Night time troubles – Please help

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Please help, I’m so tired!!!?

My son is 28 months old. Lately he has been getting up in the middle of the night. He rarely seems to have had a bad dream, and only occasionally it’s because he’s wet the bed. (He’s pretty much toilet trained. Just the occasional accident.) I honestly don’t think it’s sleepwalking, not that I know much about sleepwalking, but I’ll give you a few examples of what he gets up to.
One night, I’d forgotten to attach the fridge/freezer lock before going to bed. I woke up to him squealing that he was stuck, because he’d gotten the ice-cream out of the freezer, got the portable dvd player, put them both in the port a cot I have set up in the theatre room, which is directly outside our bedroom door, and got stuck whilst trying to get into the port a cot to eat ice cream and watch a dvd at 4:30 in the morning!!!
Sometimes he will find my handbag, it doesn’t matter how high it is, he’ll climb or get chairs, and empty it on the floor. He doesn’t do anything with any of it, but it’s annoying!
He will go into his sisters room sometimes and get in her cot. She’s 9 months old and a very light sleeper at the best of times, let alone when he’s in there kicking his feet around.
Last night, he got my fit ball and threw it on our bed, wanting to play.
I’ll save the best for last…
About a month or so ago, my neighbour from 2 doors down came into my room and asked me if I was ok. I told her I was, wondering why the hell she’s in my room and how did she get in?! She then said to me “Because Jack and Angus (our dog) were just down at my place” I was gobsmacked!! I eventually found out that Jack had figured out how to unlock the side sliding door and open it. It was just bad luck that my husband hadn’t properly pushed the button on the remote to close the garage door after he left for work that morning. That was a very shaky day.
There’s soooo much more I could put down here, but I’m too tired to think of it all and it’s all just more of the same naughtiness. Except for the other night. Again, I forgot to lock the fridge, he got up at 3am and ate my cheesecake 1/4!!! He shared it with the dog, but he’d also gotten a pack of frozen chips, opened them with his teeth and scattered them on the floor. I’m assuming it was to try to deter our dog from eating the cheesecake. I didn’t even get a slice! :(

Alot of the time he seems to be going for food. He’s not hungry. He eats really well and very balanced. I just don’t understand why he does this probably 4 out of 7 nights for the last few weeks. It seems to be getting worse because he used to listen to us when we put him back to bed. Now he just keeps getting up. We all need our sleep. Especially my poor husband. The last thing we need is for him to have a work accident because he’s tired.

Please, if anybody has any idea of what they think it could be, or could be caused by, I really need some help with this one!
He goes to bed at around 8:30 every night.He’s usually awake around, but no later than 7:30, and has a 2 hour sleep in the middle of the day. He needs that snooze, or is a right little whinger for the rest of the afternoon and evening. He is disciplined fairly. We don’t go too hard on him, he’s just a kid, but we’re not too easy on him because he still has to learn what’s right and wrong. I’m just at my wits end this morning and really need help because we’re so tired and it’s starting to affect the rest of us.

Best Answer

When our son was little he used to do the same type of thing… We finally (sounds horrible) caged him in his room. We made certain there was nothing that he could hurt himself with, locked his closet doors, etc. and put two very secure baby gates (one on top of the other) in his doorway so he could not leave his room. He would get up, play for a little bit and then go back to bed. The doctor said he had just developed a bad habit and we needed to help him break it. There was nothing wrong with him physically, emotionally, etc. He wasn’t wetting the bed, hungry or ill… He would just wake up every night at 3:30 or 4am and play for an hour or so and go back to sleep until 8am. It took a week or so to break the habit (and he wasn’t happy during that week) but, like you said, the rest of the household had to have our sleep. Best wishes to you! :0)

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