At My Wit's End with 2.5 Year Old That Still Doesn't Sleep Through the Night!

I have a couple of suggestions with a couple of questions. When he naps, what time does he nap? Do not let him sleep past 3:30. Also, what time does he get up in the morning? If you keep these times fairly consistent, he will become a better sleeper. We ended up putting gates on our kids doors when they were getting out of bed constantly. This may be hard since he shares a room with his brother, but it will stop the constant coming to your room. If you don't want to do the gate, there is always the supernanny approach, where you lead him back to his room, the first time saying only its bedtime dear, second time saying only bedtime, and every time thereafter saying nothing, no engaging, no conversation, eye contact etc. Depending on the total number of hours he is sleeping a night, you may want to try moving his bedtime a little earlier. Overtired kids have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. When we went through this we moved my son's bedtime up from 8 to 7:30, and he started falling asleep much faster and staying asleep. Most of the time when kids keep getting out of bed it is because they are afraid they are missing out on stuff. Our son is one of those kids, so we try to stay relatively quiet while he falls asleep, then resume a normal noise level. (He falls asleep really fast, usually within minutes of going to bed).
Another approach a friend of mine did was make a pass for her daughter each night, so she has one chance to get out of bed, and that's it. She did this with a three year old, so she was a little older, but it worked for her. The first time she got up she had to hand over her pass, and she wasn't allowed up after that. She could use the pass for whatever she wanted (drink of water, extra hug, anything she can think of). After that one time, she knows she has to stay in bed. It worked for them, but I think it depends on the personality of your child.
As far as getting rid of the nap, I think kids benefit from a daily "rest". At our house, we call it quiet time since my kids don't always nap, but they do have to stay in their room for an hour and be quiet. My son is 4, and very seldom actually sleeps anymore, but I think he benefits from the time to recharge. It was about at your son's age when he started not sleeping every time, but he knows he has to play on his bed for an hour each day. My just two year old has just started to not nap on the occasional day, but she is a real bear come 6:30 or 7:00 on those days, so we have to get her in bed extra early on those days. I know she is no where ready to give up her nap, but if after an hour she is still awake, I let her get up and then move everything else up for the night for her so that she can go to bed early. Good luck. It is frustrating when the one getting you up constantly is the older child. If you have any questions on my post feel free to send a private message. It has been a couple of years since we went through this with my son, but I remember how hard it was not to get a full nights sleep for so long.

Hi K.,

Here's my suggestion: when one of my children comes out after being tucked in, I say "It's bedtime. I'll walk you back one more time. This is it." Once tucked in, they do not get milk, water, changing lights, music, food, bandaids, anything. I walk them back to bed. They get one more kiss, that's it.

This works most of the time with my three year old. It works all of the time with my five year old. If the three year old comes out again, I pick him up and put him in bed. No hugs or kisses. He does get an "I love you" as I leave the room. Children can never hear that enough.

As far as night visits, it happens more nights than not. I walk them back to bed, tuck them in, kiss and "I love you." Nothing else. No lights, food or anything...

Good luck.

My daugther started iwth the sporadic naps at about the same age. I had anew 10 month old too, so i was really frantic about her keeping her naps to give me a break, but she was going to bed at 9 with a lot of trouble. I decided to stopthe naps when she showed she wanted to go to bed at 6 pm on the days she didn't nap.
Now she is in bed no later the 6:15 pm and asleep without incident. We put her to sleep by staying with her, which takes about 10 minutes, so we do not have the problem of her getting up, but she is dependent on us to fall asleep which is hard.
she gets up and climbs into bed with us at around 2 am, so that is my next challenge, because i just wanted to sleep so i allowed the bad habit to develop.
Good luck, alleviating the nap really worked for us, and an early bedtime has been a godsend!
K.

Hi K.,
I HIGHLY recommend reading "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth to understand biological sleep rhythms and how to sync your child's. My biggest piece of advice would be to move his bedtime much earlier. My daughter will be 3 in July and is ASLEEP by 7pm at the latest. It sounds like he is chronically overtired. Dr. Weissbluth is very adamant about the need for an early bedtime. It has to do with the biological sleep rhythms and quality, restorative sleep. I would put him in bed no later than 7pm after a calm, quiet bedtime routine. As to getting out of bed, Dr. Weissbluth suggests "announce to your child that there is a new rule in the house-no getting out of bed until morning. Tell him you L. him very much but that you need your sleep, and he needs to put himself back to sleep by himself; getting out of bed is not allowed. Tell him that when he gets out of bed, you are going to put him back to bed and you are not going to talk to him or look at his face while you are doing so." He calls this "silent return to sleep". He believes that ANY verbal attention will reinforce your child's desire to get out of bed to get more attention. Respond the same way EVERY time he gets up. Don't expect to get much sleep the first night. Every morning, give him lots of affection and praise for cooperating with the new rule. Give it a try for 3-7 days.
Good luck and email me if you have questions.
L.