help please. posted this earlier but no response. My 8yr ds has sleep problems.

[catherina70]

My 8 year old has no problem going to sleep by himself, but has started waking in the night and will no - point blank refuses - to go back to sleep by himself. He works himself up into total hysteria and my partner & I are at the end of our tether. we have tried restricting Tv, xbox, play etc and no threat/action has served to "encourage" him to go back to sleep. more often than not after over an hour of screaming & crying we give in and either one sleeps in with him or he sleeps in our bed. any advice?
:(

Is he able to tell you why this might be happening? eg. bad dreams, scared of the dark

Can you give more info?

What time does he wake?

What time do you go to bed (ie are you waking him up?)

Does he say what has woken him (noises? nightmares?)

Has he been a good sleeper up until recently? If so, has anything changed to trigger this?

WHat does he say when he is refusing to go back to sleep? How do you try to persuade?

Is he scared of something? Has he maybe seen a tv programme that has upset him? it could be something you may not have noticed. DS heard a news item the other day about a murder and got quite upset I hadn't even realised the radio was on.

Would a nightlight help so that it's not too dark in his room?

I would stop tv and xbox before bedtime try a relaxing evening with books etc instead.

Sorry not more help

In the short term I'd but a mattress on the floor of your bedroom so he can come and sleep in your room once he wakes.

Talking when awake; an 8yo should be able to explain what the problem is. It's not likely to be belligerence or the kind of issues that cause sleep problems with little children; it argues a psychological issue.

If he has no memory I would suggest going to GP and perhaps asking for a referral to sleep clinic? If TV is to be believed they might be able to assess his brain activity prior to meltdowns to see if there's an explanation.

Small caveat to say I am not at all an expert on psychology - this is just what it appears like to me. Hopefully someone who does have a clue will come on later to help you!

I agree with norbert, you need to try to find out what is upsetting him.

I am sure you have tried this but could you reward him for staying in bed rather than punishing him for getting up. It is really horrible and stressful when you get into a negative spiral with behaviour.

Good luck.

Hello there. I didn't want your thread to go unanswered a second time but I have to say I am firmly in the "anything for a quiet life"parenting camp so am not giving advice just saying what I did/would do.

My 2 DS are now 12 and 19 so we have experienced most things over the years.

First thing that occurs to me is threat/action are not appropriate or effective. Presumably he is unhappy in the wee small hours and presumably he wants to sleep so I don't think linking this to xbox removal makes sense.

Is there any reason for the change in sleep? New baby/house/job/school? If not my guess is something is preying on his mind.DS1 (aged 11 at the time) got himself into a terrible state over a firework safety film he had seen at school. Whenever he closed his eyes he "saw"the film.

What worked for us was calm reassurance and comfort. Night light/soothing music/relaxation exercises are all worth a try.

We slept in any combination of beds and sofas that would give DH and I a decent night's sleep and get the boys to school well rested. Some mornings when I woke up I wasn't sure whose bed I was in!

Needless to say the boys sleep all day and night now (or would do)and we are all in our own beds at last!

Good luck!

He was a poor sleeper when he was younger, but for the last two years he has been great. until recently. There are no obvious changes or stresses in his life.

He is a popular little boy at school and when he did have trouble he told me instantly and it was sorted.

I think that put all together what you are all saying helps. I think we have been getting stressed and overtired by it ourselves and, rather than being sympathetic , have been trying - not surprisingly unsuccesssfully - to discipline him. Think I have been watching too much supernanny to be honest.

Thank you all.

now where is the argos catalogue to order a new mattress.

:)

Is there any chance it could be Night Terrors?

These can be quite disturbing to witness as the child is just completely besides themselves

I had thought of that norbert. (love those lorries in our house by the way) but i thought that they happened younger?

It says between the ages of 4 and 12 on that link so its possible.

DS has had a couple aged 7 having never had them before.

Whatever you do don't let him sleep in your room with you.

Our ds is 7 and we have just gone through months of sleep training with the help of a psychologist after waiting a long time for a referral etc.

Your boy sounds like he is doing exactly what our boy was doing so I will explain what we have done and see if that helps you.

