Why Is My 3 Year Old Still Waking In The Night?
Please watch my video below to learn why your child might be waking in the night.
Questions about your child’s sleep? Advice to give other parents? Join the discussion in the ‘Comments’ section below!
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View the Video Transcript
If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcription of the video…
This week’s question comes from Susan. She writes:
“My 3 ½ year-old daughter still wakes up in the night asking for milk… Could it be that she is hungry or thirsty? I can’t figure out what to do and I believe she is too old to be waking up in the night now…”
And I would agree with you Susan. I really don’t think there is any reason why she should be waking up in the night at all and certainly not for milk. I really don’t think it’s a hunger issue. It could be thirst. I mean there are nights I wake up and have a drink of water, so it absolutely could be that and I would suggest that you put a spill proof sippy cup of water somewhere close to her bed, maybe on her night table and just ask her if she is thirsty in the night to go ahead and have a drink of water.
I would also have a closer look at bedtime. You haven’t mentioned much about what goes on at bedtime and I’m just wondering if milk is involved in your bedtime routine and if it is I would suggest that you remove it completely. Just get rid of the milk altogether and move to a sippy cup of water instead.
The tricky thing about milk is that a lot of the times it’s a baby who is using a bottle of milk to get themselves to sleep and therefore in the night when they wake, they want you to give them a bottle of milk so they can get themselves to sleep again. Sometimes if milk is in the bedtime routine there just becomes this sort of vague association between milk and bedtime or sleep, and if there is milk at bedtime then in the night they want milk again.
So it’s not a strong association, but it’s still there and I find that by removing it completely from anything to do with sleep really prevents those sort of lingering associations, so get rid of it at bedtime and if she continues to wake up for the first few nights asking for that milk just validate. “I understand that you want a glass of milk, but there is no glass of milk,” and offer her the sippy cup of water and she is just going to have to go back to sleep without it.
Now because of her age, another little thing you could try to sort of spin this in a positive direction would be to offer her a reward. Make out a little reward chart that says if Sally sleeps all night in the morning she can have a treat, and then make it worth her while, maybe it’s a sticker or a bracelet or a treat of some kind and see if that inspires her to try a little harder to sleep through without interruption.
I find that it is better if you write these things down. Somehow just it being on paper in a child’s mind makes it seem a little more concrete and you might even consider putting a clock in her room, a digital clock, duct tape over the minutes so all she can see is the hour, and then just start talking about the number of morning.
In our house it’s seven, so nobody can get up until the magic 7 and just start talking about at seven. “When the clock says seven then you can get up and then you can have milk with your breakfast,” or whatever the case may be. So that is my best advice to you. I think she should be sleeping through the night, so I really encourage you to go ahead and tackle this and within a few nights that habit will be gone and she’ll be sleeping through. Okay, so thanks a lot and sleep well.
