3.5 YEAR old has never slept more than three hours, usually only two

[lurve]

I am at the end of my line. I am no longer nice mama. Or sane mama. Hell, I don't know who I am anymore. My 3.5 DD has NEVER slept more than three hours at a time. Getting her to sleep usually isn't a problem. But an hour or two later she cries out for me. For the first 2.5 years of her life she HAD to sleep on my arm or else she would wake up. Now at least I can get out of bed for an hour.

So she will wake up every hour to two hours all night long and then want to nurse back to sleep. All this nursing makes my skin crawl because I also have a five month old DS! I feel so touched out. So tired. It is my DD who wakes me more than my five month old!

I just don't know what to do. I have tried nightweaning but we have a family bed and she wakes up her brother. Or she goes in with her dad (who sleeps on the couch because for physical reasons he NEEDS his sleep and it is too noisy for him in the bedroom). And DH being awoken is absolutely unacceptable (for physical reasons...). So she has me by the short hairs. I need sleep. It has been almost four years since I have slept more than two hours at a time. This is not good. And her behavior shows she is chronically over tired. Is there a natural sleep aid for her? I have tried to get her to see a specialist but it is $3,000 and our insurance won't cover it. Something? Anything? I can't do this anymore. I give up.

[Super~Single~Mama]

I'm going to say you should nightwean. My guess is that she's used to those calories at night, and won't get used to eating enough during the day until she's not getting them at night.

Can you also try moving her to a a new sleeping space at the same time? That way you can go to her, during the adjustment period, and not have her waking the 5mo.

[lurve]

thanks for the suggestions. she doesn't want to move out of the bed. i suggest a new bed in her room and she wants me to sleep in that bed with her. she is VERY physically attached and wants to feel that i am there. i want to nightwean, i just can't figure out how without her waking her dad, which i cannot do.

[Super~Single~Mama]

Originally Posted by lurve

thanks for the suggestions. she doesn't want to move out of the bed. i suggest a new bed in her room and she wants me to sleep in that bed with her. she is VERY physically attached and wants to feel that i am there. i want to nightwean, i just can't figure out how without her waking her dad, which i cannot do.

If there really is a legit reason not to wake her dad (honestly, I'm of the school of thought that if you have kids you have to cope with sometimes being woken up), can he sleep somewhere else for a few nights? I nightweaned my son (19mo at the time) by just not nursing him between midnight to 5am, and then he started eating alot more during the day, and then he didn't need to nurse as much at night.

[CherryBomb]

I agree she needs to be nightweaned, at least. My 2 year old was nursing 6+ times a night and it was making me crazy, especially since it was at the beginning of my pregnancy when I was sore anyway. I tried just nightweaning but it didn't work, I wound up weaning her completely But it worked for us, within days of not nursing during the day, she was sleeping through the night for the first time in her life. I seriously cried the first morning I woke up with a full night of sleep, I didn't realize how sleep deprived I had been!

[GearGirl]

I'm in the same boat as you except without the 5 month old. When I read that you have a 5 month old my heart really went out to you, I can't even imagine dealing with my almost three year old ds and a 5 month old (I have 3 kids, he is the youngest), he is just what you describe your dd to me, he needs to be touching me all the time, he has to sleep next to me, he nurses all the time (and it is making me crazy!). I think the bottom line is to be firm. I think it is going to be a rough couple of days, maybe even a week, and you will be more tired for that period of time, but in the end it will be all worth it. I'm going to start tonight because I have to be out of town on business in 2 weeks for a few nights, and I don't want to make it hell on my dh, so night weaning first will really help. I'll let you know how it goes, but I think they will adjust faster than we think they will. Honestly, you have to night wean her, if it were me I would wean her completely. It's just too much to expect of yourself. She does need you to be there for her and to cuddle and everything though, some kids just need this. My dd, now 7, seems to need this as well, but when I weaned her (she was about 3.5) it went really well.

[karin95]

Yeah, if your husband will wake up if she's crying, and he needs to sleep, then he needs to go to a friends' house or a hotel for a few nights so you can nightwean your daughter. My son is is 2 weeks younger than your daughter and we nightweaned him about a year ago (?? i can't remember fully...). We had tried about 8 months prior and it did not go down well, but when we tried again, it worked!

She's old enough that you can talk to her about it throughout the day. We didn't even say anything about him being a "big boy", we just said that when he nurses at night, it wakes us up and then we're too tired in the morning to do any playing. We told him he can't nurse until it's morning time. Then when he'd wake in the night, we'd jsut remind him that it's still nighttime and he can nurse in the morning. He uses a binky, so that helped.
It's likely different for you because you have a 5mo nursing at night, but she can undersatnd that the baby is different and still needs to nurse at night because he can't eat lots of foods like she can.

My son has a sippy cup of water with him in his bed, and we told him if he's thirsty, he can drink that (he doesn't). when we were weaning and he was upset, we'd rub his back, sing bedtime songs, if he asked for those things. Then we'd say "okay, I need to sleep, goodnight". and stop and try to sleep.

He knows that we are super-cranky if he wakes up a lot at night, and we made a point of celebrating when he had a good night and doing really fun things and being really *there* with him, right from the get-go.

Good luck!! My son still doesn't totally sleep through - he'll wake up 1-2x/night just to "check in", so we're not getting straight sleep, but it's still SO much better than when he was nursing!!