Feeling such rage at DS7, please help

[DespairInDarkness]

DS' sleep has been awful the last few weeks, waking me every couple of hours or so and it is at the point of feeling like absolute torture now.

Tonighe he woke me at 12 (barely half an hour after I'd fallen asleep), then again at 2 and kept us awake til 4. At that point I'd been on his bedroom floor for 2 hours so decided to go back to my bed. He came back through within 5 minutes and we had to start all over again.

At that point I'm ashamed
to admit I screamed/cried/begged at him to lay down and go to sleep. It took him 40 minutes, he's now asleep and i'm too scared to move, but aching so much lying on the floor. As I was dozing on and off earlier, I had visions of gettiing in the car and speeding up and crashing so I could sleep.

I just want him to not need me, to leave me alone at night, I want personal space, I want to sleep.

I don't need tips on how to help his sleep I don't think as we have tried it all at this point but I need advice on staying sane and not turning into an awful mother.

I've had 2 hours sleep and need to be up for work in an hour, the only thing stopping me from bursting into tears is the fear of waking him

Any chance he has ADHD?

Yes, this is what I did. There comes a point where they don’t need or want you: I just used to remember that this point would come and enjoy the snuggles (and sleep).

I didn't mean you, I meant her friends who she said herself don't understand what she and her son are going through.

I wasn't comparing my baby to her 7 year old, I just offered that by way of explanation as to why I had no advice.

I'm just offering some support to the OP.

Ah fair enough!

Poor boy, is he scared of being alone? Has he been watching anything scary online/TV?
I would try to dig deeper as to why this is happening.

My girl 8 has had periods where she's afraid.... I've been terribly sharp with her 😞 what absolutely helped was a smart speaker and an audible subscription. She said she doesn't feel alone now.

This is seriously not something you can parent out. Either something happened to him that triggered him to be this way - or he is experiencing mental health issues like ocd. Please speak to your doctor.

I'd have zero patience too. Shouting at you that it's the wrong water. Aking you turn your head. I'd go nuclear and he'd be left in no doubt that it was never to happen again.

OP, you could have been describing me when I was a child, I’m pretty sure I drove my mum to the brink and I quite clearly had very acute anxiety that was triggered by sleep. I didn’t want to be alone, I hated the thought of going to sleep, I needed perfect conditions to sleep etc.

I really do think you need to speak to the GP about getting therapy for your DS’s anxiety. My parents were furious with me, would scream at me to go to sleep, and tried every reward, bribery etc going but in the middle of the night it just didn’t matter to me, I was completely irrational and couldn’t articulate what the matter was. My sleep issues carried on right up until I was an adult and I truly believe if I had had therapy to treat my anxiety when I was a child it really would have nipped it in the bud or at least given me the coping strategies needed to help.

I really do feel for you but I feel so sorry for your DS too. I remember those long, frightened nights where I felt like I was having a constant panic attack very well almost 30 years on, it’s awful.

Or he knows he has mummy wrapped round his little finger and can command her to run to his every whim.

It's learned behaviour , a habit and it will break you.

Tough it out.

Bingo!

Just wanted to give a virtual hug and say I understand everything you’re saying because we have been through very similar with my now 10 year old daughter. She has had long periods of anxiety at bedtime and during the night, waking up being scared but not able to articulate why or what of, refusing to go back to bed, unable to sleep in our bed on the very rare occasion that option was offered. Screaming, crying (from us all), disturbing older brother and feeling so tired you don’t know how to get through the day. The first thing I’d say is be kind to yourself and to your son. We tried to discipline our daughter as some have suggested but it didn’t work because she wasn’t doing it to be naughty, she struggles with anxiety and needs our help as her parents. Every morning she would say sorry immediately - she knew she was causing us distress. She said she’d do better but then the night would come and it would be the same.
Try your absolute best to stay calm - I know the frustration is overwhelming so not always easy. We are going through a good spell now, hopefully those days are past us. She gets up in the night every night still, but she turns the landing light on for more light and that is all she needs to calm down and go back to sleep so we are undisturbed. Not sure if I’ve been much help here, but just wanted to say hang in there I suppose and you will eventually find a way through this.

However I do agree that the behaviour re shouting at you and demanding things is completely unacceptable and needs consequences. The message needs to be your anxiety and fear is valid but your unacceptable behaviour is not.

