As we already talked about in Part I and Part II, the typical 2½-year-old is a terribly cute little rebel, concerned mostly with getting caught, rather than the act itself. But despite their attempts to overthrow the world, or at least YOUR world, these children have one primary weakness: jealousy.
It is a little more difficult to talk about this period of development in definitive terms, because individual differences become more pronounced by this age, and what we might call a typical pattern of development becomes more blurred. In general, the older children get, the more "variability" or differences you'll see among kids in the various stages. Jealousy is a perfect example. Some children are highly sensitive to jealous feelings, and their sensitivity may result from temperament, from the fact of having a younger sibling to compete with, or from a combination of the two. Similarly, the degree of defiance and testing of limits varies hugely from child to child. At 2½ to 3 years of age, some children are more concerned with “being good” than anything else. They love being praised, cuddled, and simply being in the beam of their parents' affection. Others are little hellions bent on breaking every household rule and exploiting them to extremes. Still other kids oscillate back and forth between these two polar extremes (fun times, I tell 'ya).
Because of these growing differences among kids this age, my advice about sleep training can't be as general as it was for earlier ages. It depends on how your own 2.5 year old is fairing through this transition period. If your child is prone to jealousy, if your child is on the defiant end of the spectrum, or if your child tends to wage battles whenever rules and regulations are not carved in stone — wait out any sleep training until he's closer to 3 years old (the next relatively "stable" age). Once your child has pulled through this stage and has given up his world domination strategy everything will get easier—including sleep training. Also, take advantage of familiar routines and nightly rituals, including reading and telling stories, as these often maximize comfort and closeness for children who are emotionally volatile. But if your child is a relatively mellow kid, if he already seems comfortable and relaxed about his role in the family, it might not be necessary to wait any longer if you want to implement your favourite sleep training method. You have to make the call based on your own understanding of your child.
So, let's tackle again the last reader's question about what to do with a child this age who is calling for mommy (and ONLY mommy) 5 times or more during the night, but who falls back asleep quickly once mommy arrives to tuck her back in. All she seems to need is a little reassurance and then she goes back to sleep. Problem is… now YOU'RE awake. Here's my take: ESPECIALLY if you think that your child has reason to feel heightened levels of jealousy and insecurity (relatively new sibling, moving from a crib to "big bed"), I'd wait this stage out and avoid any real sleep training. We all wake up many times during the night, at least for a second or two. What we are mostly good at is putting ourselves right back to sleep. But have you ever had periods in your life that were, oh, a tad stressful? And during those periods, have you ever had the experience of waking up and then not being able to fall back asleep? FOR. HOURS. What you've probably noticed is a tendency to ruminate during those times. We can't stop thinking about what's worrying us, what's making us insecure, anxious. Now… translate that to your child. She's working stuff out; emotional stuff that is difficult to deal with even for adults (jealousy). A mere month or two ago, she didn't fully comprehend that mom's affection could ever be anything except squarely aimed at her. What a rude awakening (tee hee… pun intended)! The 2 1/2 year old will wake up and feel just a tiny, small pang of anxiety and that little pang may wake her up fully and although she may not realize why, she needs you NOW. And then as soon as she realizes you're there for her, you aren't with someone else, meeting their needs, she feels better and slips back to sleep. Once she gets this out of her system, once she fully masters this stage transition, she will probably, naturally, without much training needed, stop calling out for you. If she doesn't, then 3 might be an easier age to reason with her and to help her learn to self-soothe.
Thanks for all this awesome explanation. So that’s who my 2.5 yr old is! Wow!
One question–she’s been waking up at 4am sharp for the past week. No other sleep issues, just that one perfectly timed wake up. We co-sleep, so no need to get up, but we’re all awake. I’m assuming this is part and parcel of the “waking up but not able to go back to sleep because there’s so much stuff going on in my head” issues?
Thanks for the insight Isabela. OP here. DD is a no. 2 so no jealousy issues as you described although she really has become super possessive of her stroller recently ( she honestly goes berserk if her bro touches it). I will try to keep everything in mind. It’s funny ‘cos she doesn’t sleep badly every night. Last night she slept straight thru ( 11 hours), for example. We have been telling her how grown up she has become recently and how proud of her we are ( for example she has been doing well in the toilet training arena) and whenever we get a full night’s sleep out of her, we tell her how great that is. Maybe this will help her feel less insecure.
@ Marsha: Yup, that’s my guess. Isn’t it EERIE how they sometimes get up at EXACTLY the same time every night or morning?! My boys had a horrific habit of waking up at 5:20 am every morning for 3 months straight. Not a min earlier and, much to my exhaustion, not a min later.
