My 3 Year Old Can't Cope!!

My daughter is 4-1/2 and each night, I lay down with her and we sing 2 songs (Hush Little Baby, etc.), then I praise her, tuck her in and give her a hug and kiss and immediately leave. She falls fast asleep or quietly lays there until she does fall asleep. On the other hand, if I do not spend that "quality" time with her, she will not go to sleep for anything!! (Gasp!) She whines, cries, and is constantly getting up. Maybe that is something that will work for you. Good luck!

Hi K.. I am the mother of a 9year old boy and a 7 year old boy. We are still experiencing a version of what you describe with the older child. Children start developing coping/self-soothing skills very early. We to rocked and cuddled him too long (he was our first!). Here's a few things we've learned to help him; do not vary her bedtime. Put her to bed every night at the same time. No TV or energetic play before bed. This will only stimulate her so it takes longer for her to calm down. When your bedtime routine begins, play some soothing music; we have a classical bedtime CD that we play softly in their room all night. It has cut down on the number of times he wakes us up in the middle of the night. Stay consistent; when she calls you in the middle of the night, go in, make sure she's OK and put her back to bed. Don't get in with her to cuddle, or rock her. We save cuddle time for the weekends and it has worked out great. Then when she calls again, go in for a shorter time, then the next time stand at the door, and the next time......well you see where I'm going with this. Special time with her is important, and it sounds like you are handling that well.

It will take time, but trust me, if you try some of these things and remain consistent, you will all be sleeping better very soon!

I hope this helps!

T. M.

She needs to learn a way to soothe herself to take the place of you soothing her, and it's likely to take some time (and of course, it'll be time in middle of the night!). I also remember both of my kids waking up when they were 3, so the waking isn't unusual.

If you could find a 'ritual' of sorts that she can eventually take over and do on her own, I think that would help. When she gets up and gets back to bed, sing her 2 songs, tuck her in with her favorite bear or animal, ask her to close her eyes and give her a kiss. Don't get in the habit of laying down with her to calm down!! (I did that....it's a hard habit to break!)...but maybe stay in the room with her til she falls asleep. Then after a week or two, move to the doorway. Then out in the hall. And then let her know you'll be in your bed, and you expect her to sleep. If you give her the tools to do it (something relaxing and comforting she can do on her own), and give her the reassurance of your presence (but not you doing the soothing for her) it should help. But it's going to take firmness, patience, and time -- and those are hard to find at 3 am when you're both exhausted. I wish you lots of luck and presence of mind. :-)

Have you tried slowly taking her off the rocking rather than just stop doing it cold turkey? My s on is 16 mos and up until a month ago, I used to rock him until he fell asleep. Because we are expecting another baby, I knew I had to start weaning him from the rocking, so each night, I have rocked him less and less. Now, I only rock him for his night time prayer, one song, and then I put him in his crib and he has learned to put himself to sleep. The rocking relaxes him(and me too!) but I am glad I no longer have to rock him until he falls asleep. I am hoping that by the time the new baby comes, we will have finished with bedtime rocking all together. Let me know what ends up working for you because if he ends up having a sleep problem, I will certainly use the advice you receive!

Oh K.! I can relate; you are NOT alone!
I think that you are right on the money with your assessment; it sounds like Kaylee can't relax either to go to sleep or to go -back- to sleep.

There are some great books out there to help, many of which are at the library, even, so I bet you can find lots of info there. BUT what I can do is share some of the strategies that we've used for our now-6-y-o (who still isn't perfect!)

1. If at all possible, involve Kaylee in Audrey's bedtime routine. Have her help you put the baby down--she's the big sister and can help w/ lots of little things, maybe even rocking or soothing. That way, Kaylee can begin to see the differences between her big-girl routine and the baby's. Plus, it could help with some rivalry/attention things.

2. Kalyee isn't too young for some deep breathing and yoga stretches. Once in PJs, she and you or her daddy can do some full-body stretches, which help relax the muscles. She's tensing up at bedtime, and the adrenelin starts, which makes it impossible for her to sleep until her brain shuts down.
If you aren't that familiar with either the relaxing breathing or the stretching, it's easy to do a Yahoo or Google search and find--and they're easy to DO!
We now do the breathing and stretching in bed, but I recommend you do the stretching before tucking in, and the breathing as one of the last things.

