Toddler Sleep Issues

Very shortly my little ladies will be 3.  They will be big girls and they are already very much gearing up for their year as threeangers.  I am prepared for the onslaught of attitude and cheekiness, but what I was not prepared for is the toddler sleeping issues.

Since I had four kids under four I have been asked countless times how on earth I coped.  There are many answers to this question and on many days the answer would be that I barely held it together, but there is one thing that I always had on my side and that was that the girls always slept through.  Even from a very young age they were great sleepers and so whilst the days were hard I knew I had at least 5 or 6 hours at night when I could recharge.  This has made a huge difference to my sanity.  There was a period that all the kids were sleeping from 7-7 which was beyond amazing, but in the words of Abba ‘now those days are gone’

See you later sleep!!

In the past few weeks the girls have started to wake up and bother me generally about nothing…. It is more one twin than the other and since there is chatting involved those who know us in real life will no doubt be able to guess which young lady is the problem ring leader.  Anyway she is up almost every night asking me for milk, asking where her potty is, complaining that she has done a wee in her pull up or celebrating that she has done a wee on the potty.  It is becoming rather wearing.  The past two nights they have both been up at least half the night.  I am now so tired I can barely function.  To be fair last night one of them was sick all over her bed after two hours of middle of the night shenanigans so she probably just felt ill, but honestly I can’t take it!!

Fear of the dark

Add to that the fact that our 5 year old has developed a fear of the dark (despite having a night light in his room) so that every time he wakes up for a wee in the night he comes up to our bed and gets in for a cuddle and you have a very tired mummy.  Tired me is no fun for anyone.  I am very grumpy when I am tired and bizarrely inexplicably cold…  It is like my body is so busy trying to keep me awake that it can’t keep me warm too.

Tiredness and managing toddlers

I used to think that there was nothing worse than the tiredness that comes from having two newborn babies, but I was wrong.  There is something worse and that is 2.5 years of sleep and then boom – broken nights again.  That is a shocker it seems.  I am guessing that the hormones etc… help you to cope when it is newborns and also they nap during the day so you at least can have some respite.  Not so with toddlers.  No matter how little sleep they have had they are like Duracell bunnies every morning and so I have to be on and ready to go even if I am running on empty.

Having a moan!

I don’t even think there is a point to this post I am just having a moan in an effort to make me feel better.  I did research why toddlers might wake up at night and hoped to be able to offer some pearls of wisdom.  There were lots of things that I found, but none applied to me so no pearls here…. In case they help someone else to work out the issue here is what I found:

• 18mth and 2yr sleep regressions – we are too late for that
• Night terrors – it is definitely not that as they are not upset or frightened
• Bad dreams – I don’t think so as they are typically not scared when they wake

So for me none of the reasons seem to fit.  All I can put it down to is brain development that I can’t see.  Perhaps there is just lots going on inside their heads.  I know I can see great leaps and progression all the time so its possible and with any luck that means it will stop as quickly as it has started…. As for the 5 year old short of leaving every light on in the house I am not sure what else I can do.

Any advice from you lovely readers would be greatly appreciated as I am grouchy and oh so very tired!!