Very little sleep for 4 years...

[Carty76]

This may be a long post so I apologise in advance!! My beautiful 4 year old daughter has pretty much always been a dreadful sleeper with the exception of a 5/6 months when she slept for England. It has gradually gotten worse and my husband and I are, to put it mildly, exhausted. We have literally tried everything. Pick up and put back, controlled crying, health visitor, school nurse, kept sleep diaries, gro clock, new bed, played in her room to make it a happy place, which it always has been. It starts about about 11:00pm and it constantly changes as to what she wants. We tried a long period of not engaging with her, didn’t work, we tried a long period of reassuring her, also didn’t work. She had a good diet and is a healthy kid who does lots of exercise. We have literally tried EVERYTHING. I have asked for advice here before and being honest I didn’t get the kindest of responses, so please be kind . I suppose I should add that we lost our youngest daughter in September 2017, she was devastatingly stillborn and 6 weeks later my husbands mum died suddenly. So she was surrounded by a lot of grief for a while but she was so protected and supported by so many people.

If any one has a brain wave then it would be greatly appreciated! I’m a just a very tired Mummy, as we all are, wanting just one nights sleep!!!!

My youngest son rarely slept. As a newborn he managed at most 4 hours in one hour snatches over 24. He kept it up. I needed more sleep than he ever did or ever will.

The big question is this: is your little girl showing signs of sleep deprivation when or could you have the rare kid who appears to have the kind of internal power pack that adults could only dream of?

Mine never slept as a toddler, never had signs of sleep depriavtion and once he started school and only hit a magic 6 hours per night during the worst of the teen growth spurt. He then went back to 3-4 hours. I tried everything to increase his sleep. He was seen by a CDC, assessed by CAHMS [does have ADHD & ASD but it comes out as lively power driven eccentric] In the end The best I could do was make upstairs as safe as I possibly could and teach him it was okay to play quietly in his own room but not to come and wake mummy up before 5.30am unless he was not well or he thought something was wrong in the house.

It is truly possible the grief from your beautiful baby girl being stillborn has knocked all of you for six making settling so much harder for all of you to do. It might be worth talking with parents at any local to you babyloss support groups. Many will have had similar issues with their other children and they may be able to offer some tips and ongoing support. My friend whose son died soon after birth have found our local SANDs and similar groups helpful in her battle to persuade his older brother to go to bed. {{{hugs....I am so sorry your beloved little girl could not stay and you then had the additional grief of her grandmother dying so soon too}}}

Thank you so much. You’re spot on, for a while we were just in a fog and if I’m honest we just couldn’t handle the trying to get her to bed and sleep. I actually gave birth to my daughter in Sands room and am in close contact with other families. Most tragically don’t have any other children.

You have raised a point that I’ve thought on many occasions, does she just not need to sleep as much????!!!! BUT she’s knackered!!! She started school in September, she only turned 4 two weeks before starting so she was so little and even that hasn’t changed anything. Her teacher has commented on how tired she is in class....

I just want her, and us, not to be permanently knackered.

Absolutely knackered is not something that goes with the teeny group of needs hardly any sleep kids. I think your right she has sleep deprivation from finding it impossible to settle to sleep. Kids who do not need much sleep bounce back bright eyed ready to go on and on for hours after a short cat nap every time.

Would it be worth making contact with the Child Bereavement Trust to see if they have any tips and helpful suggestions. Your litle girls sister died and then her grandma soon after. Her whole world will have been turned upside down and that will always make it so much harder for a young kid to make sense of what happened. Her baby sister and her grandma died so she might worry you or she could be next.. She may even have heard someone mentioned her gran or sister 'went to sleep' instead of died and is too worried to let herself fall asleep in case she cannot get back to you. Kids can hear things in ways that we might not notice and she may have decided not to tell you she has worries about sleep or leaving you at night on your own because you have been so very sad.