@ paola: You’re very welcome! Your girl is still a little younger than 2.5 so I wonder if the jealousy stuff is still coming. On the other hand, as I said, not all of them go through it. One of mine did, the other didn’t. Go figure. But of course, it was the more “sensitive”, anxious one that had jealousy issues. One of the classic situations you’ll see this in is if you ever have the opportunity to be with another mom who has a baby. See how your 2.5 year old reacts when you hold and coo to that other baby… Also? GREAT idea to praise like crazy the sleep accomplishments and to generalize how proud you are of her in general. All goes to building a more secure foundation. Also, the big hallmark of these transition periods is lots of unpredictability. So… often kids will sleep through for a few days, then go wonky for a few days, then go back to a more stable pattern of sleeping through. All part of the definition of “transition.”
Dear Isabela,
I’m so glad I came across your site. Our 28 month old has always been a wonderful sleeper except for the past 3 weeks. He now requires us to rock him to sleep at bedtime, when previously he was fine falling asleep on his own. The he will wake up anywhere from 1-4am, crying out for “Mommy’s bed”. When he first started to cry, we would bring him into our bed where he would fall asleep immediately. I knew this was not a good solution, so I started to just lie on the floor of his room with him, and he would also fall asleep immediately just knowing i was next to him.
Last night my husband went in and rocked him back to sleep.
Now i’m not sure what to do. After reading through your site, it seems like this is not a good time to sleep train/let him cry it out, due to his age.
Should we continue on our path and hope and pray this ends soon?
We both work and are exhausted at work…I am 3 months pregnant as well.
Thank you so much for the advice!
@Debbie: Yeah, 28 months is a really, really hard age to start implementing any new sleep habits. For all the cognitive and emotional reasons I list through Parts 1 – 3 on this blog (these reasons are fleshed out more in the book, but are too lengthy for a blog post), there’s good reason to just wait this stage out. If you do wait a few months, it’s likely his sleep habits will improve without much intervention. But if they don’t, the closer to 3 your child gets, the easier it will be to sleep train him. Also, you’re expecting a new baby soon, I would teach your child any new sleep habits you want him to learn BEFORE the baby comes, so he doesn’t start “blaming” the baby for his inability to sleep closer to you. As you’ve probably read so far, jealousy is one of the new emotions that come on board around this age… GOOD LUCK! It really is a hard age.
I, too, am so glad I found all of the information you share. I have been scouring the internet for some time. My son is 35 months old and we have daughter who’s 4.5 months old. I would say that before my daughter’s birth we had a similar regression but it resolved itself with us staying in the room a little longer and then with stickers and rewards. Then, we completely forgot about stickers and rewards as he has somewhat magically started sleeping through the night again. Then a month or so ago, the stalling at night happened again and we discovered that checking on him solved the problem quickly and more or less painlessly (sometimes it took several checks, but he remained calm and there were no signs of panic). Then just a couple of days ago, all hell broke loose and as soon as we tried to leave, he’d start hyperventilating, crying and saying that he had to go poopie. Of course, he knew that we’d put him on the potty (of course, NO poop, as you I’m sure could have guessed). The funny thing is that when I ask him if he’s just saying that so that I’ll stay with him, he admits it. He even jumped out of his crib once when we did not respond as soon as he called for us. (Hello, toddler daybed!)
Sorry I’m so long-winded. Long story short, my husband stays with him until he falls asleep and fields the wake-ups until early. He only really wakes up once now and his wake-up time is back to 6:00 or after (instead of 5 or 5:30). So, what happened? I decided that it was time to start a bedtime routine with his sister. Could that be part of the craziness and panic on his part? (Dad or Mom is with the baby) Would it be better to have her routine coincide with his for stories? Better to have her routine after his?
His good sleep is only if someone is in there as he falls asleep, but I’m not sure how far down that road we want to go.
@Theresa: Yes, it sounds like you figured out the trigger for your son’s insecurity. He may be ruminating about your feelings for the baby and worried that he doesn’t have you all to himself anymore/isn’t loved as much as the baby, etc. I suspect that if you could do HIS routine first, it would be nice so that he feels like he has all your attention. Then when he falls asleep you can attend to the baby (if your schedule allows for that). Otherwise, when the baby is at an age that she can go down early (like an hour or so before your son), then your son can see the baby go to sleep and that then your attention is entirely for him — that might make things easier for him also. I wouldn’t do the routines at the same time at this stage in both their development.
Thank you, Isabela. We’re striving for the latter, baby’s bedtime 7:00 pm and his 8:00 pm. (I was thinking that the baby was at an age that she could go down early, oops. Was I wrong?) It started out great yesterday. Baby G fell asleep around 7 and I was able to give my son a bath and read, but just before the last story, the baby cried and wanted to nurse! again! oh my! The baby seems to be “getting” the bedtime thing, even though she seems to wake up an hour or so later. Thank you for your advice. I think either solution will help Max, but the one with baby to bed first seems like it would be easier for me. We’ll plan on having dinner earlier, a bottle of milk for Dad if she wakes up, maybe Max can pick out her pjs. And I can make a big deal about what a BIG boy he is, that he can stay up later than the baby, etc. I have my fingers crossed! Oh, and it is just so good that an expert in developmental psych like yourself has a blog. It isn’t all that easy to find nuanced information that is based on research. Hats off!