To just want a full nights sleep?

[TheUnwindingCableCar]

Our daughter turns 4 later this month and she has only ever slept through the night once (maybe twice) since she was born

Does anyone have any tips?

She has her own room with a bed she chose with a tent over it and all her teddies and comforts.

She has a night lights left on.

She just won't stay asleep for longer than 3-4 hours without waking. And that's if we're lucky. Often she wakes every hour until 2am

If we let her sleep in our bed or on a put up bed in our room she will sleep slightly better but not much and she can't sleep in our bed permanently because it's giving me really bad backache sharing with a starfishing 4 year old.

I thought starting nursery would help tire her out but it hasn't made any difference. Neither does trying to tire her out on walks or letting her go to bed later.

I just want to sleep

You have my sympathy, OP.

DS was a terrible sleeper- we sleep trained at 7 months before I went insane. It worked.

Because of your daughters age she will have quite ingrained habits. As you’ve seen, they don’t just grow out of night wakings.

If you can afford it I would contact a reputable sleep consultant. They work wonders. Your daughter isn’t too old for it.

DM me if you like and I’ll give you the name of the woman we used. Lifesaver!

YANBU You must be knackered! It’s so hard being sleep deprived.

Is she able to fall asleep by herself? Or do you need to be with her?

Most of my sleep woes (and there have been many) have been improved once they can fall asleep by themselves.

We were inexactly the same position. School helped! We found they started reliably sleeping though when they started P1. I know it's not what you want to hear, but there is an end in sight!
I tried everything. I used to do sleep counselling as part of my job, but none of the techniques worked on my own child 🙈

Does she have any sn?

If not, I'd say at age 4, she should be capable of understanding that if she wakes up, she needs to stay in her bed. Sorry if that sounds simplistic

What happens when she wakes? Is she distressed or upset? Or does she just lie there unable to fall back asleep?

Tell her to go back to bed OP - she's 4! Then ignore. Mine had a gate on their door until they could learn to stay in their rooms.

We had similar problems to this although not quite as late as 4 and someone recommended the clock from gro egg that's blue at night and yellow in the day, took a week or two but finally worked a treat. It's been a life changer.

I have to sit with her until she falls asleep. Which takes well over an hour.

When she wakes she's usually screaming and crying. I think she has night terrors or something because I'm not sure if she's fully awake at first but she always ends up fully waking up if that makes sense.

She doesn't have any special needs

This is a habit that she’s got into because she’s literally never known any different. If you think she’s having night terrors then you need to take her to get some help with that - a GP? Easier said than done right now, I know. But you can’t live like this, and neither can she. I know you think you’re helping her but you’re not. She needs to learn how to self manage her night waking.
If she’s genuinely having night terrors then this needs to be addressed but are you sure that’s what is happening and she’s not just upset at being alone/wants you to come to her? She probably has no idea of how to even try and fall asleep herself if you’re always here for an hour or more with her.

I don’t want this to come across harsh but sometimes parents are just so overly comforting to their children that it ends up holding them back in being able to manage their own needs. Obviously as I said if there’s a real issue with night terrors, it’s not as straightforward and that needs to be sorted. But you don’t deserve to be living like this especially as it doesn't benefit anyone!

gosh it's hard.
one of my (now teen) dc was like that. and I still feel tired just thinking back
tbh we caved in out of desperation.
dc fell asleep in own bed, often with me sitting next to dc, stroking their hand. and in the night we let dc come into bed with us.

then suddenly at around 4 yo dc slept through the night for the first time. and has since then (bar illness or holidays when normal rules don't apply.

If she's having night terrors I'd comfort her but once shes feeling better or if she's just waking up out of habit, I'd tell her that she needs to rest quietly. She doesn't have to sleep but she needs to stay in bed and be quiet. I'd be quite firm with this.

If it's every night then you really need to seek help through a GP. It could be something else which is causing her to wake in such a frightened state, such as large tonsils causing breathing problems.

A surprising amount of children still don't sleep through at this age. I think the frequency of her waking is perhaps unusual, but I've seen many sleep threads in here where you would be the later side of the normal spectrum but by no means the last! We have a 3.5yo, who is about 50-50 sleeping through, and it's annoying, but it's not a concern yet for us. She'll get there.

If you want to solve it, then I'm sure there are things you can do, but I don't want you to feel that you're either alone or that there's something wrong, because night waking during toddler/preschooler years is very common.

