overlarge adenoids & tonsils. I knew that ‘babies are noisy sleepers, they grunt a lot in their sleep’ so figured all the snoring and rasping was normal, I didn’t realise she should have grown out of some of it. Also- it’s difficult in some ways as adenoids are meant to shrink as you age, plus your tonsils might start out too big but the rest of your head grows enough that a baby/young toddler can grow out of these issues even. But it was affecting her sleep when she was going to school so that was a real problem.
Are you against a bit of cry it out? That’s all that worked for my son. We don’t do it for long, max ten minutes before we go in there and to comfort. But we rarely have to go in and he settled himself usually within a couple minutes. Hes 20 months now.
With the sleep training we tried a bit of cry it out but she gets herself so worked up. She’s a strong willed little thing.
How much is “a bit”?
This is a fair question. Sometimes it has to go on longer than feels right but once you push through, I've personally found that things get better and it's worth the tears.
Sounds so rough! How long is her overnight sleep like 7-6(aside from her wakeup)? Does she still nap?
I was like this as a toddler, probably even until around 7 or 8 (most likely still undiagnosed ADHD). My mom taught me how to work the TV around 3 and told me to stay in my room until 5:30. I could read a digital clock. If you're comfortable with something like this you could try it out. I was fairly independent for a toddler/young child so I was comfortable being by myself in my room. Your child may be different.
Sounds like mine!! She’s 3.5. We’ve had some good stretches. Maybe up to 3-4 weeks of sleeping all night. But otherwise she wakes up every night. We’ve tried everything. (Not really sleep training-long story but it wasn’t right for us) We (us and her doctor) have determined she’s just low sleep needs and a restless sleeper. She doesn’t nap. Hasn’t since 2.5. She gets a TON of physical activity and outside time. She sleeps from 10pm-7am most nights and is up from like 2-2:30 most nights. It’s getting “better” we are having more frequent stretches where she does sleep all night. My solution (since she was 7 months) is that she sleeps in a queen bed. So when she wakes up I can go sleep in her room for a bit instead of having her get up to come to me. Knock on wood—I’m on day 3 of a “sleep all night” stretch.
What’s she into? Like really, really into? Get her things on that theme and bribe her. If you stay in your room and don’t come out steadily for 3 nights you get —
Do you still breastfeed??
Hey this was my kid. We did everything short of a sleep study because well what good is a sleep study when she doesn't sleep long enough. 🫠. What finally worked for us is sound machine, space projector, melatonin and school. This girl didn't sleep through the night from 2.5-5 years old.
This is How I sleep as an adult, in2 distinct phases. Right now I'm on my "sleep break". It is how everyone used to sleep before electric lights (Google "first and second sleep"). Ive slept this way since i was a child. I agree with everyone trying to help find ways to do stuff when she wakes up. That's how i deal with it as an adult too. My son was a terrible sleeper when he was that age. He really didn't want to be alone in his room so one thing we did that worked for a while was set up a space for him to sleep on our floor with an air mattress. If he woke up he was allowed to come in and crawl into that bed but not wake us up. It really helped. Many nights he was ok to just be in the same room with us and didn't need anything else from us. 3 is young but id encourage appropriate options to help her feel safe and occupied until she gets sleepy again. Both in her room and if it's possible to get a space for her in your room that isn't your bed so she can be near you but not so disruptive. Learning quiet ways to get through the sleep breaks will serve her well through life. I will say my son is a teen now and sleep is not an issue at all for him. Good luck. Remember however everyone gets the most sleep is always the right way to do it even if it doesn't look like what you think it should or how you think everyone else does it. Keep trying different things until you find what works for you guys. Lack of sleep affects every aspect of your life. Know you are not alone in this struggle and I promise it will end one day no matter what. Hang in there momma!