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

When people are very scared they do things they would not otherwise do.

"Consequences" for this kid will maybe make him repress the behaviour but they will do nothing for the fear. I am very very reluctant to criticise people's parenting on here but I don't think the OP is handling this well. Talking about how their bond has been eroded. I know (too too well) what sleepless nights can do to you but this tactic isn't even going to work.

Has he had therapy? He really needs a safe space to talk and he doesn't seem to have that at home.

I would speak to the GP or school nurse. His anxious nature should not be affected his daily living like this..

@umberellaonesie it's not "an anxious nature" it's anxiety. And no, it shouldn't be affecting his life, no illness should, but you cant just wish it away. It need treatment.

@TheBlueHotel your post has made me so angry. "Naughtiness" isn't "beyond anxiety" it is a far less complex and intense thing. People like you shouldn't be allowed within a mile of posts about mental illness.

I had a child like this. I gave up and had them in bed with us. Eventually they moved to sleeping on the floor beside our bed (when they had a horrible cold and I didn't want to catch it) and stayed there for a few months, before 'braving it' and moving to their own room.

I never put any pressure on. After all, realistically there are not many 18 year olds still sleeping with their mummies, are there?

Ignore your family. There is nothing 'wrong' with him, and being firmer will only result in him being frightened of you. He can't help it. If you can't sleep at night, as an adult you have the choice to get up, make tea, read, watch telly for a bit. Kids don't have that choice, so what do you expect them to do - just lie there staring at the dark for a couple of hours?

Oh yeah, that would really help.

Fucking clueless. I hope if your kids ever do experience mental ill-health that they get better support from someone who isn't you.

You are the parent. Can;t the two children sleep in the same room for now?

He is a child, A 7 year old. You are the adult.

It is learned behaviour. No special psychologists needed.

Go in your room, all is well, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

In fairness, you have a baby and while they might not be sleeping through like some ‘atrocious sleep’ is pretty much the norm at that stage. I also have a toddler who’s been a bad sleeper from the beginning, and again it’s to be expected. You are right that being firmer or just putting them down isn’t a solution in itself. I think the people giving advice though will very much have an idea of what it’s like to not get much sleep with a little one, and also what can be expected/what you can do about an older child.

My 14 yo came through last night so I'm not going to pretend I have the magic cure. But the the things that have worked the best at calming the panic in his head in the night, which is very real, have been:

1. A night light which is more like the Northern Lights across the whole ceiling. One single light made the darkness darker apparently.
2. Audio books. We have a subscription to Get Sleepy premium (so no ads) which he listens to on low via Spotify in his room (I set it from my phone so he doesn't have electronics in his room).
3. For when he's away (& he does now go away) or just because, he can listen to it on a snoozeband so anyone else doesn't have to listen in.

It can feel relentless but some kids especially the neurodiverse (mine has ADHD) who have anxiety on a whole different level do just need the reassurance of knowing they're not alone at night .

Not everyone has space for a bigger bed!

there was a thread about double beds a few days ago with the majority saying they only had room for a standard double.

Do you think it would be comfortable for OP to share a double bed with two kids and her husband? She has said her other child would want to sleep in the same bed.

If her son is constantly waking he when she’s in the same room for silly reasons and does the same thing in her bed then that wakes everyone.

Even if he doesn’t then it’s hard sleeping with a squirmy child - especially one who keeps waking up.

Sometimes you have to be firm if it’s detrimental to your health.

Have you never wanted to shout in the middle of the night when you're absolutely shattered and have had only 30 minutes sleep? I know I'd lose it too, especially if I was being told which way to face in bed and position my head. The OP is at the end of her tether.

A 7 year old who is scared to sleep on their own doesn't have a mental illness. Anxious feelings and thoughts are common in young children. That doesn't mean they have an actual anxiety disorder. Children can develop very unhelpful behaviour patterns when not corrected and this is what's happening here.

This, I know you're tired but being even a little bit annoyed with him will not help him settle it just makes it worse for anxious kids.
Put him in your bed and work on helping his anxiety. Mine needed us at night until a little bit older than he is, he needs your reassurance now.