The Child Bereavement Trust could be the ones who help you unpick what might be behind all this bed rufusal so you can come up with something that will go on to help you all.
Hang in there, you are doing the best you can for your little girl with all the grief and loss you have had as a family.

You say she's a bad sleeper- can you be a bit more precise? Does she settle to sleep ok at the beginning of the night and then wake frequently? Or does she struggle to settle to sleep at the beginning of the night. Is it just independent sleep that's a problem, or does she struggle if she co-sleeps too?

It does sound as though she (and you all) have had an extremely hard couple of years: first you were pregnant (emotionally tough on a toddler), then the still birth of her sister, then her GM, and starting school. That's an awful lot of emotional turmoil for a tiny child who just can't process it- it's no wonder if all that emotion is being processed at night. As triballeader says, it could be that she's fearful of going to sleep herself- or it could be that she simply doesn't want to be separated from you or her DF (possibly because she's worried something may happen to you). Of course she may just simply be unsettled and its all coming to the fore at night: my own DS1 seems to process all worries/anxieties by night waking (sibling, starting school, nativity play!)

My gut instinct is that this is ultimately all emotional processing and a process that has to run its course rather than something you can 'solve' (or rather, not through resolving things to do with her sleep). I appreciate that's horrible for you though. Can you split the nights so that you alternate with DH and the other sleeps in the spare room? Or do half the night each?

So up until a couple of years ago she would settle herself to sleep but know one of us sits in her room with her until she falls asleep so she goes to bed ok. She tends to wake up a few hours later and ultimately wants me. My husband will sleep on her floor a few nights a week to give me a break but when he’s with her she wakes up asking for me. When she’s in bed with me she pretty much is flat out. So I’m guessing it’s all related to me. I’m not sure if this has gotten progressively worse since we lost our daughter, I’ll be honest things were a bit of a blur after we lost her so can’t honestly remember if this has made things worse. We were given a lot support and guidance when we lost our daughter around how to support our eldest through it, she was basically the priority. We were told to always use the word died, as painful as it was, when speaking to her about it and we went through the cycle of life with her using flowers. We were lucky I that the owner of the nursery she went to was a child psychologist and he was amazing with the advice he gave to us. I’m starting to think maybe we just need to let her come in to bed with us, seeing as we’ve tried everything else, and hope that it’s something that will naturally pass....

Hi Carty76, came across your post and had to register to be able to reply.
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss xo
Something similar happened to me - I went to visit my family and my sister was due with her 1st baby and I was supposed to be her birthing partner. A couple of days before her due date she had an emergency section and her beautiful baby boy died 2 days later...
My eldest son (nearly 3 back then) suddenly stopped napping during the day and wouldn't settle well for the night and would wake up crying looking for me and sometimes wouldn't go back to sleep. I think he mush have found it really scary back then - he couldn't fully understand what was going on, I didn't know how to explain what had happened, everybody was devastated, my mum was crying all the time...So one night I just was so knackered I took him into bed with me. It helped a lot and to be honest when I eventually went back home with my kids I just let him stay with me permanently as I was still breastfeeding and co-sleeping with my younger daughter. I know it's not ideal and I do get comments all the time about my nearly 4 year old staying in bed with me. But to be honest I think my boy is quit a sensitive child anyway, also we moved house twice in the last 6 months, he started pre-school and I think he finds it all a little bit stressful. And I can see that he sleeps better when he knows I'm sleeping next to him.
I am also using white noise app which my kids love. And I keep the window open in the bedroom all night. I find he sleeps better if it's cooler in the room.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time out to reply. I’ve made a referral to the school nurse who will be coming out to see us hopefully next week. They think she may need some support around losing her sister, possibly child counselling which breaks my heart but I just need the best thing for her. She said they will tackle the sleeping first though for all of our sakes. Praying she can help us and give us some answers...

I'm really sorry about your daughter

Have you tried co-sleeping? I couldn't see it mentioned. I know it's not ideal but it might help you all get some sleep.