sleep and things

[twoblueskies]

im feeling broken , my 3 , nearly 4 year old wakes us multiple times in the night , she only opens her bowels in a nappy at night so the first shout we check she doesnt need changing then we tell her we are going back to bed , she then shouts , cries and make herself sick . if its early morning (5 am) we take her into our bed but she doesnt cuddle u and sleep she moans about being touched and wants to get up.
we have tried gro clock , she said she doesnt want it (i bet) and wont let us turn it to the sun at night ( i do it when she is asleep) . we have a stair gate on her bedroom door but leave the door open, she goes to bed happily and settles herself . what do we do to improve things ?
we are all exhausted , she only wants me but dh and 10 year old daughter are suffering too.
she also holds her bladder and bowels , we are awaiting blood tests to check her thyroid and to see if she is impacted. she waits until the end of the day and has a wee before her bath on her potty .but complains about the smell of poo despite us saying its only the rubbish that her body doesnt need.
she also is very demanding , wanting me to sit with her while i do dinner , i try and get her doing things at the table in the kitchen but she wants me next to her and whines and moans if i dont do what she wants.
she came to us at 11 months and had a settled foster placemnet from 10 days .
she is bright , very bright ! and i am struggling to feel positive to her .

basically we are struggling

I feel for you. Our two (4 and 2) are absolute masters of finding ways to get our attention, negative and positive! It's one thing to know that's what they need, it's quite another to summon up the energy for it, constantly. I dip in and out - join them for a bit, do something that makes them laugh (on a really good day) then slip back out to the kitchen when they're absorbed.
Hopefully someone else can help on the sleep thing...

This sounds really hard for you. And the interrupted sleep just makes things a million times worse. I can certainly empathise with the sleep issues.

In terms of practical suggestions, the most helpful thing I tried (and believe me I have tried pretty much everything over the years!) was to put a mattress by the side of my bed and let LO sleep there. At various points in her life she has done any combination of the following:

1. Go to sleep in her room, call for me because she’s woken up at any point from 10pm to 2am, gone to sleep on her ‘emergency bed’ aka the mattress on the floor in my room with me lying on my bed waiting with her til she’s asleep.

1. Chosen to go to bed directly on the emergency bed at her bedtime. Needed me to be with her til she falls asleep.

1. Gone to sleep in her own room with me staying with her til she falls asleep and stayed asleep in there all night (this happens very rarely but it does occasionally happen)

1. Gone to sleep in her room with me staying til she’s asleep then taken herself to the emergency bed without calling for me (this is also not a regular occurrence but probably happens marginally more than the staying asleep all night).

Over the years although the sleep itself is still not perfect she has needed less input from me to fall back to sleep so that we’re now in a fairly acceptable place of it taking about an hour to do the whole bedtime drop off to sleep routine, then she usually wakes up in the early hours and totters in to me without disturbing me as the sight of me in bed is enough to reassure her.

From what you’ve said I would guess that she is struggling with conflicting feelings at the moment. She wants the reassurance of you being there but this conflicts with her nearly 4 yr old desire to be independent. I think all you can really do is try and go with it. My DD is in the juniors at school but still likes to be rocked like a baby sometimes. There’s that age old wisdom in adoption about parenting to their emotional age not their chronological one. This can be hard to do at the best of times let alone when you’re knackered from crap sleep.

Other things that have helped have been a meditation app which we use whilst she tries to drop off to sleep. This seems to work really well. I have tried audiobooks without much success but know some people swear by them. Some theraplay touch activities (you can google theraplay for some suggestions) were helpful when she was completely melting down and couldn’t calm down enough to even begin to think about sleeping. I found that baths before bed really didn’t seem to help and so switched to showers in the morning.

Other than that, have a think about what might be at the root of the sleep issues. With DD it’s a feeling of being abandoned and no one being there to look after her when she wakes up. Took me a long time to nail exactly what the fear was and what experiences it was linked to but knowing this has made it easier to stay empathetic (not all the time!) when she is finding sleep difficult and I’m therefore sleep deprived.

I wonder if the wee and poo thing is a control or conflict issue too for her? I had similar with DD. As frustrating as it is your best bet is to try to roll with it I think. Just clear up the crap (literally) and try not to show her if you get stressed about it. Considerably easier said than done I know. There were plenty of times I sat sobbing in my bathroom just thinking ‘why can’t you just pop in the toilet like other kids’. It does get better I promise.

