Sleep Deprivation

[AKA_PI]

It has taken me 2.5 years to figure out that one of the reasons I'm not losing weight the way I want to is that I'm sleep deprived. My little guy is 2.5 and still wakes up every night  every.single.night. It's rare that I get a night when he sleep the whole night. Lately I've noticed that he's been pretty congested and I'm going to sum that up to reason why he's waking up every 30 minutes but I can't take it anymore.

Some nights he just wakes up whining and crying for no reason (maybe it was a bad dream) and other nights, he's wide awake and wants to talk  . I lie him back down and he eventually drifts back off to sleep but he will do this several times throughout the night. 

Anyone else have a 2.5 year old that still wakes up constantly during the night? How are you handling it?

[Jend1002]

YES!  All of this sounds so much like me and my DS!  Sometimes I just can handle it and stop trying to figure out why why why my little guy doesn't sleep.  Other times, I get so frustrated and disheartened and I am in that phase right now.  So I am replying to tell you that you are so not alone!

And I am editing to add that I have always been able to maintain my weight quite easily but this lack of sleep has made me feel like it is nearly impossible to get this 10 pounds to budge. 

[LROM]

Yup, dd is also 2 1/2, and it's a lot better with the night wakings now that she's night-weaned and sleeping in her own bed, but I'm still crazy sleep-deprived.

For us it was that up until 16 months or so, we were still co-sleeping and nursing through the night.  She would wake up every 90 min or so and keep me awake another 30-45 min, then go back to sleep, only to wake up again in 90 and repeat cycle.  I was pregnant at time so I was beyond exhausted and we couldn't figure out any other choice but to night wean.

Now that she's in her own room and almost 30 months, she wakes up about once a night and now I've attributed it mostly to being too hot or too cold or wrapped in blankets.  I think her first reaction is to wake and whimper or call out "Mommy!" - sometimes she's already asleep again by the time I'm peeking in her door.  And about once every 4 nights, she sleeps all the way through.

A few other things that work for us - feeding her something at least 90 min before bedtime... trying to really pay attention to what temp seems to be her "perfect temp" in her room and trying to add/subtract clothing and blankets to match it... of course keeping her physically active during day helps... and suprisingly I notice that she sleeps better through the night if she has her nap during the day.  At daycare she takes naps daily, but on weekends she often won't go down for one, but I'm noticing when she does it's a lot better that night.  So not I'm back to really trying to make sure she naps when I've got her all day.

And you are NOT alone on the not losing weight thing - I have struggled so much to lose weight and people keep asking me if I'm pregnant (I"m not now, and they asked me for 2 years when I wasn't before as well).  So I feel you... and I know that sleep is key to that weight loss, but haven't quite mastered the sleep thing yet.

[FMB]

Oh yes. I just answered another post noting that my son is still up and down all night when he is teething. I'm SO sleep deprived. My son is 22 months old. I've made some changes - adjusted my own bedtime a bit and started taking melatonin supplements so I can get back to sleep more quickly (I avoided these for the first year and a half but they are an L3 per Hale - and with my kiddo being nearly 2 I'm not worried about it). 

So anyway, this has helped but I'm still so damn tired. And I've always been really, really slim - all my life. I took off the pregnancy weight in three months and then some. But around a year I started putting it back on, even though we are still nursing around the clock. I think it's a combo of having less milk as DS takes in more solids and not sleeping for two years. 

When my son is teething he's awake every hour to ninety minutes and when this happens, I gain five pounds. It's not just that I'm less active when I'm this tired (which I am) but even when I force myself to still exercise, I gain the weight. And water weight, too. And it all seems to be related to sleep. 

So, yeah, I hear you mama.