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DD8mo doesn’t sleep at all. She takes a couple of 1/2 hour power naps during the day, and she goes to sleep at 11pm and wakes up at 7am (if I am lucky).

This morning, she woke up at 5 and sat there playing.

I don't mind, but we all co sleep together (DH, DS3, DD8mo, and I). With DD being plenty mobile, I am afraid of her waking DS up and/or falling off the bed.

So I ended up staying up with her until she crushed an hour later, and now I am exhausted.

Any ideas how to tire out an active and busy baby?

I feel for you. DS2 woke up this morning at 4:30 a.m., after having gone to bed at around 11 p.m.

You can't make them eat and you can't make them sleep. My dd slept through the night for the first time at 16 months.

The only thing you can do is rearrange your life a bit until you find something that works for you. Two family beds, a family bed and a crib, a family bed and a bed for your 3 year old. A family bed with a crib side-cared to it.

This won't last forever, I promise! One of the things I have had to teach my dd7 over the years is that even if she wakes up, she needs to stay in bed at night. I will always come to her if she needs me but to save her questions or chatting for morning. She is still up throughout the night but does not disturb the rest of the house, even though she would really like to. LOL!

8 hours of sleep is pretty good!

Mr W rarely napped at that age, went to bed at 9 pm, woke up at midnight and 3 am and was wide awake by 6am. It was a battle until he turned 3.5 years when he would go to sleep at 9pm and sleep all night to 6am. Some days he sleeps in to 8am. There are still nights when he comes in around 3am to wake us.

I know there is some research showing that some GT kids really do need less sleep, but given the vast number of kids I know whose parents say they "need" less sleep, I would try harder first to work on getting her on a schedule or finding the sweet spot for nap and bed timing. There is a TON of research out there on the importance of sleep. If this one doesn't need it as much, then she is still affecting the rest of you. Maybe you can rejigger the sleeping arrangements somehow? Sometimes kids actually need to go to bed drastically earlier. If all else fails, then YOU should go to bed drastically earlier or find ways to get rest otherwise. Your 3yo also should not have to have his/her sleep interrupted.

I personally am not a fan of the "it won't last forever/this too shall pass" advice. I have seen too many families really struggling under the stress of kids not sleeping well, sometimes even past the age of 6 or 7. Marriages can be harmed and parents (usually mothers) cannot go out at night, etc. I don't mean to be doom and gloom but I really think this is important to work on.

Ditto on doing your best to help them sleep. DS6 regularly goes to bed after midnight, but this isn't really because he needs less sleep so much as it is his not wanting to sleep. He's bleary-eyed on most school mornings. I don't know if he's a night person or sundowner type (I stay up awfully late too and have gone through sundowner periods), but I suspect it's just wanting to keep going. We typically let him stay up as late as he wants despite some misgivings at times.

My son has also been a terrible sleeper. At 3 1/2, he is finally starting to sleep through the night more consistently. When he was baby, he'd only nap on my chest or while being carried. However, at some point, we discovered what we dubbed the 'miracle swing'. We learned that he would nap in a cradle swing (on full speed, I think) because he couldn't fight the motion rocking him to sleep. This was the only thing he would nap in until it broke shortly after his first birthday. It was a Fisher-Price Papasan cradle swing. Hope this helps!

I co-slept out of desperation with my ds due to his sleep habit's- so I could survive until he was 4. Once he moved to his own bed he still woke me up several times a night. He was also still wetting the bed at 7 in addition to night waking. Remember he had some major health issues-so we were in survival mode. Around 7 1/2 we did a sleep study and sure enough- he had obstructive sleep apnea. He was stopping or had shallow breathing approximately every 5 minutes. We did a tonsillectomy and within a few months the sleeping was greatly improved. He also around 7ish started keeping a book next to the bed and started reading at night by himself if he could not sleep. I know his sleep habits are better but he often reads at night if he can't sleep.

Is it possible you're waking them up?

With four people in the same bed, there have to be a lot of different sleep rhythms going on-people moving, rolling over, etc.

You could be waking her up and not even realizing it. I have one kid who sleeps like the dead and one kid who wakes up if you even poke your head through her door to look at her.

We had to put them in separate bedrooms because the light sleeper was disturbed and exhausted by the heavy sleeper going through normal sleep patterns.

The light sleeper needs a really quiet, really dark room with a non-varying white noise going to get a good night's sleep. The heavy sleeper we could stick on a hammock in the middle of a maelstrom and she'd be fine.

I would think that with everyone in actual contact with one another in the same bed the problems would be exacerbated.