Moving DD (5) from my bed

[Rainallnight]

DD is just five, and came to us when she was 8 months old. She’s wonderful, bright and funny and also very anxious and can be controlling and aggressive.

She’s slept in our bed pretty much since the beginning of Covid, which coincided with us moving country at short notice and my mum/her Gran dying.

We’ve been back home since August but it hasn’t been possible to get her to sleep in her own bed.

I really want my bed back to myself, if, say, I want to go to bed early to read, and I want DP to be able to move back into it. We’ve been sleeping separately because of this.

We tried to move her in tonight - it was her idea - with the big incentive of being able to use her new audio player there (but only there). She became absolutely hysterical and was screaming, kicking and punching.

Any ideas about handling this?

Your daughter has had a lot to deal with and is still very little. Even children who did not loose loved ones and move country have become very anxious. She is clearly not ready to move back into her room. However, the situation is clearly difficult for you too. Have you considered getting a foldable matrasse which you can have on the floor in your bedroom? It would mean taking a small step towards moving her back into her room, your husband could move back into your bedroom and you could all get a proper nights sleep. We have got those matrasses and they work well for us.

My DS still likes to sleep in our bed, we’ll let him settle to sleep in our bed and then move him through to his own room in the night - he tends to then sleep through in his own bed. That might work or might make your girl more anxious so it’s worth considering with caution.

Can she tell you why she gets so upset in her own room - there might be small changes that would help her settle.

Thanks very much, both of you.

I know what you mean about what she needs and I am thinking really carefully about that. This is part of a wider picture of her challenges and my mental health isn’t great. So this is sort of about carving a bit of time and space out for me. But you’re right I need to keep balancing this against her needs.

A mattress on the floor could definitely be an idea, thank you! And we have one of those fold up mattresses.

@Jellycatspyjamas We used to do that but she would always wake in the night and come in.

She says that she’s scared to be on her own. And that’s a general theme - she doesn’t want to go to the loo on her own or do anything on her own, really.

I second the mattress on the floor…we adopted 7.5 years ago and again 4.5 years ago and have not managed to get rid of the mattress. Sometimes one or both of DS insist on sleeping in the bed but mainly they are content to bunk down on the mattress. They now sleep in their rooms but probably once every other night we get a visitor - but our sleep is less disturbed as they just go to the bed…I have given up hope of having a nice tidy main bedroom!!

*go to mattress that should say

Why don't you try mixing it up a bit? Mattress on your floor and hers.

All 3 sleep in her room
You and dd in her room
All 3 sleep in your room
Dd and dp in her room
Etc...
So she breaks the you and your bed association. But isn't left alone or feeling anxious. You could make it fun, a little game to choose the bedroom for the night. It might give her more confidence in her room. Include a teddy until it is her and Teddy in her room.

We're still on the sharing a bed phase because it works for us at the moment due to LOs age. If and when it stops working some things I've thought about, which might help are:

Getting LO to choose whole new bedding, bedside light etc. So they feel they "created" their safe space.
Glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and having one for mummy, daddy etc. So they can look at them in the dark.
One of mine or daddy's tops to sleep with.
A picture of our family to keep under the pillow
A baby camera in our room and they have the monitor so they can see us whenever they want to

To add to DodoBaggins's list, you could also get a photo cushion printed. Our LO sleeps with a cushion with our faces on it in his bed (we'd originally had it made for him to get used to our faces at the start of transition).