3. Can you think of ways to stress the positive aspects?
For instance, giving a check mark or ticket or sticker for getting dressed nicely & washing up? For X number of hours sleeping without waking? For participating in the new bedtime activities? For not fussing when it's time for you to leave?
These can be charted or collected just like y'all did for potty training, and she can work toward goals--"treats", new book, special trip to McD's playground, trip to ChuckECheese's, etc.

4. Purchase a relaxation music CD; they work wonders. She might get dependent on *that* being on to sleep, but hey--it's better! And now when my 6-y-o wakes at night, I'll go re-tuck and re-start the CD to play. Has worked for a couple of years now.
Our favorite is called "Guitar for Relaxation." We've had it for years.
The CD will also allow you to time how long you stay with her. You can stay for decreasing numbers of tracks, or if the tracks are long, you can use some sort of timer that DOES NOT MAKE A LOUD NOISE. My cell phone has a timer feature that can be set to vibrate.
One caution: we have many different CDs now, but my daughter thought that the music with the humpback whale songs was very spooky; it unnerved her.

5. Keep out of her bed. If you don't have a chair in there, sit on the floor. Trust me; it's fine to have snuggle time, but then get out of her bed. She has to learn to make it her own little nest to sleep in.
We made that mistake.

6. YOU breathe deeply--right now--and forgive yourself for whatever silly thing you feel YOU did to cause this. I mean it!!
Just love her and pray for patience. You are right; she's not having an easy time of it, either, and wants the struggles to end. Now, her goal is different than yours, :-D, but y'all still both want the same thing, basically.

You have done some great things; sometimes we just have to keep trying. We have been dealing w/ our daughter's tension at night for what feels like a totally unreasonable amount of time, but I think that we're going to have better luck with the 2-y-o because of what we've learned w/ the 6.

Best of luck to y'all; I hope we hear a good story from you soon!

~K.
Farthest North Dallas | WOHM |2 DDs

Before you bang your head against the wall make sure she has had her 3 yo check up and her health is in great shape. I only say that because my 3 yo daughter kept waking up at night several times and I was sooooooo frustrated and sleep deprived. I took her for her routine check up and she had an ear infection in both ears! She never told me she was in pain or that anything was bothering her but it was when she slept apparently. After a few days on meds we are back to sleeping.
She would be in a panic and not able to settle down. I thought it was maybe bad dreams---wrong. I felt so bad for those nights I was getting mad at her.
The good news is this too shall pass :) hang in there.

I am with Donna. Tenderness is really necessary. You didn't do a bad thing by rocking your child to sleep. Do not feel guilty for being romantically motherly! However, you'll go insane trying to give to that extent with a new little one who's needs are more demanding of you physically. I had the same problem with my daughter when my son was born, She was 4.75 when her world changed. I had to teach her some relaxation skills and I used some basic massage strokes. Lavendar in her bath, first, then pajamas, tuck into bed, and teach her to breath, and visualize a "safe place" that is kid friendly...I always started by creating rainbows by blowing special colored bubbles...starting with red and ending with purple. Or sometimes I would guide her to imagine painting the boards of a fence with the colors of the rainbow...she'd start off by dragging her red wagon with six cans of paint to a section of fence that she wanted to paint...stroking up was a deep inhale...stroking down was an exhale...
Anyways...its never too soon to teach relaxation skills!
She loves that time together. She is 7 now and goes to sleep like a little champ.

We have a 3 year old who is in a toddler bed, so we still have a low rail, so this might not work, but I thought I'd pass it along. Our daughter didn't like her crib and would only sleep in a side-to-side swing until she outgrew it. We were able to transition her to the crib but only with the help of the Fisher Price Flutterbye Soother. I don't know if they make it anymore, but you might be able to find it on ebay or something similar in stores. From 8 months old until now, she turns it on in the middle of the night whenever she wakes up, and she manages to get back to sleep on her own. It plays music and a cartoon thing on the ceiling. I think it's almost hypnotic for her to watch it circle around and listen to the music at the same time. I think I've seen bedside toys that play an animation on the ceiling, so you might look around and see if that helps at all. The important part is it needs to be something she can turn on by herself whenever she wakes up.

Good luck.
S.