My DD was a terrible sleeper as a baby until just after her 4th birthday. At just before 4 she would start the night in her bed and then join us in ours. Gradually the amount of times that happened reduced and she now sleeps through every night and generally we have to wake her in the morning. It feels miraculous. We didnt 'do' anything we just recognised that for some children they get to that point later than others and adapted by co-sleeping until she didn't need us any longer. We're social animals and I think its perfectly natural for young children to crave us at night time.

We've tried leaving her but she just screams and screams, is that not damaging for them?

@TheUnwindingCableCar

I have no idea if it's damaging, but it's pretty unpleasant for everyone.

One of mine has/had quite bad dreams and the odd night terror and they do get easier once they are able to explain what happened/understand it was a dream which should be soon, if it's not happening yet. What helps mine calm down is calming music (he sometimes likes this to go to bed as well) so we just ask the Google device in his room to play 'relaxing classical music' as we can guarantee that will be appropriate and no big bang's etc, set to play quietly so they can't hear all the 'outside noise' and get jumpy again.

We chat about how the next dream could be really exciting and fun, what do we think it could be etc, I tuck them in and go back to bed with a promise if they really can't sleep they can come in my bed but they have to try first. It usually works. But nightly ones must be exhausting, and they get worse with tiredness I think so you are stuck in a cycle! If you've rules out that anything is worrying her, she's not in pain, no worms (sounds odd but I hear it's common to cause this sort of reaction!), it might be worth a chat with your health visitor or GP

Yea the screaming is horrible. The sitting by her bed until she's asleep I don't mind I just wish the wakings would reduce to be honest.

When she wakes it's always with crying and if we don't go in to see her and leave her to see if she settles she doesn't. She just gets more and more distressed.

Last night I had to go in to see her 5 times through the night and then around 5am she came through and got in our bed.

Dd is 3 and still wakes every night comes looking for me. I get in with her because it's easier. She sleeps great when I'm with her but alone she wakes up and gets up. I think the pp who said it's a habit now is absolutely right. My dd actually said to me the other day Mummy why do you leave me in the night and go in daddy's bed? I said that's Mummy and Daddy's bed! She knows this really but I think she just thinks I have always slept with her, I lie with her while she falls asleep you see. Then she wakes and I'm gone so she gets up and comes to get me back!
I'm hoping she'll just sleep longer one day!

My 8 year old is similar. She seems to go through phases, sometimes she'll sleep through for a while and other times seems to get up and come in to our bed most nights. We rarely wake up when she gets in with us so it's not like we can just keep taking her back.

She also takes ages to get to sleep and someone has to stay with her. We've tried everything over the years and it gets us nowhere. If we just leave her she gets incredibly distressed- the last time we tried, the neighbour over the road text me to check everything was ok!

She is a very anxious child, although she isn't scared of anything in particular about bedtime. She's perfectly happy to be alone at other times.

I even took her to the doctor last year but sadly she was no help.

I'm sorry I can't offer any advice, I just wanted you to know you're not alone!

@TheUnwindingCableCar

We've tried leaving her but she just screams and screams, is that not damaging for them?

Don't you think it's damaging that neither of you are sleeping properly? The body needs sleep. It's particularly important for developing brain function in children (see below).

As PP said, the key to this is she needs to learn to fall asleep herself. She can't get back to sleep when she wakes in the night as she's used to you being there. So crack that first and then work on the rest.

You could try hard core "super nanny" style rapid return. So you explain she has to get to sleep alone give her lots of kisses and then leave the room. You ignore the screaming. If she gets up you return her with no eye contact (first time you can say "back to bed darling"). This will be hard to do but if you are strong it'll work on her after a few nights - but you can't give in or it will be damaging and confusing for her.

Other option is what I did and it is called the kissing game. You explain that she has to fall asleep alone, but you can play the kissing game. You give her a kiss and leave the room and come straight back. She counts to 2 or 3 (if she can count). Then you repeat all evening, you leave for 5 seconds, and then 7 seconds, and then 10 seconds and then you increase the time until 1 minute and then 2 minutes eventually getting to 10 minutes and 20 minutes. And she should soon fall asleep.

Certain stages of sleep are needed for the regeneration of neurons within the cerebral cortex while other stages of sleep seem to be used for forming new memories and generating new synaptic connections

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651462/

Have you spoken to her during the day about it? Does she know why she is waking up? What is she thinking about?

And I also agree with PP the key to this is she needs to learn to fall asleep herself. She can't get back to sleep when she wakes in the night as she's used to you being there. So crack that first and then work on the rest.

So, she's asleep at the moment in her own bed. When she wakes what should I do?