There are so many different viewpoints on this and all of them are valid. There is no right and wrong. It's just about finding out what works best for your family.

I was a child who woke at night and my parents did not like to be bothered. I have memories of lying awake for hours, silently, sometimes scared and crying quietly, sometimes not that bothered by it. But I had learnt (and definitely by 7) that the worst thing I could do was bother anyone in the middle of the night. So I didn't. I got very little sleep some nights and was often tired the next day. I was also quite an anxious, overly perfectionist, people-pleasing child who internalised a viewpoint that other people's needs were more important than my own.

I'm not drawing any parallels between you and your DS's experiences - I'm sure he knows you're there for him if he really needs you - just giving you my own.

Perhaps I go too far the other way - a lot of our parenting responses are often a reaction to how we ourselves were parental - but I've gone down the route of never making bedtime a battle. My rule is that everyone has to be quiet and go to sleep, but I don't care where. Both kids have doubles in their rooms and quite often the three of us will end up in one of their rooms or in mine. When they're both asleep, if I need my space, I exit quietly and go and sleep in whatever bed is free. We have all the upstairs doors open at night anyway and our house isn't large so we're quite close to each other anyway 😂. My kids can be a handful going to sleep but they tend to sleep the night through once asleep.

Calling this 'mental ill health' is projection. The child is 7.

Why are you medicalising this? It's people like you who've turned perfectly normal kids into walking labels with rampaging anxiety, enabled by adults.

Have you considered whether it might be night terrors? Possibly also sleep paralysis.

Please get him therapy.

This is going to sound trite, but the only thing you can control here is you. Try and keep calm by repeating in your head 'he can't help it, it doesn't matter. He is allowed to be anxious'. Sleep however and wherever you can. Mattress not working? Switch beds with son. Still not working? Sleep together in bed or on mattress. Change where mattress is. Start in your room and move over. Start in his room. Move mattress to your room..... You want to do sticker charts etc - sure, give it a go. You just need sleep and to get over this hump.

Seems like setting rules and boundaries and getting cross hasn't worked. So try something else.

All 3 of my kids were different sleepers and different things worked for all 3. Some of those things worked better for me..... forcing them to do what worked best for me suited no one in the end.

Our son has ASD. He woke in the night from 5 to 10 years old. We bought a super king bed and let him just get in EVERY night. He suddenly stopped at 10 (despite a Dr telling us we should be stricter as he'd still be doing it at 15.)

I think you should talk to him during the day and explain that being there is fine for comfort but the keeping you awake and waking you up is not and that it's naughty. Find a consequence for that which you enforce during the day.

If you can, buy a bigger bed and let him sleep with you. Sleep for you is key here. Tell younger son that the older one has some challenges you are helping with and that you are proud of him for sleeping so well.

I think a therapist is a good idea. Maybe he’s got some issue like anxiety or neurodivergent. Either way I don’t think co sleeping is the way. You get no sleep that way and you deserve a rest and ti be able to look after yourself a bit by the time your child is 7.

You don't know that. You don't know what kind of needs this child might have.

can you just make a COMFORTABLE temporary bed for yourself on his floor and roll with this while you all recover

my 11 year old is like this (she is autistic) and whatever we have done she just wants one of us nearby at night. I presume she will grow out of it.

the one mistake here is to be uncomfortable while dealing with it.

You could order a comfy floor bed/ camping mattress or you could make him a bed in your room.

She already tried that.

Only read OP comments not whole thread so apologise if repetition, but that 02:35 update about him specifying how you lie down etc reminds me of my DS who went through similar when he was a bit older. He’d often had this night fear and needed someone sleeping in his room but we noticed these rituals becoming more of a thing and that it was taking a turn for OCD traits, so we found a good therapist who worked with children and she did a course of sessions with him to draw out his concerns and work on them, gave him tools that helped a lot. There’s a lot going on that they can’t articulate easily to us and it’s sometimes evolved beyond being scared/going to sleep into something more complex that needs help to unpick and address. Otherwise things that seem to help can actually feed the fear as it’s really about their need for control. Good luck with it. 💐

When he comes into your room, take him straight back to his bed. No eye contact, no talking. Keep doing it.