Since we have been on the topics of toddlers lately...our 2 year old (3 in March) has started waking up in the middle of the night and we are having a difficult time 1. getting her to stay in her bed and 2. getting her back to sleep. HELP!!! Our 5 week old is up during the times the 2 year old is not and lack of sleep is starting to get to me.

One night when she woke up at 2 am she wanted to watch a movie and was "hungry for pizza".

Sounds like a smart cookie, she knows how to get undivided attention. Did she start this after the arrival of the new baby? You're going to have to make sure there isn't a payoff for her when she wakes. Be stern, not nasty and firmly put her back in bed. (And hope she stays there).

We have been stern with her...although lately we have let her sleep on the floor of her room or on the couch. She was doing this occassionally prior to the baby...she says she is having bad dreams so I am not sure what is going on (she is screaming when she wakes up). She has always been somewhat difficult to get to bed, but this seems to be getting out of hand.

First of all, if she's not sleeping through the night, is she napping during the day? Cut out the naps if she is and she will be more likely to sleep through the night.

Secondly, many small children have bad dreams, it's just part of being a kid. Comfort her, put her to bed, and get some sleep.

Wow! My daughter will be 3 in May & we are going through the same thing with her right now! She gets up once or twice during the night with either a weird dream or wanting to climb in our bed. Last night she got up at 4:30 & said "I wake up now mom". It took some sweet talking but I got her to stay in her bed & she eventually fell asleep but then of course I couldn't get her up in the morning because she was tired! We are also suddenly having bedwetting problems. The lack of sleep is getting to us as well. I am told it's just a stage.

I too am experiencing the same problems. I have an almost 3 year old that wakes up in the middle of the night crying, wanting something to eat/drink. She has never been a good sleeper. I also have a 4 month old, and although the baby is a better sleeper, most nights I am up with one of them..lack of sleep is getting to me to. I think that my older child has nightmares.

My 3 year old goes through that off and on and it almost always goes along with an 'eating' stage we call it. He eats everything and anything he can find. He is underweight as he has asthma and is on 3 daily medications so he doesn't really gain well. We just encourage healthy foods and wait for it to end. The doctor says it is the same as all children, boys worse that girls, and they are growth spurts. The children are up and dreaming at night because their bodies hurt from the growth. My doctor swears it's true even though it sounds funny to me!

I'm sorry I don't have any answers for you. We are having a similar problem with our '14-month-old'. She has just started waking-up crying for her mom in the middle of the night, and the only thing that seems to satisfy her is bringing her to bed with us. We really don't want to start this routine, but don't know what else to do. We let her go for nearly two hours the other night, but she wouldn't stop. I hope it's just a phase. We have been spoiled up until now, as she nearly always sleeps through the night in her own crib.

By the looks of all the responses, this is a pretty common problem.

Wow...I guess we just need to muster the energy to get through this and hope it passes. SOON! Our 4 year old has gone through this before and it appeared to be growth spurts, but not to this extent. Thanks everyone!!!

Hang in there. It changes later on. And when they are grown, it gets reversed. My sister in law and I were staying at my daughter's apartment in NYC. We THOUGHT we were being quiet, chatting in the living room. She came out and said we had to be quiet and go to bed, that it was late and we were keeping her and her roommate up!

That is funny Kaybee.

I was watching NBC nightly news tonight and they had a story on exactly this...how odd. I guess there will be an article in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow if anyone has access to it.

My sister in law and I still crack up about how stern she was!

When she was a baby, because of some digestive problems caused by allergies (until they were finally diagnosed) she was pretty colicky. I actually held her and rocked her for a few hours every night. I read Lord of the Rings during that time as well as all the Agatha Christi mysteries.

The article is in today's WSJ. Interesting - people are paying consultants big bucks for help with this.

Once I got my daughter where we were over the stomach problems, I did use the white noise thing. I would sometimes play very quiet soothing music in her room, and then started running an air cleaner - that seemed to block out noises from outside that disturbed her.

We also didn't give her sugary things in the evening even when she was a few years old - that seemed to set her off and she would be bouncing around for hours.

I think the white noise thing works, too. My son always wants his ceiling fan on, even in the winter. I guess the "whirr-whirr" sound drowns anything else he can hear.

Kiwi:

1. Talk to your pediatrician.

2. Look for some good books on the subject. There are entire books on this subject being purchased by sleep deprived parents.

