Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

DS #1 has always been an amazing sleeper. Slept through the night at 5 1/2 months and never looked back. Always a good napper, I've never had any issues when it came to sleeping with him specially at night. All of a sudden the past few weeks he has been waking up in the middle of the night crying, screaming. I ffel so bad I come in his room and try to get him abck in bed to no avail. He just screams louder and I don't want to wake up the baby. This past week he is flat out refusing to sleep in his bed!!!! We have our bedtime routine I read him all his books and when it comes time to go in bed he freaks out!!! Yesterday I tried to put him down for 1 hour! He would come out of his room I would put him back. I was ready to pull my hair out! It was like an episode of supper nanny!!!
Finally at 9:15 I gave up and just let him sleep in my bed. Which TO ME is just about the most awful thing I can do!!! I want my bed and I want no part of kids in it!!!! I feel so defeated!!!! Please someone give me some advice I don't know if I can handle this for long!!!

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Breathe.

AJ did that. Generally we just moved her after she ‘passed out’ which was about 15-30mins after she was out. Most of the time it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. We would let her stay with us some nights but she and I both toss and turn driving my hubby out of bed. A few nights he slept on the couch (like two) other nights we put her on the edge since she won’t fall off (her thing) and so it keeps her from tossing so much.

But yes, we pushed for her to go back to her room. We don’t mind having her with us but with a Queen bed, three fit fine as long as no one is tossing LOL.

Just got to keep with it. Good Luck, this too shall pass…..


ETA: haha tho AJ didn't scream or cry. She'd just wake up and literally yell at us through our monitor. Or if motivated, she'd get up, open her door, come into our room and stand at my bedside and say "mama, mama, mama" until i woke up or she'd cry then. haha She'll also stand at the door way and call for daddy which he doesn't hear and I have to wake him up because if I get up she says "NOOO not you.. DADDY!"

Message edited 1/5/2012 12:59:32 PM.

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Do you think he is having nightmares or terrors? SD went through the same thing at about the same age, maybe a little older. Is DS awake when you go into his room, or is he screaming in his sleep?

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Liam went through a phase a couple of months ago where he would wake up screaming crying. I consoled him, and he did go back. It was nightmares. He told me he had "bad dreams of bees"...no clue what that means but I did online searches and 2-3 years old do dreams & have nightmares.

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

I was going to post about the same thing!

DS refuses (yes, refuses) to sleep in his bed for the last week or two. He says the air hurts his ears. Which, we've figured out, is the air in the pipes heating the house. DH has bled the pipes, but DS still refuses to sleep in his bed.

First, he started sleeping on our floor on a makeshift blanket and pillow, now he has graduated to sleeping between DH and I. I've been unfortunately letting him fall asleep on my bed then transferring him when I go to bed, but 3 hours later, he's found his way back.

I can't even do CIO with him bc he screams so loud at the top of the stairs when I go downstairs that he wakes DD up.

I hope someone can shed some light on this.

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Is he still napping? During the summer DS started giving us such a hard time going to bed so I cut out his nap and he started going back down with no problem. Last week he started getting up at night again too, it was a full out battle from 3am-5am one night. So we started a reward chart for staying in bed which seemed to work and for going to bed at night. DH had been laying with him every night but that was getting out of control, every night was a fight for "2 more minutes" so now he goes down much better without that fight. It's not fun, we actually turned the knob around on his door and locked him in his room. He did NOT like that so we only had to do it as a "threat", after we did it we went back in and told him it would stay locked if he got out of bed again. After that he stayed put

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

DS went through this too but when he was around 2 1/2, he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming for us to come get him. Now at 3 he sparatically tip toes his way into our room in the middle of the night if he is scared but the crying has stopped amen! We recently got him the cutest thing, this moon in my room and we velcroed the remote to his bed and it's the best night light, he loves it, maybe try something like that to make him less afraid of the dark and going to bed.

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change

Re: Almost 3 year old sudden sleep habit change