Night waking with younger babies
and even young toddlers is relatively common.
However, usually by the time your child is around three
you would hope you're starting to get some really
good nights out of them.
But what happens when your three year old
suddenly starts staying awake
for a couple of hours every night?
Today I'm answering your sleep question.
Why does my three-year-old wake
at 3:00 AM and stay awake for two hours?
And in this video,
I'm going to tell you why that might be happening
and what you can do about it.
So stay tuned.
Hi, I'm Nicky. One of the founders
of a company called Little Ones
and mother to three beautiful children.
At Little Ones we specialise
in infant and child sleep through
a comprehensive set of online sleep programs.
As frustrating as the scenario may be
where your three year old is awake
for a couple hours every night
it's not an overly complicated fix.
So the most likely contributing factor
to this wake at 3:00 AM
is that your little one is still
having a long daytime sleep.
I know it's very tempting, especially at this age
because toddlers are hard work
to let them have a huge nap
because you yourself get a bit of a break
and you might even have a new little one.
And it's just very easy
for us to let our toddlers
have a decent nap at this age
but this is a key sign that that nap
is now starting to impact their nighttime sleep.
Usually around three,
we see in a lot of toddlers,
their nap disappear altogether.
So have a look first of all
at what is happening with your little one's nap.
If they are still napping
but it's not for much more than an hour
then maybe it's time
to cut that nap back altogether.
If they're napping for a couple hours
you can try trimming that nap shorter,
or cut it out altogether just to see
how that starts impacting their nighttime sleep.
In both of those scenarios
I would then suggest bringing bedtime at night
a bit earlier for a while,
while the little one adjusts to having no nap.
And don't be afraid
to have a bedtime of like 6:00, 6:30 even
if it's going to avoid chronic
over tiredness for your little one.
If your little one is already
not having a daytime nap,
they've already dropped that nap.
And they're doing this two hour wake
in the middle of the night,
that would suggest that perhaps
they're very overtired
and bedtimes possibly a bit too late.
So if your little one is not having a nap anymore,
you would really be wanting no more
than a 12 hour day for them.
So you would be looking
at bedtime to be no later than say 7:00 p.m.
If they've been up since about 7:00 a.m. that morning.
So it might help to bring bedtime back down earlier
because that wake can also be caused by over tiredness.
So the first place to start
would be dealing with the nap.
Within a few days,
your little one should hopefully have perhaps
altogether stopped waking at 3:00 a.m.
If they are still waking there are some things
that you possibly might also be doing
that's reinforcing that wake too.
So there are certain factors that definitely
affect a child's body clock
and lock in some kind of wake response.
Those factors are food, communication and sunlight.
So as long as your little one
is not receiving any of those things,
when they are waking
that's really gonna help their body
and their body clock to get back
to sleeping through when they had previously been waking.
If your little one is getting up
getting out of bed, maybe coming into you
your best bet is to do
what we would call a silent return
which is where you in silence
take your little one back to their room
and pop them back in their bed.
No stimulation, no negotiating, no to and fro
we all know what toddlers are like.
They're probably gonna be asking you
for this, that and the other
and another teddy and another story.
Don't get into it with them,
just silently take them back to their bed.
They don't need any interaction or stimulation
because that's actually what
they're also loving in the night
that's getting any kind of reaction from you.
So you want to make it really boring
for them and not worth their while waking up
and getting out of their bed to come and get you.
So I hope that's given you an answer
as to why it's happening
and some steps you can take to eliminate
that very long tedious night wake
with your three year old.
Good luck.
And if you've got any further questions
please check out our website
and also our sleep programs.
If you need some more guidance
around your little ones sleep at any age.
Thank you very much for watching.
We would love it
if you would subscribe to our YouTube channel
and I will talk to you again soon.