3. Do you have a comforting bedtime routine? Does the child have some sort of comfort item to sleep with? One thing that worked with us is to let our 2 year old sleep on the trundle bed in his sisters room. It is not foolproof--for example, he was in bed with us when I woke up this morning. However, for the most part he has been sleeping later and not getting up in the middle of the night. I think it comforts him to have someone in bed with him.

4. As an infant, did you go comfort him everytime he cried or did you let him learn how to go back to sleep by himself? If you went to him each time, you probably did not train him to go back to sleep without you (if you are like my wife, you just could not stand to hear the li'l darling crying in the night--so you went for the quick fixed and fixed yourself for many sleepless nights). If this is the problem, go buy one of those large clocks that have digital numbers--they are for people with sight problems I believe. Choose a time that it is ok for him to get out of bed--then write that number on a large piece of paper or even a poster board. Put the number next to the clock. Put a piece of paper over all of the numbers except the hour. Put a gate in his doorway so he cannot get out of the room. Tell your son that until the number on this paper matches the number on the clock, he is not to get out of bed. Tell him what reward he will get if he makes it all night--maybe even put a picture of it on the poster board as a reminder. You can tell him what the exceptions are, but be careful--if he is as smart as my kids (which I'm sure he is), he'll tell you that he had a nightmare or his daiper leaked even when he did not. You can usually tell by the intensity of the crying whether it truly is fear. Anyway, you will hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth the first few nights that he is "locked" in his room, but after a few nights, he will learn that it is not OK to get up until the numbers match. Even very young children can get the knack of this. You may even have to make this a discipline matter--taking something away from him when he disobeys the rule and rewarding him when he makes it all night.

Not to discourage you, but I have tried all of the above suggestions. My son is 9 and did not sleep through the night until Kindergarten! He still wakes during the night and often cannot fall back to sleep easily. Thankfully, he stays in his own bed, but he is often tired the next day. I have most recently bought some lavendar bath soap to relax him before bed time. I also found it helps to turn off the television around 7:30pm, then have him bathe, then allow him 30 minutes of reading time. All of this has helped, but he still often wakes during the night.

We have tried everything that Z mentioned. Although I am going to watch her diet a little closer and see if there is something that is triggering it. IF we can get her to bed by 8pm there is less likelihood of her waking up. We read a book back when she was little and nothing was new to us in there as we were already doing most of it due to her sister. We do have a nightly routine that includes a bath and books or singing before bed. We do have white noise going in the room and have even tried the radio. So, I guess we will just have to try a few other tricks and then see if anything works. Thanks again for everyone's input.

Here's a slightly different twist...My son who is now five did not want to sleep alone because he was scared and saw monsters etc. I tried to pass it off that all kids go through this. However we have come to believe that children are much more alert to the world around them and whether or not he did see things I don't know. After talking with some other parents we made a few changes and the being scared or waking up screaming has stopped. We always pray for him and his sister out load asking for protection of their minds while they are sleeping and ask that they have good "Jesus Dreams". We also bought him a CD player and left him fall asleep to Worship Music. He hasn't had any nightmares since we began.

My kids were cured of "Monster Dreams" when they saw Monsters Inc. and discovered that the monsters in their closet were more scared of them and were good people who just looked funny!

Z, we haven't tried everything at once, this has been going on for some time and have tried bits and pieces and waited before trying a new technique. The bathtime ritual was started when she was an infant. I was trying to get additional ideas to try that we haven't tried before in the last 2 years to see if there is something else that might work for her. She is one that needs to have options in order for things to run smoothly. She also usually responds well to letting her know what she needs to do.

I have thought about trying the clock idea, but I am a little worried she is too young for this, but then again maybe she isn't.

Our Pediatrician had us get a spray bottle of "Special Monster Repellent" (aka. water) that our son could spray around his room before he went to bed. It sounds crazy, but it really helped the "monster" stage.

Z -- FYI -- the monster at the end of this book, volume 1, was cookie monster. Great book... -- About 25 years old.

Best advice I can give you is to remember that this is, as my grandmother taught me, a "little kid, little problem" and will resolve itself. If your child senses that this gets to you, it becomes all the harder to end.

The rest of my grandmother's lesson was "big kid, big problem". Unfortunately, she was right on both counts. Believe me, someday you'll look back on this longingly wishing that this was the biggest problem you had with your deal with with your child!