To ask for help with regards to dd4s sleeping

[Thedarksideofthemoon30]

I’m at breaking point 😂😩

Dd4 has never been a good sleeper. She always wakes around 4/5.30 every day. Even when she started school. But the last few months she now wakes from 12am and is up and down until 5/6. She is fully wide awake and wants to play/go on my phone/go downstairs.

The last week she’s waking at 9pm too. She goes bed around 7/7.15pm. We read a book or two and then I lay on the floor until she’s asleep. Although tonight I did leave the room and she went to sleep herself.

She’s just woken up saying she doesn’t know what to do and she’s bored. She’s practically asleep!

Wtf do I do. Iv had enough of having no sleep and having to homeschool 3 children every day is killing me. Help 😂😭

Oh my goodness that is tough. When your daughter wakes and wants to go on your phone or go downstairs what do you do? Can you put a mattress on her floor and lay down and try and encourage her to sleep too? Probably not ideal but would an audio book work if she listened to that? Would she drop off listening to it?

I keep putting her to bed and telling her we can get up etc in abit. A few times when it’s been absolutely ridiculous and she’s going to wake the others up I have given her my phone to watch YouTube 🙈😩

From about aged 3, DS was told he might not want to sleep, but everyone else in the house did, and he had to rest in bed until 6am.
We were pretty tough on him staying lying, quietly, in bed.
Absolutely no chance of screens until after breakfast.
He actually likes an alarm clock - a "noisy clock" was on his Xmas list aged about 5. It seems to help him remain dozy when he wakes in the middle of the night - he knows it's not possible to get up, so no point opening eyes and trying to read the clock (groclock colour or actual time). It also means we never get a chance of a lie in - we stuck with 6am alarms weekends and school holidays until he was about 8, when alarms went off at weekends.
He started at secondary in September. I still hear him up once or twice a night, and his light goes on at 6 to read, so he's awake before then. But he stays in bed, and I just roll over and go back to sleep.

So, id start with everyone else wants to sleep, and you can only be disturbed if there is an issue like illness or nightmares. Otherwise, toilet if needed and straight back into bed.
Abd Id talk to her about how she wants to know she can get up - a light coming on with a timer, a colour changing clock, an alarm clock etc.

Hope you get some more sleep soon

I think the phone will be counterproductive because it’s rewarding her for the behaviour, and the light from a phone interferes with sleep also. I second trying an audiobook if you haven’t already. I would also try returning her to her bed every time without any chat / interaction so it’s really boring for her. Even if she’s noisy about it, I think she needs to learn that waking in the night doesn’t lead to any fun interactions.

As others said, at that age she can understand she needs to be quiet/try and sleep. I’d stop the lying with her as she will struggle to self soothe if she associates always falling asleep with you being there.

I sympathise. I have a 4 year old who didn’t sleep through the night until they were 3. Lack of sleep is tough.

You have older kids , so you know what you need to do. You need to leave her to fall asleep by herself. She’s not a baby, staying in her room while she falls asleep needs to stop sometime!

My 4 year old has recently decided that she isn’t sleepy at bedtime, so we Just leave her with a toy and some books and the night light on. There was a struggle initially and she also said she was bored, but how she has a little read or play and lies down to sleep when she is ready.

What helped us with the mornings was getting a gro clock. She knows not to come into her own room until the clock says so.

Get a gro clock and get tough.
Unless there is some kind of underlying medical cause this is learned behaviour.
She sounds like she’s getting virtually no quality sleep?
How is she functioning during the day?
I’m from the tough love style of parenting.
If you want this to change you have to make it happen.
Rapid return ( watch super nanny or similar) and mean it.
You can’t give up or she never learns that you actually mean it.
Pick an achievable time in the morning ( for her - might still be earlier than you’d like!) and between the hours of bedtime and then, bed is non- negotiable.

I’m going to order a gro clock! Iv been meaning to for months but kept putting it off.

I know I need to stop laying with her, but it’s became habit after reading a book. She goes sleep normally quite quickly and I think we were worried about her getting up and down in the evening. But i didn’t tonight and she actually went sleep straight away. When she woke at 9 I just put her back to bed.

Apparently me and both my sisters were like this, DS 14 months is also showing signs of following the family tradition

My mum always recommends a grow clock x

So I have bought a glo clock and she didn’t wake at 9pm but woke at 5am because it had turned it self off and just showed a black screen?!

Have you checked it has been set up correctly? I got ours about 3 years ago so it may have changed but the stars just stay on the screen all night until the wake up time that has been set and then the clock turns yellow.

Has she learnt how to reset it?

DD worked this out with both the egg and the bunny. She didnt like the fact it said she was meant to be asleep when she was quite definitely awake I always laugh when people suggest them. She was pretty good at clocks too, although they work better as at least she had an idea of how long she had to wait.

But Tbh DD never could change from waking up early. She came in a watched telly in bed with me whilst I dozed or she did have a telly in her own room. She eventually grew out of it when she was (much) older

Try sleep sounds. I like sonicaid on Amazon. DD likes random sleep sounds. They start training you brain to generate sleep cues.