Help -- 2 Year Old Not Sleeping

HI.

when my daughter had night terrors, she never woke up nor did she sit up and act afraid. she woud just scream out. she would still be asleep. just to let you know.

First of all, I want to share my experience with you. My son will be three in January, and we have noticed lately that if he does not go to bed on time (8-8:30) then he will wake up during the night. Strange, but so true! Also, he has night terrors sometimes and he doesn't sit up, just wakes up screaming and crying. And, routines work wonders. Even if it's just one thing... like my son ALWAYS has a book before bed. Even just that little bit of time calming down and getting ready for sleep helps ALOT! So guess my advice to you is to make sure she gets to bed on time and have some down time "routine". Just something to help her get ready for sleep time... Good luck!

Hi L.,

Sara gave you a very good advice H.. I would say that naps are very important in kids' life; it is the time when they "recharge their batteries "(and ours!!), and their minds recover and get a fresh start. Kids who have problems to fall asleep or wake up at night are not well rested or are ill . Most of the time they are not rested, and they get hyper, cranky or looks like they are too awake and don't want to sleep. It looks like the opposite, and many people would say"..."Why do you want to make him/her sleep.?....he/she is crying because he/she wants to play, he is not sleepy.!!.""That's statement I heard all the time, and in my opinion..it is wrong! When my kids have taken a nap or a quiet time even for minutes they get up so nice and easy, and when the routine is disrupted..oh my gosh they are very hard to deal with... (routine sometimes, sometimes get disrupted, but I try my best for my youngest to have a nap and for the older one to have a quiet time)
At the beginning is not going to be easy, you have to be patient and consistent, but start a routine for your little one. It is the best advice I can give you according to my experience. Naps are good at noon (depend on the time your kid wakes up) or early afternoon, later they will just disrupt a good night sleep.
Night terrors, and nightmares are normal, the kids' imagination is so big and their minds are so full of things that they will occur. I suggest you that if your little one still awakes the way you describe it even with a good sleep routine, you should take her to the pediatrician.
Take care
Alejandra

This is exactly what happened with my son, my pediatrician said it was night terrors, even though he didn't wake up. He also told me not to wake him up, it can be scary because they can get confused between the nightmare and real life, just let him go back to sleep. They also told me to make sure I had a baby monitor still on and a baby gate, because this can lead to sleep walking, it did in my son. I also talked to my son when he was a wake and asked if anything scared him or he was sad about anything, he never gave anything. After a while I noticed some weird other things and took him to see a sleep-specialist, turns out he had sleep apnea. He's tonsils were so large they blocked his air way when he slept, so even though he never had an infection they had to remove them (they were just naturally larger than his air way opening when lying down). Many times there is no relation with sleep apnea, but if you notice other things, tell your doctor. We figured it out because my son was wetting the bed after being potty trained over night. Good luck!!

I'd get her into a routine asap. Start a bedtime ritual now so she'll be used to it later on when she has to start school. If my kids are not in bed by 8, they don't sleep well. My 4 yr old will wake up crying several times a night if I go even 30 minutes past her routine bedtime. Even if she say's she's not sleepy, I still put her down to bed and read the storybook, hugs, kisses, etc. She will sometimes lay there an talk to herself or look at a book for a little while but she sleeps great once she nods off.
Something else to consider is that your daughter might be cutting her 2 year molars. It really can hurt and send sharp pains through her mouth and this might be causing her to wake up. When my kids were 2, we'd usually just give them a dose of children's motrin at bedtime just in case. Get her a Glow worm toy to sleep with too. It sounds silly, but all my kids slept with one when they were little and the soft light and the friendly face always made them feel safe and comfortable. Good luck.

I had a similiar issue. My 2 year old didnt have a schedule, he was a little night owl. It got to the point that I just turned on Noggin 24/7 toddler tv. that way if he woke up in the middle of the night he would just watch tv and not bother me. But now we have somewhat of a schedule. He sleeps much better at night. I think the schedule was harder for me than for him. I had to come up with things for him to do during the day but now I enjoy our time together I get more sleep at night!

Good luck to you!

I would take her to the doctor. It indeed sounds like she's in pain....not a night terror trance. I'm a mom of 4 kids ranging from ages 12 years to 13 months and I would get them checked out. I hope you get answers.

Children can be a little difficult to figure out. Sometimes it just has to be trial and error. True night-terrors are not really the same as nightmares. The child won't remember night-terrors and even though they look awake, they are not. Night-Terrors tend to happen at the same times every night. The way to throw them off is to wake the child just before that set time and reset their internal clock so they miss that time.

That said, sometimes I get children that will sleep all night for me, but the parents will tell me they wake constantly at home. Often the ones that say this have habits during the day that are not at all helping. I've had some parents through the years that are so unwilling to wake baby that they just let baby crawl around or play around the house until they pass out, then they just leave them there! Without a doubt, those children always seem to be the ones that won't sleep for mom and dad. But in just a few weeks of being with me, I have no problem. Even when I keep the child overnight, I still have no problem.

I don't belive that it's so much about schedule like bath is always at 7, book at 7:30, lights out at 8pm. Though that kind of routine is good, anything from teething to sickness to company coming can throw that off. It's more about comforting routines. So long as their little minds can get used to and expect certain things to happen in order like bath before bed, story etc., it doesn't matter so much what time that will be.

You should know that this is the MOST typical time and MOST typical thing for kids to go through at this age. I can't tell you how often I've had daycare parents that just dig and look for anything to be wrong because they just can't believe that nothing is wrong. They are convinced that there just has to be something major wrong for this to be happening. You can probably find ways to help. But I think time for the phase to pass is about the best thing we can hope for.

i agree with a lot of what has already been said, starting with a nice routine. like someone else said, it doesn't have to be stringent and it doesn't have to be five or six things every night. ours varies, but the main thing is, "it's time to start getting ready for bed." i take him potty, put his pullup on him, brush his teeth, then usually let him sit with us watching some tv or reading books for awhile. this can last anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, depending on everyone's mood and the general tone of the evening. if he is sitting quietly and cuddling with me or his daddy, he might get to stay in the livingroom for awhile longer ;) he knows bedtime is coming and for the most part he accepts it when the time comes.

but it is also a typical time for nightmares to start, whether they're night terrors or not. point is, at two, they're figuring out what it is to be uncertain and have fears about things that might happen...it can be upsetting. before this it never occurred to her that if she falls it will hurt, or whatever. now there are fears everywhere for her and her imagination can run wild. i'm sorry but it's just another of those times that call for a little extra patience. make sure she's truly awake and needing you. my son tends to cry in his sleep sometimes, and while sad for us, it doesn't always mean i need to go in there. i wait a few minutes and almost always he calms back down.

good luck, it can be disturbing seeing your child "discover" fear...my son just turned 3 and we went through it too!

I have a 3 year old that still doesn't sleep and I believe he acts like something is bothering him so we have started taking him to a sleep doctor and we feel like she is the first person that has really acted interested and has not acted like it is all our fault that he doesn't sleep. Well, she did some blood work and our son was waking up hollering and crying because his iron level and ferritin levels were so low that he has restless leg syndrome. If she does a lot of kicking around and real restless it might be something to consider. I am not sure if she does any of these things but you might see if you could be referred to a sleep specialist because it does wear everyone out I know we have been doing this pretty much every night since he was born. Best of luck I hope I helped you a little.