When we started out ds was cosleeping with one of us every night.

We began with a chart with tick boxes which he drew every night detailing the stages of going to bed.

eg
no screen time after 6pm
get washed
brush teeth
go to toilet
put on pyjamas
listen to story
go to sleep

We "sold" it to him as him doing a science experiment. He had the list on a clipboard and filled it in by ticking the boxes every night as he prepared for bed.

Then I am afraid it was returning him to bed no matter what, no matter how long he cried, no matter how often he got up etc.

I know you have tried this but as you give in then so far you have taught him that if he keeps going long enough then he will get his way.

You have to return him no matter how shattered you are etc.

Then we developed system of earning golden time with one of us for good sleep.

So if he slept all night then he got a full hours golden time with one of us.

It was a graduated system do he "earned" golden time for each hour he stayed in his bed.

He could save up the golden time for the weekend or have it every day - it depended upon our schedule etc.

Once we got passed him getting up in the night we had to work on him staying in bed in the morning.

He had a new chart which he blutaked to his bedroom wall each night on which he wrote down what time he woke up at, what time he got up at and what he did in between those times to amuse himself if he couldn't go back to sleep.

He was rewarded with golden time or a small toy (usually a moshling) every time he stayed in bed until 6am.

We are now working on him being quiet between 6am and 7am when the rest of the house gets up. ie not waking us all up when he gets up.

So now he doesn't get his reward unless he is quiet until 7am.

It is basically CBT and was implemented over about 6 months or so.

Please feel free to pm me or to ask here if you have any questions about what we did.

It has really worked and he is really proud of what he has achieved.

Your ds's issues don't sound nearly as ingrained so I don't think it will take anywhere near as long to sort them out.

Please don't let him sleep in your room though or you will have much more to sort out in the long run.

As a child my DSis went through a period of being unable to sleep on her own after our parents went to bed. She can talk about it now, as an adult, and clearly remembers the process of not being able to 'switch off' scarly thoughts because she was on her own in the dark. She would pitch up in either my room, or our younger brothers room at about 2 o'clock every morning and go off to sleep quite happily. We weren't allowed to sleep in parents room at all as children.

I think that age 8, children get an increased awareness of how much there is in the world which can't be controlled, and personally I agree with both Emdelafield and Random that he needs support, not discipline.

The psychologists very much support the idea of learning to self soothe. Ds has been taught breathing techniques and relaxation techniques to help him feel calm if he is frightened during the night.

He also has a colour change light he can watch to help him relax.

He also has a cd player and lots of stories on cd which he can listen to to help him distract his mind and get back to sleep.

When I slept beside him I was teaching him to rely on another person to soothe him and he was then trapped in the cycle.

He is a lot happier now that he can settle himself back to sleep.

The psychologist will have taken their queues from you, about your view that it was an unwanted behaviour that you wanted to deal with in this way.

The OP may choose to get as much sleep as possible and let her son grow out of this, or she may choose to lose sleep now to get him to self soothe. There's no right or wrong answers, whether suggested by a psychologist or another parent, just what's right and will work for each individual family.

I don't think you need to be a psychologist to know that he just needs a hug. Something's obviously bothering him, although you may all not know what it is yet. Most likely it's something trivial and non-sensical as it usually is - but it's bothering him.
I think the mattress is a great idea, then he doesn't even need to wake you but knows that you're there for him.
One of our DC occasionally wakes in the night, sometimes a bad dream, other times unexplained and gets in with us (I usually end up leaving him with DH and going to his bed!)
Let's face it, he's not going to want to sleep in with you when he's 15!!

Well, I was just trying to help.

We obviously went for the method everyone is suggesting and it was a very bad move for us.

I will scuttle back under my rock and leave it to others who clearly know better.

Thank you all for all your input. We are finding it very hard to decide what is right for us to do. Everyone has differing opinions on this and it is great that I can see them all together like this. Again thank you all.
And Conorsrockers I bloomin hope he isn't. :)

Apologies for my strop earlier

I was having a very bad morning.

Sorry!

Carrots - lol !!