Has anyone used and had sucess with strict (as in down to the minute) routine wrt to behavior issues?

[ShinyAndNew]

Dd2 is driving us up the wall. She never stops. Ever. She sleeps for only a few hours each night, no matter what we do to try and get her to go to sleep.

She never sits still or quiet for more than minute. She cannot play with just one toy for any length of time. If she is left for more than a minute, you can guarantee she will be doing something she is not meant to be doing. She managed to climb up the cupboard door to the draining board and get a knife, which she tried to stab dd1 with a few days ago. I'd only been in the bathroom sorting their bath.

Her temper is ferocious. If you tell her off for anything she will storm out of the room and run into the bathroom, slamming all the doors and kicking the dog/cat/dd1 on her way. She then locks the door and refuses to come out for about an hour (we have now removed the lock so tries to use her body weight to jam the door). If you hold her to prevent her leaving the room, she will scream, kick, bite, scratch.

It's mainly the non sleeping that is doing my head in. I could cope with the rest if I could just get her to sleep. We have a bedtime routine (TV off, bath, warm milk and story downstairs, into bed and more stories) but it doesn't work. We have stopped her napping in the day, Stopped her eating sweets/sugary drinks, walked her an hour a day. None of it works. Absolute routine is the only thing I have left to try.

i will have no advice but want o see replies. how old is she?

She will be 3 at the end of May.

Bumping for you.
Is she going to pre-school? Do you think it'd help in terms of "routines". Friends found it helped immensely.

yes. But DS2 had autism. It helped enormously.

( he also had the very poor sleep thing, as did DS1 who is absoloutely NT with no issues at all. I cut out milk and they both slept much better after about a week of being worse)

No I can't afford to pay private nursery fees and I only work a few hours a week, so we are not entitled to help with the costs. She goes to reading group on a wed and I'm going to start tots dance and move and swimming with her after half term.

She is due to start nursery in Spet.

Hmm, she drinks an awfull lot of milk. I miht try cutting down on that and see if it helps.

Good idea re the dance and the swimming.

Shiney

I would normally be really reluctant to suggest diet change in a little one but the lack of sleep was just killing me - and it did work for both of them. I think they both struggled with milk and actually I think milk made them tired and bad tempered too.

I didn't go cold turkey, as they both craved it. I bought rice milk and mixed it gradually increasing how much rice milk there was too ordinary milk. And I offered diluted fruit juice during the day.

DS2 has never been able to go back on dairy but rice and soya milk both come with added calcium so dietician etc were quite happy.

I might start with just cutting it down. Switching a few of drinks to Soya milk and see if it makes a difference. All she drinks is milk. She can easily polish off two pints a day. She is obsessed with the stuff.

well shout if I can help at all. Mine were obsessed too and initially they were really upset and much worse when I changed. After about two weeks I started to see a really strong improvement.

( It is weird isn't it)

Shiny, if your dc is drinking lots of milk it might be worth checking her iron levels. My DS was found to be anaemic (sp?? ) at about three, and the paediatrician said it's common in children who drink too much milk, as DS was doing. He said that's because the child takes in milk instead of food, but milk contains no iron at all. In DS's case, we discovered the anemia because it was linked to a more complicated medical problem, but the anaemia had a HUGE impact on his behaviour: paradoxically, because he was tired and low on energy all the time, he would act up and be hyper. Now his iron levels are normal but when he is simply tired, I recognise the same pattern of behaviour from when he was anaemic.