My toddler (2yrs 4 months) has been a good sleeper. But of the last two months he has been waking up at 5am and not going back to sleep. Once up he wakes us all up etc.. He is in a bed with a nightlight he can turn on and can let himself out of his room. What can I do to encourage him to sleep or stay in his room?.

We did OK until Ben got to about 18 months and then he just refused to go to bed on his own. So for the past 6 months all 3 of us, my partner, me and Ben all go to bed at 8.00pm! I can't even move him back to his own bed, when he has fallen asleep because this wakes him up and we start all over again. It's a great contraceptive, but not very good for your social life."

I often go to bed with Craig, my 5 year old. My husband works shifts and I go to bed early with Craig. We both like it, he's only 5 and while he is OK on his own he prefers it if I sleep with him."

I struggled with getting my daughter to settle in her own cot both during the night and the day. She just seemed to want to be near to me all the time. As soon as I put her down, even if she was asleep, she'd wake up crying and refuse to settle until I picked her up again! I was beginning to find this exhausting when a friend recommended that I try a Slumber Bear, a soft velour teddy bear that plays sounds like those that your baby heard in the womb. What a miracle - it just seemed to reassure my daughter and helped her to settle without needing me to be there all the time!

The most unexpected tough time with regard to sleeping was when we moved Sarah from a cot to a bed. This unfortunately coincided with the time she decided she didn't want a sleep during the day, when she was 2. I tried to persist with the afternoon sleep thinking she was too young to make it through the day without a rest, but the nap in the afternoon meant she was not ready for bed till 10.00pm. I thought this was because she didn't like her cot anymore, so moved her into a bed. This caused even more disruption and meant we were back to a baby sleeping pattern all over again, waking in the night and still the late finishes in the evening!

I finally worked out the afternoon sleep was part of the problem and now we stick it out all day. She still wakes when she falls out of bed, but at least she is going to bed earlier in the evening now.

Next thing we are going to try is the device that fits to the side of the bed, this may be the only way I ever get a good night's sleep again!"

My son would wake up crying in the middle of the night because he was cold but then just kick off the covers again as soon as he was tucked up! I wish I'd known about baby sleeping bags! They might have saved me many a broken nights sleep!"

To be honest we never really got the sleep issue sorted with Sarah when she was a baby. She always went to bed late, often woke in the night and frequently ended up in bed with us. This went on until she was 2 and a half. My husband and I were exhausted and so was she! We tried everything, but I think the problem was we tried too many things and she got more confused than ever. We should have stuck to one method and really given it a good shot. The book, "Toddler Taming" really helped us as it offered practical parental advice. A friend had recommended it and so it gave us the confidence to stick things out.

We put her to bed at a reasonable hour and she wailed, of course. We extended the time between visits to her room and after 2 hours of hell, she finally stopped and slept through! I am not saying that things got immediately better from here, we had bad nights again, but we stuck to it and after a couple of weeks things really were improving. Two months on they are about 70% better than they were and I'm grateful for that!

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