2yr old waking up crying at night
Our 2 year old daughter wakes up in the middle of the night whimpering and crying asking for mom and dad. I believe she is still asleep because when we quietly assure her that we are here with her, she quickly calms down and goes back to sleep. We tried thinking about what could be the "trigger" and the only thing that was "new/change" was our newborn baby. Our 2 year old has been doing this for about a month before the baby was born. Almost seems like she is anxious/nervous about something. Is this a phase that will eventually pass? It's already bad enough waking up every 2 hours for the newborn but adding the crying from the 2 yr old certainly doesn't help.
May 31, 2017
Parent Replies
We have a 4 month old baby, and my almost 3 1/2 year old son has had similar night wakings starting just before baby's birth. I think there is a lot of anxiety in general with 2-3 year olds that create sleep issues, so part of it may be developmental. But add the new sibling on top of developmental milestones, and I can only imagine that there is a lot swirling around in their mind that tends to lead to anxiety at night. I think our son sees that his baby brother is sleeping in the room with Mom and Dad, and he feels left out of the equation. From everything I've read, this is completely normal with the arrival of a new sibling. Although this doesn't help tired new mamas, so I'm right there with you. I just keep saying "This too shall pass."
DnB, KennedyS,
It sounds like your children might have night terrors. Check out Lully Sleep, https://www.lullysleep.com/ as their product might be able to help. This is a company that originated at Stanford School of Medicine, it's safe and it works for night terrors.
This happened to us too! We used techniques from Peaceful Parent Happy Siblings by Laura Markham to help our 2 year old release stress and express her feelings about the new baby. Even if you don't agree with everything she says there are great techniques in this book for helping your daughter manage all those big feelings.
I feel for you. Yes your daughter is having anxieties because of the newborn. There is a pediatrician who wrote a great book to explain the relationship between siblings and how we parents create subconsciously problems in their relationship. He says that kids fight for their parents ' s affection. That parents should not take side in a fight especially if they did not witness the scene and refers to what we may say which can hurt them. It happens for example when a child looks more like you physically . You unconsciously identify more with this child and will make remarks which will hurt the other child. Jealousy will be part of growing with siblings fighting for parents s attention. All you can do is reassure her that you love her as much as you love your newborn and make her feel important and responsible letting her know the baby is going to look up to her and will love her as much as admire her. Creating these positive feelings will be helpful to calm her down. Goid luck from a mother who could never let her kids cry to sleep and read every book on earth to try to understand them ;-)