Please help!
My 3 (almost 4) yr old DD has always been an absolute dream of a child. She slept through very early and has always been an independent, happy and generally easy.
In the last three months, she has suddenly become very clingy and will not let me out of her sight during the day. She follows me from room to room and sits on my lap all the time. She evens waits outside the bathroom door when I am in there. She goes to preschool happily for a couple of mornings though.
An imaginary friend has also appeared recently. He has been around a lot more this week.
She has started talking about death a lot and worrying about dying and about me and DH dying.
These are all things I can cope with, I am giving her as much reassurance and love as possible and assuming it is just a phase due to her age.
The thing I can't cope with is that she is coming out of her room again and again at night & won't go back to bed.
If I try and put her back in her room, she screams so loudly that she wakes her twin siblings up (then I have three of them crying at 2am, which is tricky to cope with!). She has started coming into bed with DH and me. None of us really sleep though. She is a figetdy, restless sleeper and often wakes up to chat or sing.
I am SO tired. We have tried a Gro Clock and reward chart. It doesn't work.
She says she is having bad dreams about witches, trolls and big bad wolves. Her imaginary friend is a big bad wolf
but she says he is nice most of the time.
The only thing I can think of is for DH to go into the spare room and for DD to sleep with me. But, if that starts, how will we ever get back to normal? We could also move her toddler bed into our room.
I also tired that I can't actually think of anything else. We've had broken sleep every night for about three months and she is usually up several times shouting and crying. She is also tired the next day which means she is very whiny and emotional and has tantrums over small things.
Any ideas?