GainesvilleMoms.com

Okay, I didn't have this much trouble with my daughter who is now 4. My son has no trouble going into his room and falling asleep at night but around 2 am every morning he finds his way to my bed, wiggles in between my husband and I and wont go to sleep until he is just right! If I send him back to his room he screams, very high pitch one at that, thus waking his sister and alas I'm up at 2 am and not able to go back to sleep!! I need help! Does anyone have anything that worked for them?

How old is he? I've found that my kids have two reasons for waking up usually. Nightmares and needing to go to the bathroom/already went. With my son right now, it's usually needing to go to the restroom. When I'm coherent enough to do it, I ask him if he has to go potty. If he says yes, I take him and then lead him back to bed. Otherwise I just lead him back to bed. If he cries when I lay him down, I usually lay down beside him for a few minutes until he's either asleep or comfortable with me leaving.

I don't know if this will help you because my daughter is younger but...When she first started sleeping in a toddler bed, we didn't want her to leave her room and roam the house at night. Everything was baby-proofed, but we still didn't think it was a good idea. So we put a baby gate in her doorway, and actually it served two purposes. One, she couldn't leave her room and potentially get hurt in the middle of the night, and two, if she woke at night, she would just come to the gate and then go right back to her bed!

Now there are some rare nights were she will make her presence known, and I'll go get her and bring her in with me. But for the most part, she does great. Now, I don't know how a 4-year-old will handle a gate lol He could probably just climb over it!

Our son, who is 3, may be experiencing 'night terrors' so I've done some investigating on that and we have an appointment to speak with his pediatrician. But some of the advice for that might help you- Since he seems to be waking up at the same time of night, you could go and wake him up just before that time (i know that sounds difficult at 2 a.m) and maybe take him to the bathroom or get him some water and then tuck him back in his bed. That way you are stopping the sleep cycle that he may have trouble transitioning in to.
Since we're on the topic- has anyone else experienced 'night terrors'- our son's aren't severe but every couple nights he starts crying out loud and sometimes kicking- I'm positive he is not awake or coherent when he's doing this. I've found if we stay quiet and don't talk to him it doesn't escalate but I do pat his back. This episode will last from 30 minutes to an hour. I'm not even sure this is night terrors but something is disturbing his sleep and causing him to act out in his sleep. Any advice?

Must be a 3-year-old thing...coz our 3yo does exactly what you described...I'll be waiting with you to see what's offered for advice.

I wish I could offer some advice. I haven't dealt with this, but my next door neighbor's son has pretty bad night terrors. She said she just has to go in and try to calm him down -- she too mentioned that patting or rubbing his back will relax him some. Such a scary thought.

As far as the original post -- did you just move him into a toddler or big boy bed? When we did that my son would constantly get up in the middle of the night. Only difference is he would go to the couch. Every morning we'd wake up and there he'd be, cuddled up on the sofa.

I like the gate idea though.

I thought I had mentioned his age sorry ladies!! He is 2 and a half, my daughter is 4 and a half! I have tried taking him back to his room, laying down with him but he screams and wakes his sister up and then we are up from then on!! I will look into the baby gate thing and try that. He hasn't started potty training yet so I don't think that's the issue yet. He seems to just bring his blanket or his monkey, both if he can carry them and climbs in our bed!! I don't know what's going on!!

We did the gate thing too, for awhile, until my oldest daughter learned to climb over it or just push on it until it came loose and she could get out (old house, uneven door frame). One other thing we tried was to put an extra mattress or blanket with pillow in our bedroom on the floor. That way if either of our girls had a nightmare or something, they knew they could come into our room but they had to lay in that spot instead of our bed. I think this was helpful because they were able to come in and feel safe and secure with mommy and daddy but not continually wake us up with every move of them getting settled in our bed. I don't know if that will work for your son or not but it doesn't hurt to try. The visits from the girls have actually dwindled so much that we took away the extra mattress and blanket. They will still occasionally come in and just lay on the floor but that doesn't happen too often, thankfully.

Unless a child had a nightmare or was sick, we made a point to have the children sleep in their own beds. They always went to bed by 7:00 PM and slept till 6:00 AM (waking up for feedings many times nightly when they were very young, of course).

Our children usually fell asleep in their own beds within the first 30 minutes, probably because either their father or I would lie down with them nightly. We'd say prayers (I would, when they were too young) and I'd either tell a story or read a book. Usually, the kids were fast asleep within minutes after I left.

The few times our children tried to get in bed with us, my husband would always walk him/her back to bed, tuck him in and tell him not to get out of bed again in a firm voice. There were screams and tears from time-to-time, but we stood firm, even when the cries pulled at my heart strings. After a few times, the crying and screaming stopped for good because the kids knew it would get them nowhere.

My mother did the same with me and my husband's mother did the same with him. Their advice was to NOT have an overtired child (kids NEED their sleep and are more difficult to deal w/ when overtired) and to set firm boundaries quickly. Bedtimes have always been easy in our house, just as they were for our parents when we were growing up.

Good luck to you. I have friends who were in the same boat as you. Our problem was never bedtime, it was breaking free of that dreaded, bacteria-ridden pascifier! Thank goodness those days are over.