Two-year-old daughter wakes up EVERY NIGHT...anyone tried this product?

Hello everyone.

Like the title says, my daughter wakes up every night--she gets out of her bed and just knocks on her door until we come get her. We've tried the crying-it-out thing, but she won't get back in to her bed on her own. Most of the time, the night ends up with either my wife or I sleeping on the couch and the other with her in the bed (or out on the couch with whomever is out there). Sometimes we lay down next to her bed and that allows her to fall back asleep, but then usually she'll wake up a few hours later again.

This has been going on for months, now, and I'm about to flip out due to lack of sleep. My wife did some reading and found a blog where a woman having the same issues was told by her doctor to go in and stir the child gently to reset his sleep cycle, and she claims that this was enough to fix the problem.

She updated the post at the bottom with this product--the Lully Sleep Guardian--that appears to automatically vibrate the child's mattress to gently stir them and reset the sleep cycle:


All of this sound plausible that it may work, as it does seem that my daughter wakes up close to 1.5 hours after she falls asleep, or 3 hours after, and from what I remember reading, sleep patterns exist in a 90-minute cycle. If she's coming out of her sleep cycle and waking up because of the sound of traffic or train horns (we live on the main road of our neighborhood and there is a train crossing close enough to hear the horns), this may help keep her in a deeper sleep pattern.

But then again, maybe it won't, and at either $129 or $199 for the iPhone-app-enabled version, it's not the world's cheapest gamble. But at the same time, if we could even end up getting 3 or 4 nights per week of uninterrupted sleep, I think it'd be worth the cost, not to mention how it's probably affecting my daughter, too.

So, have any of you tried this product before? Do any of you think that it sounds valid on theory? It says it's for night terrors, but it seems that it could work for my daughter as well.

We're at the point of desperation in our family, but I'm not a fan of putting good money behind bad investments, so I'm just looking for a little feedback or reassurance that this product sounds legit.

Thanks...and regardless of all of my links, I'm really not trying to sell or promote this product, I'm sincerely looking for thoughts on it as it pertains to my own sleepless life. I just want you to have access to it all if you want to look at it and share your thoughts.

SM

ETA: She does NOT wake up crying anymore, although she did when she started this. Now she just silently gets out of bed and starts knocking on her door until we get her. I do NOT think she is having night terrors, but like I mention before, I think that something that resets her sleep pattern gently may take care of what is going on with her--that's why I link to the blog post, as that lady's son wasn't having night terrors, either.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Like the title says, my daughter wakes up every night--she gets out of her bed and just knocks on her door until we come get her. We've tried the crying-it-out thing, but she won't get back in to her bed on her own.

Is she upset when she wakes up? Crying?

Thats more than just traffic or train horns. Why did you bring the video of a cure for 'night terrors'?

I would for the time being, move her to a different area of the house, sounds like you end up doing that anyway. That fixes it?

Other questions I have are best shelved before I hear back from you or what others have to say.

I haven't tried the product but, as a formerly exhausted Mom, I urge you to consider her diet and have her tested for allergies or food sensitivities. We did this for our kid using the elimination of certain foods and now we all sleep through the night. And it happened in one day. After four years....

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Don't waste your money. My youngest daughter would do same thing. I tried everything and in the end this was magical. She doesn't walk around with it like a pacifier or blanket. It stays next to her pillow and if she wakes up she can hit the belly. My middle daughter had a fetal tones teddy bear that did same thing which, she grew out of. This puts the control of the issue in your daughter's hand.

www.fisher-price.com...

A little off topic here, but have you considered giving her a little more protein for dinner?

I found with my kids & grandson that they slept better with more protein in them before bedtime. This will piss off the vegans, but some meatloaf, or steak knocked my kids out like a light after a afternoon of running around. I know!
Shocked us too, but like you sleep was hard to come by and this was like a miracle.

YMMV
good luck!

Have you tried a fan or something that makes a constant noise loud enough to drown out all the other noises?

Works for us.

Put her Bed in your room.

I will assume at the age of 2 she may well be having multiple naps during the day. If possible you can try to disrupt this and try to keep her awake as much as possible. This I know is easier to say than do.

Also the good old advice of as much physical activity as possible about 1-2 hours before bed time. NO TV before bed.

As for the device, I haven't tried it, but I would try natural ways of doing things if time permits.

Good luck!

a reply to: SlapMonkey

I'm sorry to hear that you are having a difficult time with your child. We had the exact same thing with our little girl. We tried everything and nothing worked until we got the book below.

The first 3-4 nights are pretty tough, but it works 100%. Follow the book, after the first 3 or 4 nights you will be sleeping like a baby.

Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems - Dr. Richard Ferber. You can find it anywhere. Look at the reviews on Amazon.

a reply to: intrptr

I added this info to the bottom of my OP:

She does NOT wake up crying anymore, although she did when she started this. Now she just silently gets out of bed and starts knocking on her door until we get her. I do NOT think she is having night terrors, but like I mention before, I think that something that resets her sleep pattern gently may take care of what is going on with her--that's why I link to the blog post, as that lady's son wasn't having night terrors, either.

And to answer your comment about moving her in the house, we do, but I don't believe that it's the change of location that gets her to sleep, it's the fact that when she does wake up after moving her (and she still does), the fact that one of us is with her allows her to immediately fall back to sleep.

a reply to: kosmicjack

We generally keep her on a pretty good diet--she loves baked chicken and meats, some veggies, mashed potatoes, fruits, etc. We're not the parents who shove her full of chicken nuggets and soda and then expect her to have a good night's sleep.

We've tried some other diet-based adjustments, but with no real positive results. I don't think that her problem is diet-based, and she has gone through phases of eating everything she touches and eating hardly anything at all throughout the day, and nothing has changed with her sleeping patterns.

I wish it were that simple--and my wife is very diet-focused when it comes to issues like this--but no changes seem to have affected it.

a reply to: bkfd54

Yeah, she used to have one of those, but never used it.

We're trying to keep her from waking up, not provide her something that she can mess with if/when she wakes up.

Don't take my response the wrong way--I know that this works for some children, but it wouldn't/hasn't worked with mine.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

"Now she just silently gets out of bed and starts knocking on her door until we get her."

This is the exact thing that was happening to us. The book I posted about in my above post solves this exact problem. It involves talking to her through her door with the door closed and you holding the door so she doesn't come out, or something to that effect. I know that it sounds cruel, but it worked for us 100% after about 3 or 4 nights. Try the book, it is an inexpensive solution that worked for us.

Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems - Dr. Richard Ferber. You can find it anywhere. Look at the reviews on Amazon.

She's two that's natural. It won't last forever.

And yeah, those controlled crying techniques and others stated above ARE cruel in my opinion. Only my opinion though. I believe if the kid wants love and company give them it. Like I say, the kid won't be doing it when it's 15.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Well, it's at least something to consider if all else fails. Does she drink milk? Because that's a biggie, sites are full of testimonials about how removing milk changed everything. It's the casein.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

originally posted by: and14263
She's two that's natural. It won't last forever.

This

We have been going through the same for the last few months with our 2 year old. It's a pain but it's all part of the process. We went through the same with our oldest and we both know it will pass.

Just gotta grit your teeth unfortunately.

a reply to: Starbuck799

We're definitely not opposed to having her cry-it-out, but it hasn't really worked well in the past, and we've tried it multiple ways (with reassurances, without, cold-turkey, graduated, etc...).

But maybe it's time for that again. It just makes it hard because she's in a toddler bed now (has been for about 4 months), so we haven't tried that method because of concerns that she'd get back in bed and cover herself up (or wouldn't do that). I think we're going to give it another go over the weekend, though, and just see how it goes, and then decide from there. But the main problem isn't that she necessarily fights going to sleep (although that has been happening a bit lately), it's that she doesn't remain asleep and then won't go back to sleep alone once she's up.

Either way, this is going to be a fun weekend.

a reply to: kosmicjack

No, we got rid of milk from our house years ago, although I just recently re-introduced it to me. No one else touches it, though.

a reply to: SilentE

But it doesn't have to be like this, and I know because our oldest (12) slept like a log from the time he was born and never had sleep issues. Yes, individuals are different, but it's not healthy to the mental development of the child for them not to have good sleep.

It's normal for sleep regression to happen and for it to last a couple weeks. We're going on multiple months, here--there's something to this equation that we're missing.

a reply to: Starbuck799

Yeah, I get it. I'm not above doing things that "sound cruel" in order to fix an issue. Hell, my son gave us a couple nights of not wanting to stay in bed when he was about two--I turned the knob around, locked the door, and let him cry it out, telling him that it was bed time and to get in bed. That only lasted a couple of nights and he was broken of it.

My daughter is more stubborn. Much. More.

And yes, we unlocked his door and checked on him before we went to bed, to ensure that he wasn't locked in at night.

Maybe I'm just being too soft because I'm daddy and she's my daughter. In any event, I think we will give it a try again this weekend, and I will maybe even consider moving her furniture in her room around a bit before we try that, just to see if that helps.

Who knows what will work, but we'll try a few things, one at a time, to see if it helps.

Thanks...I did forward that book to my wife, and apparently she already knows about it.