please help...im going crazy

[vonnie100]

I need some advice.....
Im 15 weeks pregnant with my second baby and am exhusted. The real trouble is that my 2 year old dd wont sleep in her own bed. She comes stumbling down the hallway at 2 am every night to sleep in bed with me. If i try to put her back to bed she screams and kicks and bites and tantrums for hours and I dont have that energy right now and my husband has to work in the morning and cant stay awake either.
When we put her to bed she gets out and walks into the lounge room every few minutes and if we try to be firm and put her to bed again the tantrum starts all over again, so we end up sitting in her room for an hour or so untill she is well and truley asleep.
In the daytime she is fantastic and I love her to bits but because im so tired I cant get so involved with her as I would if I had some good sleep.
I fall asleep on the couch all the time and wake up to find that she is scrubbing the toilet or that she is putting soap all over the bathroom walls or mashing the computer keyboard, i just cant leave her for a second.
I have only my sister and her two kids in the town I live in and I cant get her to babysit because she is too busy with her own two. My parants live hours away and I havent got any really close friends near by. I hate being at home all day by myself, its so lonely, its winter and freezing here so going outside is aweful.
Im soooo worried about this next baby. Im afraid I wont be able to cope with an active 2 year old and a newborn and being so isolated and tired.

What should I do?:crying: :sleeping:
vonnie100

[Kells]

You poor thing!! :hugs:

Will she fall asleep straight away in your bed if you leave her there when she comes in, and then maybe transfer her to her own bed ( I know this is not the ideal solution, and you want her in her own bed all night, but if it means getting some sleep for yourself, it may be worth it)

Just thinking that if she is able to go to sleep within a few minutes in your bed, it may be easier than everyone screaming and yelling in the middle of the night and then being truly 'awake' if you know what I mean.

Hope it gets better for you. And yes, you will cope with two. Somehow it just falls into place :D

Good Luckxxx

[semazani]

Is it an option to have her sleep in your bed? My crew all slept in our bed at various times through the years. You can both get the rest you need this way.

Rebecca
Mom to Seth (11), Madison (9), Zachary (8), and Nicholas (5)

[Jenko]

We go through the same thing each night, but instead of trying to put her back to bed we let her sleep with us for the rest of the night. I'm really hoping that things change before the new bubs comes along. I have thought about putting her bed in our room next to ours, at least that way there is more room and she may get more used to sleeping in her bed. I just don't have the energy to stay up in the middle of the night trying to get her back to sleep, she falls asleep within minutes of being in our bed.


The other thing we do is get into her bed with her till she falls back asleep and then crawl back into our bed. She usually wakes again some time later though! :rolleyes:

I also share your conerns about coping with 2 kids, i have no support around either, but i'm sure we'll do just fine with it all. Sometimes we're stronger than we think we are! :hugs: to you and good luck with everything.

[Ky]

OK, so I'm probably going to upset a few people here, but I used a door barrier on my kids door when they started doing this and it only took a couple of nights of tantrums and gentle reminding that their bed is for them and Mummy and Daddy's bed is for us. They got to the point where they would get up, open their door, see the door barrier, close the door and get back into bed again. After about a week, I could feign putting the door barrier on at bedtime and they never even got up again to investigate!

No, my kids are not emotionally scarred and yes, they happily go to bed each night with absolutely no fuss at all ... in fact, they sleep from 7pm until 8:30am if I let them (weekends).

We do allow the kids in our bed on weekend mornings and the fact that we have all had a great nights sleep adds to the fun that we have together! It is one non-stop giggle session and something I look forward to!

[annb]

I was reading a TIzzie Hall article on just this issue this week, her idea was a reward system for staying in bed...eg every night stayed in bed, get a sticker, get 5 stickers and do something special. She also got the dad to sleep on a mattress in the room for a week, tell the child when you wake up you dont need to come to mum and dads room as dad will be in your room, when the child wakes in the night say go back to sleep see you in the morning etc etc but not interact to much, once the habit of going to mum and dads room was broken then start the reward of stickers...make a big fuss of giving the stickers then the reward and gradually had to get more stickers to get the reward.

As I dont have this problem yet I cant vouch for it working!!

[TwoBlue]

[\QUOTE]Ok i'm probably going to upset a few people here, but I used a door barrier on my kids door when they started doing this and it only took a couple of nights of tantrums and gentle reminding that their bed is for them and Mummy and Daddy's bed is for us[/QUOTE]

I think thats GREAT advice Kyra. We would have done the same but had no trouble with DS getting out of bed ...

But Vonnie100 i can appreciate how you feel in regards to all the other stuff, i have a 27 mth old DS and a 7 month old DS. The pregnancy was sooo hard and i have no help either.. as for coping with the two...well, if you read my thread in the discipline and behaviour area you'll see where i am with that at the moment :o but in saying that i wouldnt change a thing :D

Where are you in Vic... ? You should come to a Melbourne meet....

:hugs: to you

[melbryan]

Does you DD have the ability to open her door. Our 2 year can't yet and when he would get out. We would go in twice and on the third time let him fall asleep near the door after he had finished screaming. This went on for 5 nights and now he never gets out of bed. There will come a time he can open the door and I am ready I have those handles that spin, so he will be stuck in there. I has learnt that once the door is shut he has to go to sleep. I have always shut the door because he was always a light sleeper like his father. We have went for many night without sleep but we are about to start with a new baby soon,All over again.
Good luck