What do you do when your baby/toddler won't go back to sleep...

[ShowersofBlessings]

in the middle of the night? This happened last night. I nursed and nursed and nursed. Then I fed him and changed his diaper.... But he never fell back asleep. After over an hour I gave up and he started playing while I rested on the couch. We were up for over 3 hours! :eek Does this ever happen to you? And what do you do?

[MomToDM]

My ds has done it. It drives me crazy, we just try really hard not to let anything seem interested. Occassion dh has taken him to the living room and they will watch tv together and fall asleep on the couch, but there have been time where he's been up for 3 - 5 hours in the middle of the night... No advice for you, but I think its normal, as long as its not all the time. There are times when I can't sleep too... Like for the last 2 weeks!!! I am so ready to have this baby!! :grin

[Amber]

My ds does this too on occasion. I just try to keep everything low key. I will offer him teething remedies if I think that is a problem. I try not to talk or make a lot of eye contact. I won't play with him, or sit around while he plays. If he doesn't want to rest in my arms and insists on playing I will put him in his crib to play and go back to my bed. Ususally within a few minutes he cries and I go back in and start the whole thing again. Eventually he is ready to go back to sleep. Luckily it doesn't happen very often.

[DogwoodMama]

This happened to us last week... we were up from 4:30-7:00, then slept until 9:15. Ughh. I just kept her in bed once I changed her diaper. No clue why it happened. :shrug

[Embracing Grace]

Happened to us last night!! Ds woke up and started to climb all over me! He was pretty happy and excited about something. :giggle I took him to the living room and tried to nurse him... but he just wanted to lay next to me, babble, adn blow raspberries. :lol Anyway, when he does this I just try to keep the action low. He has never really stayed awake for longer than an hour or hour and a half... so I think that if he was staying up for two or more hours then I'd definitely just let him crawl around and play to tire himself out. :shrug I do think that occasional wakefulness like this is absolutely normal. :)

[moosemama]

This happens to us occasionally. I want to say it was really bad from around 9 to 11 or 12 months, so maybe it was a developmental thing. That is when he was learning to walk, and they do say night waking increases during the times of big milestons like that. We would try all the usual things, walking with him, nursing, and so on. If he insisted on staying up, eventually one of us would go downstairs and let him play. He'd be rubbing eyes within an hour or two and fall asleep really easily. I don't know if dh did this when he is up with him, but I always keep the lights low and don't play with him or talk much to him. I just sit there and read or watch TV and let him get his wiggles out.

[tiglet]

This happens to us, about once or twice every two weeks. Dh and I both work, so when it happens, we're really grumpy!!

But dh usually plays quietly with her in the living room (he needs less sleep than I do) or they go for a run (often the jogging stroller puts her to sleep), or, more rarely, they go for a drive to get gas or (if she's still not sleeping) buy groceries.

It's frustrating, and since she's started doing it sometimes, every time she wakes up now I'm always a little paranoid that she won't go back to sleep. :shrug

[OnlyBelieve]

Happens quite often over here too....we just nurse, get out of the bed, and nurse, read, nurse, watch tv, nurse, nurse, pray, nurse...then finally fall asleep.

[Aerynne]

We leave the lights off unless she has to go potty, in which case I'll turn on a little light and take her, then it's back to bed. She sleeps between us so we just put her there and she can nurse or not, and we even let her get out of bed if she wants but she won't do it if it is pitch black. So basically we bore her to sleep.

[milkmommy]

Diffrent things depending on age,
infant- nurse go into another room with child to rock and sing or even lay down and just try to prevent infant from going blastic, diaper change swaddling nursing swing time...
toddler- go lie down with her in her room, bring her into our bed... tell her she can play with her toys in her room till shes ready to sleep but mommy and daddy are going to sleep..

Deanna

[Cherish]

when it is clear that my child will not be going back to sleep, I give up and we go watch TV. I try to put on what I want to watch so it is less interesting and we get back to sleep sooner, but sometimes I put cartoons on and I go back to sleep on the couch while the child watches. I dont find this creates a waking at night to watch tv habit, usually its a once or twice in a row thing and then it doesnt happen again for months here. Grace and Lily have both gone through stages like that.

[Irene]

tell her she can play with her toys in her room till shes ready to sleep but mommy and daddy are going to sleep..
how in the world do you sleep when a toddler is playing? oh man, my kids would destroy the house!!! or, they would climb all over us and jump on us if we just lay there and act like we are sleeping. we have tried the "bore them to sleep" thing too, in which case they will just keep trying their hardest to wake us up.

now when it happens, dh will go downstairs and watch tv with him. dh does much better with less sleep than I do, and he likes to watch tv more too ;)

[milkmommy]

tell her she can play with her toys in her room till shes ready to sleep but mommy and daddy are going to sleep..
how in the world do you sleep when a toddler is playing? oh man, my kids would destroy the house!!! or, they would climb all over us and jump on us if we just lay there and act like we are sleeping. we have tried the "bore them to sleep" thing too, in which case they will just keep trying their hardest to wake us up.

now when it happens, dh will go downstairs and watch tv with him. dh does much better with less sleep than I do, and he likes to watch tv more too ;)

We tell her she can play in HER room, shes not all over the house she's in her own room. :shrug worse case is well need to pick up cardboard bricks in the mornings.

Deanna

[Irene]

and she will just stay there? wow! we would be getting up every 30 seconds and bringing her back to her room :shrug

[milkmommy]

and she will just stay there? wow! we would be getting up every 30 seconds and bringing her back to her room :shrug


We have of those door knob things that prevents her from leaving. We have stairs so we keep it on for safety reasons. I she tries to open the door and can't she just goes and plays it doesn't upset her (on the rare occassion does get up set we go sit with her). I'm probably lucky.. :giggle

Deanna

[Irene]

yes I think you are :giggle well thats cool anyway! :tu