Please help 6 year old sleep

[ilkleymoorbartat]

Our dd has never fallen asleep on her own. Even as a baby she would never just drift off. Every night we still have to stay In Her bed for up to an hour. For a long time this was a reasonable pay off for her starting to sleep through.

However we have zero evening, and both of us want to go out together it's impossible. We also often have to work, by which point we're completely exhausted.

We did soMe vague attempt at sleep training when she was younger, which was a total disaster and I probably have some ptsd from it and worried I've traumatised her. We try and make bedtime relaxing, we read and cuddle and do all the usual stuff, but she'll always look to find problems. We try and just ignore and make it as boring as possible.

The problem now is that any attempt at a conversation with her about it totally stresses her out and only makes it worse. So we're sort of her hostages.

Does anyone have any advice?

Honestly? You need to put your foot down. It's not a conversation, it's you telling her that the grownups need time together in the evening and she's going to go to sleep by herself. Then resign yourself to a week of he'll and Do. Not. Cave.

You're the adults. You're in charge. You set the boundaries and she has to stick to them.

With DD1 we did the following when she was about 4ish. Normally bedtime routine, bath, supper, teeth, wee, stories, lights out cuddle and then we would leave for 5 mins to just do a job but always come back after 5 mins, a couple of weeks later move it to 10 mins and after another two weeks change it to 15 mins. Tell them they can go to sleep before your back if they would like.

An hour is a long time. What time do they go to sleep and get up? Are they getting at least an hour or exercise a day and no screen time for a couple of hours before bed.

I'm weak so I find it difficult to put my foot down. I would probably do the old "just nipping for a wee, back in 2 ticks" and then extend the time, start putting things away in her room then sort laundry in the room next door until you get to the point where she's happy for you to be out of the room for quite a while and then attempt to go downstairs. All very casual.

Does she read ok? I would also allow reading but only if she's on her own.

Our 6 year old listens to audio books on his Alexa (via audible). He falls asleep to them