Do have her toiletting checked out medically. We were told our DD(6) had chronic control issues and was withholding poo and having wetting accidents which were psychological in nature.

A bit of medical investigation revealed constipation and a uti, the "psychological issue" was thatvit really really hurt to pee or poo. Does her pee smell bad and what's her poo like?

In terms of sleeping, I feel your pain. My two usually sleep really well but when they're unsettled I feel it badly. My DS(4) struggled to sleep on his own but once he knew we would always come to him, and checked on him all through the night, things got much better. It's hard if you're not sleeping. Could someone look after your little one in your home during treatment day and let you get some sleep?

Couple of other thoughts: if it turns out to be fecal impaction this can cause tummy pains which might be what causes the night time waking. Movicol sachets daily can help with this and you can get them on prescription.

I know she has only had one FC and came to you relatively young but she had still had at least 3 moves (removal from BM, removal from FCs then move to you) plus there might have been other changes if she went into any respite care whilst in F.C. That’s a lot of change in a short time and as she gets older the pre verbal memory of all these changes might manifest themselves as general anxiety which she’s not yet able to understand or fully verbalise. This might be part of the sleep issues?

Whatever it is I hope you get some respite soon

X post with jelly. I agree get the toiletting stuff checked out medically

I second the mattress by your bed or in her room, we had a sons bed in our room for many years.. Ignore those who say they'll not learn to settle themselves. our child still struggles with sleep at 12 and is in our room overnight lots but does sleepivers with friends no problem. She's showing you she needs you in the middle of the night so give her what she needs. Another idea we found helpful was to put one of my tshirts on him as a nightshirt, still a go to favourite when hes stressed, the smell is comforting i think.

Totally agree with getting her checked out medically. Otherwise the only thing I can add is co-sleeping? Mine doesn't settle when in own room, tossing and turning, but solid out when knows that I will turn up for the rest of the night. Twelve hours in the dark is a long time for a child to be alone.....

thankyou so much everyboday , lots to think about

we having been using laxido , like movicol , for 2 years , finally got referred to paed who felt her tummy and said she was "full" despite opening her bowels the night before. I am awaiting blood results for ceoliac or thyroid before next appointment , but like everything it takes time.yesterday i upped the dose to see if i can get her regular, she did a poo with a potty wee and some went on the floor , she was horrified but we said letting the poos out was really good and she will get better at getting the poo in the potty , so thats good.
with sleeping i have written a story telling her that she must stay in bed until the sun comes up on her clock , if she shouts me in the night i have put a monitor to talk to and tell her im in bed sleeping if she calls out , this seemed to work last night . I also set boundaries that if she goes back to sleep when the stars are still out she can have a story in my bed when the sun comes up ( she likes this) .
it was a much better night last night , woke us up at 6,30 and afer some settling waited for 15 minutes ..... as always thanks for support

Glad you had a better night. This does sound like you're onto something and it could be pain from her bowel causing the waking, so I hope the paed helps you soon.

Does she have a photo of you at eye level when she's in bed? That can help, as can showing her in the morning that you took a quick pic of her when she was sleeping ("proves" you did check on her through the night like you promised and can make it seem safer to fall asleep). We also often use the bedtime story chat time to specifically notice two or three things DD did really well that day (they can be small!) and to make a plan of one nice thing we will do together the next day. It seems to help reassure the worry that we'll all still be there in the morning.

The photo of them sleeping is very popular with my two - it proves I check on them and that I don't disappear when I leave the room or when they go to sleep. At breakfast I'll talk about how they were during the night - they're both wrigglers and I often need to turn them the right way up, tuck them in, rescue cuddle toys. So at breakfast I'll start a story about how I checked on one of them, with lots of funny voices, actions (like wrestling them back into bed, sorting bedding etc) and will then do a story about the other.

We also have a set way of saying goodnight which always ends with "see you in the morning", just bits of reminders that you are still going to be here are so important.

If LOs aim isn't that great remember to sit the potty on a towel so if they miss you're not constantly cleaning floors and carpets - just fold the towel up and wash (also works with vomit )

Have you seen this for the toiletting? www.eric.org.uk/

Poor sleep almost broke us, it's miserable.

Could she hold something perfumed under he nose while she poos?

Sleep deprivation is the worst.