Will I EVER get my bed back???

[Melora]

We have a 3 year old...and unfortunately so does our bed.....

As much as I lvoe this little guy I am getting a little tired of sharing my night time space with him.

He has his own bed and he does sleep in it... for part of the night. But no matter what he wakes up at least once in the middle of the night and cries pitifully.

Some nights we can go to him, pat him on the back and he will go back to sleep without any trouble.. but just as many other nights he cries so hard and won't go back to sleep until he is laying with us.

This is kid #5 for me so I know all about the go to him, reassure him and then leave, then keep going back at longer intervals until he falls asleep.

Unfotunately he's like Sarah (now 17 and thankfully sleeping through the night ) he does NOT give up easily. He shares the room with Alex 9 and I do not want to disturb HIS sleep as well.. Alex sleeps like the dead but if I let Jeffy cry for an extended period of time I know THAT would wake him up.

The reason we have been bringing him into our bed is that he falls alseep the second he hits our mattress and it just SOOO easy. We are only up for 2 minutes.

If we have to keep going back to him we could up for an hour or more, then we feel lousy the next day.. and hes a grouch the next day... (and I wont go into the fact that our bedroom is up another set of stairs so the going back and forth entails going down our stairs, up their stairs and back and forth.... in the middle of the night thats a REAL pain.)

I know Im complaining and then sounding like there is no solution, but I am wondering what others have done. Its not so much that we bring him into our bed, its that he wakes up! A lot of times hes sitting up in bed crying but not really awake. Those are the times we can pat him on the back and retuck him in and he goes back to sleep.. but half of those times he will wake up again in the next couple of hours and then he wants to come to bed with us.

If he sleeps with us the whole night he never wakes up. Well he probably wakes up but sees us there and goes back to sleep/

How do we encourage sleeping all the way through the night? Hes NEVER been a good sleeper! Should I just hope he grows out of it or is there somthing we can do that doesnt include disturbing the whole house (or neighborhood) for an extended period of time?

 

[TINKTWINS]

No advice just a I have 4 yo twins that climb in bed with us every night!!! Most nights I end up on the couch

 

[mickeyboat]

Our 3 year old is a very restless sleeper and always wants to sleep with us when she wakes up. She cries out and talks and when we go to her, we find she is not really awake. I lay her back down, cover her up, and lay down beside her. It usually only takes 30 seconds or so and she is calmed down and sound asleep again. She has actually in the last few weeks gotten much better about staying asleep and in her bed the whole night.

We follow the rule that you sleep in your own bed (We have a full-sized mattress). I would rather lay down with her for a minute in her bed than fight with her all night long in our bed.

Good luck to you, I know there is no easy answer.

Denae

 

[oogieboogie]

Sounds like my DSs. They love sleeping in our bed, so we made them a deal. If they sleep in their own bed during the weekday, they're allowed Friday and Saturday night in our bed.

Try that and see. BTW, my kids are 6 and 3, so I fully understand your dilemma.

 

[Christine]

There is no *easy* answer. But I do agree with making the rule as the poster above says. And yes, you will have some rough nights. My DS was a great sleeper. He's only started giving me problems since he turned NINE!!!! Can you believe it?? He is afraid of sleeping alone in his room. He is constantly coming into my room telling me he is afraid. There were one or two nights when it first started and I let him get in bed with me (I'm a big stickler for NOT doing this). Well, he slept like a rock and was happy as he could be. I knew then that doing this was going to be a bad thing in the end for me. So, I never let him in my bed. The bad news is that it is really not working. This has been going on for 9 months and he never gets better. I swear he remembers the two times I let him in my bed and he is still trying..... Ah, well, a 3 year old is MUCH harder to rationalize with. I think you're gonna have to suck it up and prepare for a month of h*ll. State the new rule and stick with it, giving him rewards (like Friday nights in the bed). It's a start.

 

[OhMari]

I had this problem with my 1st child, he is now 21.

Anyway, I moved his mattress to our room and put it on the floor. He had to get used to not sleeping in our bed, but yet he was in our room. I think kids that sleep in your bed like to crash their arms and legs into you and know you are there in the middle of the nite.

After one week, our son stopped getting up in the middle of the night.

We moved his mattress to his room, but left it on the floor. After another week we brought the vacuum in and said we needed to vacuum under the mattress and we put the mattress back on the bed and as I said, it is 18 years later.

Good luck,

 

[mermaidlady]

try incentives make a chart for stickers and tell him if he gets x amt of stickers for staying in own bed he gets a treat start with a low number and work up to all the time

 

[Pin Wizard]

I remember mentioning this to DS's pediatrician. He said that he has sleeping bags on the floor in his room. If the kids wake up and come in, they're more than welcome to stay in a sleeping bag.

DS was pretty much out of the stage before I could use that one. But I remember telling someone else about it when he was about 2. She was just emphatic that I needed to get up and put him back to bed no matter what. One morning when I woke up, DS was sleeping on the floor right outside my bedroom!!! His head was in the doorway, his little body was out of the room! Well that was the end of that! He snuggled whenever he wanted. LOL! Good luck!!!!!