DD (5yo), has always been a bad sleeper on and off (although she was the best sleeper as a baby!), since she’s about 18months old. She’ll fall asleep on her own, although she does try it on of getting us to come up to get this teddy / that teddy / swap this teddy / change her night light, and sometimes she won’t fall asleep until 9pm, doesn’t matter what time we put her to bed. The problem with this is that she’s still waking up before 7am, as well as maybe awake in the night too!!
We stick the same night time routine. She’ll have a bath every other night, snack (normally baby cucumber), and a small glass of milk (not always), story, lullaby, brush teeth and bed. Usually in bed by 7.45-8pm. But she’s just never tired. So falls asleep around 9pm and then lately she’s been waking up around 1am and doesn’t need a wee or a drink or anything, she just can’t go back to sleep. Sometimes she will wake up with suspected growing pains (we’ve seen the GP about this), and she’s quite understandably upset when this happens so I will bring her to our bed and DH will sleep in her bed, and she’ll usually settle back to sleep (although I don’t sleep then because she moves SO much during the night), this did happen the night before and I felt so awful the next day because I’m also 37 weeks pregnant. Last night she woke up at 1.45am, she asked if she could come to our bed so I just agreed hoping she would settle, she said he was too hot so I asked if she wanted to go back to her bed, no, so I took the duvet off her a bit, 15mins later she said again she was boiling (she wears thin pj’s and her temp was ok), so I told her to take off her pj trousers, which she’ll do sometimes in her own bed if she’s hot. Then about and hour later she asked if she could go back to her bed so I told her to go back and tell DH to come back to our bed. Then I hear her calling my name, she couldn’t open her bottle for a sip of water, then 15mins later called me to close her bedroom door ‘tight but not super tight’, then she asked for something else I can’t remember so DH went this time and he didn’t close the door “properly” so she got emotional and started to cry and there was drama for about 5mins and then just after 3.30am I was able to go back to sleep. DD wakes up at 6.50am!!!
I don’t know if I’m just super hormonal and tired but please can someone advise or has someone experienced the same thing and why?!
I know some might say it could be because of the changes that are going to happen soon (new baby), but honestly she’s been like this on and off for years so surely can’t be that?
In the past we’ve tried to change a lot with bedtime routine and time and nothing worked.
We do enough activities after school, play outside, walk, crafts, friends over to play.
She eats a good diet, she usually doesn’t have any sweets or chocolate, after school snacks tend to be babybell / cucumber / crisps / fruit / yoghurt and I always home cook our meals.
Sometimes the other mums say if there’s been a party or something that their DC’s are so tired whereas DD is definitely not, not after parties on bouncy castles or soft play, not after swimming lessons, not even after busy Saturday’s when we’ve been to ballet, golf lessons, horse riding! I’m just baffled and tired!