Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

HELP ! DD (5) waking us up every night

3 replies

superskivvy · 15/12/2009 08:40

I am a seasoned mum of 3 at the end of my tether with middle DD (5) who wakes us up almost every night, crashing into our room and getting into our bed. She has never been a brilliant sleeper and has doesn?t actually seem to need much sleep. She is IMHO very bright, but very insecure (can?t work out quite why, but she is) and very manipulative. She demands a lot of attention, and generally gets it. This usually happens on the days I work ( I work 3 mornings per week) as she says she needs a cuddle because she won?t see me during the day (great emotional blackmail). She uses many other excuses ? the whole range. We have tried everything; bribery; reasoning; taking away treats and pocket money; keeping her warm; new duvets; warm pyjamas; lavender oil; returning her to her bed without speaking (last night that resulted in us being woken 3 times!). She is generally an angelic child (albeit very high maintenance for me!) but sleep deprivation is pushing me to the limit. Have run out of ideas and can?t find anything in books. Please, please help?. PS other two (DD7, DS3 perfect sleepers and have been brought up in same way? )

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
kreecherlivesupstairs · 15/12/2009 10:46

Would a contract work? Set our your expectations and rewards she can expect to get if she sticks to the contract. Possibly seeing it written down and then her signing it may work.

nannyl · 15/12/2009 11:18

stop letting her in your room and bed fullstop

once she gets the message that during the night you will not allow her in your room im sure she will give up trying

superskivvy · 25/01/2010 09:07

Thank you for your suggestions. I tried the contract, and it worked for two nights - then we slipped back into the old routine. Then we tried silently walking her back to her bed every time she came in (done this before to no avail btw) and it resulted in major tantrum waking other two :-(. Touch wood we seem to have stumbled upon success by rearranging some shelves in her bedroom so that she is not seeing "scary things" when she wakes up in the night. This, combined with a star chart and pocket money bribe seems (tw) to be working......:-)

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page