To cancel

[runforthesun]

I will try and keep this brief !
For the last few weeks we have had trouble getting dd to sleep at night, she is 4 1/2, used to go to bed at 8 fine and wouldn't see her until the morning, however she now refuses to go, lots of crying, stalling etc, then waking up again in the night and climbing in with me with dh ending up on the sofa.

She did have a few bad dreams to start off and we have reassured her, sat with her,talked over fears etc, but now when she goes to bed she is not saying she is scared but I want to sleep in your bed. Me and DH both work full time so we need our sleep, feel shattered as this has been going on for a few weeks, also the time she is settling down it is nearer 9.00 that she goes to sleep so we are only getting a short period of time to ourselves before we are in bed.

I have tried reward charts with limited success, however I have mentioned to her that if we don't see an improvement she will not be going out with my db this week, this is the only thing that I can think that she will feel like she is really missing out on, that will not impact on her younger brother( as he doesn't go). I mentioned this to my db to give him warning and he accused me of being a bit harsh and it was only a phase she was going through. (he hasn't got any dc and he moans when she sleeps over and gets him up at 7.15 on a Saturday morning.)

So am I being unreasonable to stop her going ?
If the consensus is that I am, I will be hotfotting it over to parenting !!

Would also like to add that she probably will go as she was good last night, however would like other opinions as my db has made me feel like the wicked witch of the west !!

[GhostShip]

I don;t think its unreasonable. She needs to learn.

[Alitoomanykids]

sounds reasonable to me! Your db has no idea really on how draining it is to deal with children when you are not sleeping. My dd went through a similar phase at around the same stage which went on for about two months - it was hell. I think we eventually tried confiscating one toy for every time she got up as she didnt seem to be phased at all at just being put back to bed... she just got straight back up again. Short of locking her in her room nothing would work, she just would not go to sleep. Anyway, after a day or so of watching her toys disappear she stopped. She had to earn them back the same way. Every night she stayed in her bed she got a toy back. Good luck. Hope you get some sleep

[KenLeeeeeee]

It's not how I would handle it with my DD tbh. It doesn't seem fair to punish her for being scared, and I am more inclined to believe that she's genuinely frightened rather than using that as a rouse to sleep in your bed.

The bad dreams could well have really freaked her out. I still recall a couple of nightmares I had at that age and how they made me feel.

Could you try changing something in her bedroom to make it a whole new place for her, so she can disassociate it from the bad dreams and be excited to sleep in there? Move the furniture round a bit, get her a new set of sheets with a design she really likes?

[runforthesun]

Thank you both for your replies, I didn't think I was being particuarly harsh and you're right small children are draining, I was doubting myself. That's a good idea about the toys, will store that for the future.

[runforthesun]

Ken, I've ordered new bits and pieces for her room, big stickers, new lights etc, if I genuinely thought she was scared I wouldn't be cancelling things, however now all she says when she goes to bed is that she wants to sleep with me, she doesn't mention being scared etc, but we might have a room shift at the weekend anyway it can't do any harm.