at wits end with 4.5yr old who cant sleep

[ssmile]

Our DD1 has always struggled with sleep since baby, always had less than 'norm'. We have tried every trick under the book. Ready excellent millpond sleep clinic book, have gd routine, looked at diet, used hypnotherapy cds, story tapes, lullaby cds. Made monster busting kits, and used sedative from the DR when were desparate. Tonight she been up again since 1am and its now 6am. As she has been most of last wk. My DH is in dispare, we also now got 4wk old baby who I mainly looking after as BF through the night, she is a vgd sleeper so far thank god. DD1 also just started school so lots going on in her life, but she keeps saying she too scared to sleep as dreams keep her awake. We just don't know what to do any more, tonight we mostly left her to cry out of desperation but she just gets more hysterical, calms down if ask her to settle or lose her music cd or door open, then 20mins later starts again. Any one help?

Would she sleep if one of you slept with her or she was in with you?

Thanks. We tried sleeping in her room, and spent months taking it turns to sleep there, then slowly we moved the mattress out of the room&down the hall till.she would sleep alone this was in Jan. We are both vreluctant to go back down this route again, my DH has stressful job and I now BF babe in night. But maybe we are going to have too again. Its just SO frustrating when will she ever sleep on her own with out tears &tantrums! She has stayed with grandPs recently several times, slept like w dream no problem so the family just tell us its something we doing wrong and she knows what she is doing but I feel so helpless at times with her

Our DD has had a lot of trouble with sleeping & bad dreams. Things that helped included

• lots of love & cuddles in the daytime - if she wasn't getting enough attention in the day, she'd make up for it at night. With a new baby, this one is hard but could make a big difference.

• bedtime rules - written based on her suggestions, including "don't wake me up naughty cars" and "no scary monsters" and "we sleep all night". Posting a page with the rules on by her bed somehow made them real & effective.

Hope those help.

Thanks.not tried the rules might do that. She been getting lots if not more attention during the day as I was worried about that. But its such tough balancing act

Also I found DD would wake at night if she wanted the potty or wet her pull ups but not say so. She'd just fuss and be difficult. Putting a potty on a plastic sheet near her bed that she can use easily in the night has helped.

ask gp for ref to sleep clinic

melatonin might help

basically back to gp