Torture- 3 year old waking us up and baby
Hi everyone, I have 3 under 4. So please could people be kind with their replies as I’m sleep deprived. My 3 month old sleeps in our room, 2 year old sleeps fine through the night in his bedroom but our 3.5 year old comes in our room several times throughout the night every night is different but ranges from 1am to 5am. We’ve allowed her to come into our bed and sleep but instead of sleeping she’s making noise and trying to play/ talk to us and wake up the baby. I love my children more than anything but I’m starting to get extremely frustrated with my child because the sleep deprivation is driving me insane. I cannot function and don’t know what to do. She’s a clever girl and understands things so it feels like she’s deliberately trying to be naughty now. She also opened her brothers door early this morning (the 2 year old) and woke him up. I spent an hour putting the baby to sleep around 5am and my daughter was making noise and woke her up straight away and I couldn’t help but get annoyed. My husband does also try to take her back into her room in the night but she either comes back after an hour or straight away. PLEASE HELP! I’m not even able to be a good mum to her because of this so we’re considering locking her bedroom door temporarily but I don’t want to cause her any harm or trauma but this is now becoming torture for us and we can’t cope with 3 under 4 like this. In desperate need of advice that’s practical. I’m already experiencing such mum guilt because of having 3 small children so I do my best to give her as much love and attention as I can.
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Have you tried just co-sleeping from the start of the night? She might just sleep through then without the wake and would solve the issue.
Is there room to sleep on the floor of her bedroom?
My boy was similar to this, but he was younger.
We never allowed him in bed with us, because like yours, he would just talk and play and move around too much.
Me or my husband would sleep on the floor next to his bed. Sometimes he would wake again after an hour but as soon as he saw he wasn’t alone, he would go back to sleep.
It’s not the best nights sleep on the floor (we had a sun lounger cushion as the space was tiny) but it was better than having to get up all the time.
It did go on for a long time but he grew out of it eventually. And as yours is older, she might be quicker to understand that she needs to stay in bed.
Try and talk to her during the day about sleep being important and everyone needing their own space.
We also have a Hatch night light in their bedrooms which is red when they’re meant to be asleep. And turns green when it’s time to get up.
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