We have this with DD, eventually we popped a kingsize bed in her room. So when it happens one of us jumps in with her. I don’t get this lying on bedroom floor skit. Equally a 7 year old should know not to wake adults up unless there is a problem: sickness, bad dream etc. Being woken constantly is actual torture. I read somewhere you should let them co-sleep until they don’t want to, but that’s hardly practical for most families, besides, I really don’t want a child in my bed.

This having experienced a child go through school anxiety and OCD there are a few little flags here that do need investigating particularly the needing you to move and needing control over things

going nuclear isn’t going to help.

also talking in the day won’t - DS would be perfectly reasonable in an evening about the night and morning and desperately wanted to sleep and go to school. Would agree a plan he would say he wanted to do it but then as the night went on that would all go

Solidarity because it is absolutely torturous and we have periods of our current DD7 going through this over the years. At it's worst point it went on for nearly 3 months. We ended up buying one of those kids Z bed things that folds up into a chair cushion. This meant one of us could lie in comfort on her floor until she was asleep. We would then move and bring tbe z bed into our room and lay it out on floor with a spare pillow and then when she inevitably woke up in night (only ever once we had gone to bed ourselves obviously....) she just had to drag her duvet in ans she'd sleep there rest of night. It was the only way we could survive this period. We both have demanding jobs and also a much younger DC. Additionally I experience a number of issues around sleep including anxiety and insomnia so it can take me several hours to go back to sleep after being woken up so the impact of her sleeplessness hit incredibly hard on my physical and mental health. Argos and places do these types of beds.

I think her knowing that she could come in to us easily without being taken back to her room and me inevitably losing it with her after 4th disruption etc. Helped her relax and go off to sleep more easily so eventually we were able to move ourselves from lying on her floor, to sitting on the z bed chair in her door way, then moving z bed chair and sitting outside her room and then saying goodnight and going downstairs and coming back up to check on her.

We also introduced a nightly kids magnesium vitamin which she called her sleepy time vitamin. Think impact is most likely placebo but hey we will take anything that stops up going back to this place!
Currently she has a bed tent from ikea, sleeps with a plug in night light and also has waterfall white noise playing all night.
She was diagnosed with ADHD last year- the sleep disturbances were not indicative of this, there were many other symptoms of it. However autistic people and people with ADHD can be more likely to suffer sleep disturbances

This sounds awful OP, you poor thing.

Firstly dad needs to take some of the brunt.

I know you said no sleep tips, but I wanted to share this in case it helped. It worked with DD when she kept coming in all night, though she was 3 so may be different.

You tell the kid they need to stay in their own bed. When they wake and come in, you take them back to bed and say they need to stay there but that you will come and check on them. This is the hard bit - you make yourself stay awake and set a timer for 3 minutes and go and check on them, but very briefly, no conversations or hanging around. Then repeat 3 mins later. Then stretch to 5 mins. Eventually they will be asleep when you check.

When they wake and come in again, repeat this.

The idea is they get used to a) staying in their bed and b) having to fall asleep on their own.

Best of luck OP.

Instead of sleeping on the floor in his room you could make him a floor bed in your room to come into if he needs to.

Given what the OP says about how he wants to and the difference in the day to the night I would lean towards no and it’s a form of anxiety and OCD and at least needs investigating as school avoidance can follow

Are people not reading that if the Op co sleeps or sleeps in his room then he still keeps her awake by telling her to move or demanding different water/ screaming etc?

• get him a double bed?
• just let him sleep in your bed?
• DS slept in a nest next to our bed for a few months - duvets and cushions on the floor

One of my friends engaged a sleep consultant and their suggestion was to put a baby gate on their room door. Resettle in bed once, then resettle at the gate, then via baby monitor, the ignore. I don't know if it worked or not, they ended up finding the child's adenoids were enlarged and that was what was waking them.

Dont lie on the floor, either buy a double and you sleep there or a king and they come in with you.

Also what about melatonin and L-Theanine? Both available in kiddie gummy form, maybe you need to get him more relaxed and drowsy, so he doesn’t wake in the first place?

I think you are doing this wrong. I tried what you are doing with DS 1 . Torture.
DS2 was a very clingy child and needed comfort/ us there. He had a ‘special bed - his duvet folded by my bed. We slept well in our own bed . He slept where he could hear my breathing and have a familiar smell etc. problem solved and we all slept much better.

If he talks to you during the night just be sleepy/ grumpy . “I’m sleeping , shhh, it’s nighttime , you’re ok, snuggle down “

It doesn’t last forever. He’s slept in his own bed now since 8 ( still a mattress on the floor) and just occasionally comes in to cuddle as a treat.